Rebranding The Seer

In the days of old, there lived the seers.

Men and women who were gifted in the art of turning a tarot card, looking deep into a crystal ball, stirring wet tea leaves in a cup, or throwing twigs on the ground, to tap into the collective conscious of the Universe, look into the past, read the signs of the present, all in order to forecast the future.

Those who got it right and predicted the advancing of the enemy or the birth of a heir were rewarded with riches. But those who got it wrong were banished or paid with their lives.

As science and technology progressed, no longer could the seers fool the wise man with talk of tapping into the unseen. No longer could the seers fool the people with proclamations of knowledge of all things.

Instead, the seers had to learn to tell different stories. Those that require years of study, specialization, and mastery of advanced tools, until confidence is gained in one's words.

And so the seers of old shed their titles and took on new ones --- Economist, Futurologist, Predictive Analyst, Machine Learning Specialist. They cast away their twigs and tarots, and instead learned the art of programming, mathematical modelling, and distributed computing, to tap into the hidden insights of data streams, leverage the learnings of the past, assess the actions of the present, all in order to forecast the future.

Those who get it right and predict the tumble of the market or the origins of a disease are rewarded with riches. But those who get it wrong are disregarded and cast aside, often paying with their pride.