Summary of Chuck Klosterman's But What If We're Wrong?

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The Book of Lists, a book that my sixth-grade class compulsively thumbed through, was a collection of lists compiled by three writers. It was idiotic predictions about life on Earth in the coming fifty years, but some were surprisingly accurate.

#2 The Book of Predictions is a collection of predictions that was released in 1980. It is interesting to note that most of them focused on the future status quo of global politics: the United States and the Soviet Union were on the brink of nuclear war, and no one imagined that landline telephones would eventually be replaced by cell phones.

#3 The problem with the retrospective insight approach is that it requires a successful futurist to anticipate what can’t be anticipated. In order to move forward, we’re forced to use a different mind-set called Klosterman’s Razor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jul 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822545151

IRB Media

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Book preview

Insights on Chuck Klosterman's But What If Were Wrong

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The Book of Lists, a book that my sixth-grade class compulsively thumbed through, was a collection of lists compiled by three writers. It was idiotic predictions about life on Earth in the coming fifty years, but some were surprisingly accurate.

#2

The Book of Predictions is a collection of predictions that was released in 1980. It is interesting to note that most of them focused on the future status quo of global politics: the United States and the Soviet Union were on the brink of nuclear war, and no one imagined that landline telephones would eventually be replaced by cell phones.

#3

The problem with the retrospective insight approach is that it requires a successful futurist to anticipate what can’t be anticipated. In order to move forward, we’re forced to use a different mind-set called Klosterman’s Razor.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The word book will always mean whatever we incorporate in its place, even if that new thing has almost no relationship to what we consider to be a book right now. Language is more durable than content.

#2

We will always talk about food as something that exists. But take solace in the fact that you can quit at any time. We cannot evaporate nouns into the cultural troposphere.

#3

The difference between a whale and a bear and a mountain is negligible. The tone of a novel is what separates good literature from bad. The tone of a novel is what makes it transcendent.

#4

The idea that someone could do exceptional work and be recognized