In the Valley, prediction has become a popular way of fighting for a particular future while claiming merely what has yet to occur. Prediction has a useful air of selflessness to it. Predictors aren't caught in the here and now of their own appetites and interests. It seems like they aren't choosing how things will be in the future any more than they choose the color of their eyes. Yet selecting one scenario among many possible scenarios and persuading everybody of its inevitability - and of the futility of a society's exercising its collective choice among these futures - is a deft way to shape the future.