You aren't. Look at predictions about the future from 1916. They're the definition of quaint.

I've gotten the opposite impression. There was a set of drawings from 1910 predicting Paris in 2010. There were some obvious whiffs, but it broadly predicted automation, remote audio/video communications, and other things.

Predicting advances in technology are easy. What's hard is predict is it's impact on society.

How many people in 1950 would have guessed that social media would be a thing?

> it broadly predicted automation, remote audio/video communications, and other things

It trivially extrapolated technologies it already had: macro-automation and long-range communication (extrapolated from the early telephones to video). Did it predict laptops or smartphones though?

I think this is a very important point. If you want to think wisely about the future, remember this: You're dead.

I'm not trying to be morbid. That's the one thing about the future that you can be sure of. If your approach for thinking about the future doesn't include that, you're not being very wise.