When trains began to shuttle people  across the coutryside, many insisted  they would never replace horses. Less than a century later, people  repeated that same prediction about cars, telephones, radio, television, and computers. Each had their own host of detractors. Even some experts  insisted they wouldn’t catch on. Of course, we can’t predict exactly  what the future will look like or what new inventions will populate it. But time and time again, we’ve also failed to predict  that the technologies of the present will change the future. And recent research has revealed  a similar pattern in our individual lives: we’re unable to predict change  in ourselves. Three psychologists documented our inability to predict personal change in a 2013 paper  called, “The End of History Illusion.” Named after political scientist  Francis Fukuyama’s prediction that liberal democracy  was the final form of government, or as he called it, “the end of history,” their work highlights the way  we see ourselves as finished products at any given moment. The researchers recruited over  7,000 participants ages 18 to 68. They asked half of these participants to report their current personality traits, values, and preferences, along with what each of those metrics  had been ten years before. The other half described those features  in their present selves, and predicted what  they would be ten years in the future. Based on these answers, the researchers then calculated  the degree of change each participant reported or predicted. For every age group in the sample, they compared the predicted changes  to the reported changes. So they compared the degree to which  18-year-olds thought they would change to the degree to which 28-year-olds  reported they had changed. Overwhelmingly, at all ages, people’s future estimates of change  came up short compared to the changes  their older counterparts recalled. 20-year-olds expected  to still like the same foods at 30, but 30-year-olds no longer  had the same tastes. 30-year-olds predicted they’d still  have the same best friend at 40, but 40-year-olds  had lost touch with theirs. And 40-year-olds predicted  they’d maintain the same core values that 50-year-olds had reconsidered. While older people changed less  than younger people on the whole, they underestimated  their capacity for change just as much. Wherever we are in life, the end of history illusion persists: we tend to think that the bulk  of our personal change is behind us. One consequence of this thinking is that we’re inclined to overinvest  in future choices based on present preferences. On average, people are willing  to pay about 60% more to see their current favorite musician  ten years in the future than they’d currently pay to see their  favorite musician from ten years ago. While the stakes involved in concert-going are low, we’re susceptible  to similar miscalculations in more serious commitments, like homes, partners, and jobs. At the same time,  there’s no real way to predict what our preferences  will be in the future. Without the end of history Illusion, it would be difficult  to make any long-term plans. So the end of history illusion  applies to our individual lives, but what about the wider world? Could we be assuming that how things  are now is how they will continue to be? If so, fortunately, there are countless records to remind us that the world does change, sometimes for the better. Our own historical moment  isn’t the end of history, and that can be just as much a source of comfort as a cause for concern.