John Scalzi’s latest AMC column Why Hollywood Always, Always Gets the Future Wrong is, as usual, very smart and right on target.

And pretty funny too.

Everybody gets the future wrong. It’s not just Hollywood or science fiction writers. When it comes to the future, no one knows anything. At the close of the 19th century, British physicist Lord Kelvin declared heavier-than-air flight an impossibility (despite the existence of, you know, birds) and that radio was just a fad. In the ’70s, the president of Digital Equipment Corp. voiced doubts that anyone would ever need a personal computer. In 1995, scientist Cliff Stoll wrote in his book Silicon Snake Oil that the Internet wouldn’t really take off, in part because it could never replace newspapers or shopping malls.

Here’s to getting the future wrong!