One of the many annoying things about the Corona affair is that it has brought out of the woodwork an apparently unlimited number of people who pretend to know the future. “What will happen next?” they ask breathlessly, and go on to offer their unwelcome wisdom with all the confidence of Old Testament prophets. Some anticipate the apocalypse and have stimulated a lively market in old nuclear bunkers and survival gear. Others predict a kind of post-industrial economic collapse and a return to nature with a vestigial population of survivors. None of them has the slightest idea what will really happen because it hasn’t happened yet. Now, as always, it’s open season on the future. Anyone can imagine anything, and they do. We don’t like uncertainty about the future, we much prefer magical thinking. Since the dawn of time we have been plagued by false prophets with Tarot cards, star charts, palm reading, crystal balls, dice and sacrificial entrails. In the long dark ages before Twitter