Collected Works of Jules Verne

"Well most of it was realised subsequently: such as travel to the moon, travel to the bottom of the ocean, and so forth. I came to Asia in 1973 — the Vietnam War was still on and Mao Tse-tung was in power — and, until 1990, China was nothing because the opening had begun in 1978 but was concentrated in the south until 1990. But in the last 20 years China has become an economic power. I think investors, especially long-term investors, really have to think, as one would say, “outside the box”. They have to consider that the world changes dramatically and that the changes in the world have actually accelerated as a result of instant communication. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . I mean, it took someone, I don’t know, more than three months to send a letter in 1850 from London to Shanghai because it went by sea lines and today it’s instant. Economic and political developments can happen overnight. Just to think that because something has been such and such a way before doesn’t mean it will necessarily apply to the future. What I’m saying is that nobody has a clue how the world will look in 20 years’ time because huge changes can occur. Maybe in 20 years’ time we’ll live on another planet, who knows? I don’t think so, but it could be. And so investors have to take into consideration a lot of events that could happen but that nobody has thought of. I don’t know Goldman, but I would think that there are statistics about the forecasting records of people which are really very poor. I know that analysts and strategists tend to extrapolate existing trends into the future, when trends can be changed very dramatically by new inventions and huge geopolitical developments, and so on. But Verne’s predictions were realised and, therefore, I consider him to be the greatest forecaster of all time."