Bad predictions are an occupational hazard for forecasters. And, on this front, the late futurist Alvin Toffler was not immune. Human cloning by the 1980s? Nope. Toffler was a renowned writer who accurately described many forces that would reshape the world. But along with his many good predictions, there were many bad ones. And what only a few years ago looked like another one of his duds — that remote work would kill the office and lead to urban decline — may now seem prophetic.
In his 1980 book The Third Wave, Toffler argued that mankind was on the verge of a third wave of change that would wash away the existing industrial order and send many of us surfing towards a new way of living and working. The first wave began around 10,000 years ago, when hunter-gatherers settled down on farms and began harvesting crops and domesticating animals. Humanity, for the first time, could work from home. The second wave began around 300 years ago, when mankind began leaving their agrarian cottages to work in factories and offices, ushering in the Industrial Age.
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