Is this something that should upset you...?

[Ishmael]

I think it is possible to predict the future. The catch is, things have to be the same way as they are at the moment of the prediction at the moment of the whatever is going to happen. If something changes, the future changes. It's occasionally wery subconcious too: we're thinking "Oh no this is going to suck for sure" and just wait for it to happen, and what do you know, it does suck. But if you realise you can do something to make it not suck, it most likely won't if you really are doing something and not just thinking you are yet still believing it will.

This works two ways: if someone predicts something people start looking forward to it, which keeps things the same as people want to see it happen and don't want to stray away from it, or people want to avoid it and do things that lead everything on a different course of events.

Almost the same as the alternative timeline explanation, with the little difference that in this case we haven't actually strayed anywhere, but instead made a difference.

There's on prediction that'll stand, though. There will always be a fool to take the place of one stepping down.

[Stupot]

I'm a bit boring when it comes to this kind of discussion... I believe that anything that hasn't happened yet simply hasn't happened yet, and the future will only be decided when the time comes... by which time it won't be future anymore, it'll be present.

Sure we can affect the future... and it's of course possible to make a good educated guess at certain future events (such as weather forecasting and the like... If I buy a loaf of bread in the morning, I can predict that I'm more likely to have toast in the afternoon.  If I chop my balls of on the Thursday I can make a good guess that I won't be able to make babies on the Friday.  But as far as fate and fortune-telling go, I don't believe it's possible, because they kind of suggest that the future has already been played out and, we are just going along for the ride.

I guess I like to think I have more control over my free-will than John Titor would have me believe.

[passer-by]

Yeh but the chances that the world ending on a year 2000 on any given calendar are still pretty slim.

Tell me when the worlds ends and I'll fix the calendar 

[Klyptomaniac]

Have any of you ever heard of the 2012 conspiracy, that the world will end in 2012?

The same amount of discussion about that happened with other early alternate reality games before people got savvy to them as marketing, I would guess. Jon Titor just wasn't selling anything, just doing it for fun.

I think the first one that gained a lot of attention was The Beast, but I don't know what year that was. I think it was for the AI movie.

[Emerald]

I agree that future predictions often arise from your subconscious. Only about 10% of the things we perceive are consciously processed by our brains - the rest is stored in the subconscious for a little while, until it eventually gets wiped out.

I think the so-called 'psychics' are simply people who are able to access parts of their subconscious (i.e. observations which you've made without consciously realising).

To take Stupot's example - you might see a new loaf of bread sitting on your friend's counter, but barely notice. Then, later on at lunchtime, you inexplicably get a feeling that your friend is eating toast. And, sure enough, he is. One might say it's a psychic premonition, but really it's just a subconscious observation rising to the surface...

[miguel]

Hello to all,

There is a conception of 'time' that we have learned to believe. That 'time' is like a river that constantly runs its direction and we live our lives along with that river. Actually there is no river, we mark past events and therefore believe 'time' is passing.
'Time' is a collective thought, a human collective thought. On a microscopic level, the notion of 'time' would be impossible to assimilate by us, such are the random events that occur.  On a gigantic level, the notion of 'time' would crumble into bits at the same time we would inhale huge amounts of oxigen, walk large distances in seconds, eat amazing amounts of food, etc...
'Time' as we know it, is just a developing stage of our brains, if our brains are still developing. Studies indicate that large growing civilizations tend to lose their culture and inteligence levels as they absorb other cultures and at the same time corrupt their own.