Forecasting as a technology of manipulation

Abstract

In this papers we make an attempts to look at forecasting not as a technology foreseeing the future, but as a technology for manipulating the future. Forecasting as a technology of manipulation allows to render more effective influences on social systems of various types. For example, with the use of the forecast, it is possible to break an entire nation, as happened after the Versailles peace treaty with the Germans, when the allies did not fulfill their own promises. When considering the forecast from the point of view of psychology, make an attempt to show that cognitive biases of people can be used as trigger of their moods. Also, we make an interpretation of the Duhem-Quine thesis in the context of forecasting. The forecast itself can be the statement from the Duhem-Quine thesis, which does not need to be disproved, which will lead to the active use of such cognitive bias as a confirmation bias. Forecasting is considered from the point of view of the actor-network theory and the system approach, which ensures the gradation of the n-th order consequences that necessarily arise after the realization.
of events, technologies, etc. The consequences of n-th orders can themselves
use as objects or instruments of manipulation