Even after narrowing the prediction set to a specific country (the United States of America, say) and a specific year (2185), the would-be prophet is still faced with an enormous task. To develop a set of probable, mutually consistent, and fully integrated predictions about this extraordinarily complex social, political, economic, and cultural system is not a light undertaking. It requires an extensive understanding of the forces that maintain and modify human societies, and thus draws on a large number of knowledge domains: anthropology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, economics, engineering, genetics, geology, history, ideology, molecular biology, physics, physiology, political science, psychology, and sociology, to name several.
Faced with such a monumental problem, it is imperative that one not become bogged down in relatively trivial details. The word “trivial” is an important qualifier here, as apparently minor details occasionally turn out to have very significant consequences. This also contributes to the difficulty of the prediction problem.