hesitate to call the pretense that we know what will happen a lie, though it is a claim that exceeds the bounds of what can be true. Sometimes I think it’s just habitual, a contagious corruption of how we use language, or a lot of us do. Thus, for example, instead of saying “this could lead to the dreaded thing happening” or “I feel dread that it could happen” people say “it will happen” like they had a hotline to the gods (or alternatively, with equal authority, “that could never happen”).