If you have spent enough time on the Internet in the last few months of the year, you have definitely come across a number of articles claiming to tell you what famous astrologer Nostradamus predicted for the coming year.
Many of them act as if the prophecies are written in stone as if Nostradamus was sitting in the 1500s and writing “and in 2021 you’ll all be dealing with COVID, which will be an utter nightmare, but brace yourselves because in 2022 Chris Pratt will be voicing Mario.” We will go into why it is nonsense that Nostradamus successfully foretold the future (surprise, surprise, we are a scientific website) in his book Les Prophéties (1555), but first, let us look at the 2022 predictions.
Extinction of humans: You might as well go grandiose when you are anticipating something you will never see. “Fire do I see that from the sky shall descend,” Nostradamus stated in one of his numerous writings, which various sources have interpreted to suggest an asteroid will strike the Earth. Fortunately, NASA is on hand to ensure that this does not occur.
The uprising of the robots: One text, according to Sky History, hints at the birth of the robots by mentioning an eternal “sage.” “Over the lofty peak, the Moon in full darkness, “reads the passage “By his students encouraged to be eternal, Eyes to the south, the new sage with a lone brain sees it, bodies in the flames, hands in bosoms.”
Crisis of Climate Change: Nostradamus’ “prediction” of the climate problem is one that comes up every now and again. “Like the sun, the heat will burn the glittering sea: the live fish in the Black Sea will boil to death.” Rhodes and Genoa will be half-starved. To chop them up, the locals will toil.” It would have been more beneficial if he had foreseen the link to fossil fuels.
Famine: People are eating one other because of increased food prices, according to one reading. If we are being honest, this sounds much worse than 2021. “There will be no abbots, monks, or novices to learn from; honey will be considerably more expensive than candle wax.” That man is agitated because the price of wheat is so high. In his desperation, he ate his fellow man.” Now is the time to get all of your candle wax before it is too late. Was he, in fact, some all-powerful wizard cursed with the ability to foresee the future?
The beauty of forecasting the future is that the vaguer you are, the more accurate you may be on a wider range of issues. This is why the horoscope does not say phrases like “Look at the little Daniel of the Lego brick left on the stairs on Tuesday or you will be in a world of pain” instead of “Sun will be towards the sun”. You can feel the great changes, “which is so vague that you can read something in it, and in Lego situations it is completely useless.
Nostradamus excelled at making forecasts that were so vague that they might finally attributed to a not-too-distant real-world occurrence. They are what known as “postdictions,” in that you couldn’t possible figure out what he was forecasting before the occurrence, but you can discover a passage after the fact that makes it appear as if he knew all along, and even then, they are not that accurate.
For example, a line ostensibly anticipating Hitler’s ascent not in any way forewarn you of Hitler himself: “A little child will be born of humble people in the depths of Western Europe, He who will beguile a big troop with his speech; his reputation will grow towards the kingdom of the East.”
You may probably assume that he meant someone famous would bear in Western Europe if you read it earlier, but that is about it. People assumed Nostrodamus was alluding to Hitler once Hitler rose to power, and declared him to a brilliant prediction wizard once more, based on an extraordinarily ambiguous paragraph. Therefore, in response to the headline, Nostrodamus really predicted “nothing” for 2022.
