To say that Titor is a hoax, is to ignore the mountain of unlikely coincidences. The fact is, Titor was writing in 1999 about a conflict with Russia in 2015, he wrote how things "Just won't seem the same by 2008", and about a divided america after an election. He knew things about a computer, that only a few people knew at the time.
The thing that throws me, is in 1999 the idea of going to war with Russia was crazy, heck up until 2013 it was pretty ridiculous. It demonstrates a thinking that is quite a bit above average.
That said, he's off in so many ways. All his details are wrong. All of them. He has the themes right, but the details wrong. It's beyond "divergence".
So to me, the titor posts are still interesting, and still worth analyzing, but it seems like there's quite a bit of other possibilities that are more likely then that he was a time traveler. So the question I've pondered is, if he's not a time traveler. Who is Titor, and why did he post?
There's hundreds of possibilities. But here's my favorite:
I believe Titor is a researcher, likely working for either an academic institution or the government. I think he is either a programmer, or on a team. I believe the focus on their research is to generate various scenarios combining technology and politics (perhaps via the use of game theory?) and the likely outcomes. It's possible that there's a computer that has generated hundreds of thousands or millions of scenarios, changing and tweaking outcomes from one thing or another.
I have a theory that if you did this, and you did it enough, a few strong trends would reveal themselves.
To me this explanation would provide some answers to how a person in 1999 would be able to come up with so many "themes" and be so spot on about them. Yet still be so wrong in everything else. I also believe they inserted some personal expertise to help add some credibility.
I think the motivation was that of play. I think it was a couple of guys just having a good time, and I bet they still laugh about it every few years.
The thing that throws me, is in 1999 the idea of going to war with Russia was crazy, heck up until 2013 it was pretty ridiculous. It demonstrates a thinking that is quite a bit above average.
That said, he's off in so many ways. All his details are wrong. All of them. He has the themes right, but the details wrong. It's beyond "divergence".
So to me, the titor posts are still interesting, and still worth analyzing, but it seems like there's quite a bit of other possibilities that are more likely then that he was a time traveler. So the question I've pondered is, if he's not a time traveler. Who is Titor, and why did he post?
There's hundreds of possibilities. But here's my favorite:
I believe Titor is a researcher, likely working for either an academic institution or the government. I think he is either a programmer, or on a team. I believe the focus on their research is to generate various scenarios combining technology and politics (perhaps via the use of game theory?) and the likely outcomes. It's possible that there's a computer that has generated hundreds of thousands or millions of scenarios, changing and tweaking outcomes from one thing or another.
I have a theory that if you did this, and you did it enough, a few strong trends would reveal themselves.
To me this explanation would provide some answers to how a person in 1999 would be able to come up with so many "themes" and be so spot on about them. Yet still be so wrong in everything else. I also believe they inserted some personal expertise to help add some credibility.
I think the motivation was that of play. I think it was a couple of guys just having a good time, and I bet they still laugh about it every few years.