# Most prescient piece of science fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** star-trek-paramount\ **Created:** [August 24, 2024, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128 "2024-08-24T02:20:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/61 "2024-08-26T10:11:21Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > I wonder if elders in Bronze Age Mesopotamia complained that the youth were addicted to scratching on clay tablets… Socrates was opposed to the whole “writing” thing. > **[Socrates on the Invention of Writing and the Relationship of Writing to Memory...](https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=3439)** > > Socrates on the Invention of Writing and the Relationship of Writing to Memory ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/62 "2024-08-26T13:50:55Z")
> [@peccavi](#): > > > [@snowthx](#): > > > > The emergence of AI and all the questions about how to manage it… > > > > _Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug._ > > Not as prescient as one would think, given that it was made sixteen years after **Stand on Zanzibar** (John Brunner, 1968) featured a supercomputer that achieves sentience, Shalmaneser, capturing all of the data in the world and thinking: > > _“Christ, what an imagination I’ve got.”_ > > Brunner was a prolific predictor (there are [lists](https://themillions.com/2013/03/the-weird-1969-new-wave-sci-fi-novel-that-correctly-predicted-the-current-day.html) that highlight this) and somewhat the sci-fi writers writer, with influence carrying into the books of others. Guessing that a computer would come to life doesn’t seem like that much of an imaginative leap, it seems to me; it’s basically a variation of the Frankenstein story. Or perhaps even the Pygmalion and Galatea myth. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/63 "2024-08-26T14:15:55Z")
The one that still amazes me is Jules Verne, writing in **Robur the Conqueror** (1886) about a heavier-than-air flying machine. It’s sort of like _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_, only with an aircraft rather than a submarine. His _Albatross_ is a sort of super-helicopter, with multiple vertical rotors keeping it aloft, which is actually not a practical idea. No, what mazes me is what the _Albatross_ is made of. It’s not steel, or even aluminum (like the ship in _From the Earth to the Moon_). It’s another substance noted for its light weight and great strength. Verne imaging the _Albatross_ made of **composites** > [@](#): > > And now for the metal used by Robur in the construction of his aeronef—a name which can be exactly applied to the “Albatross.” What was this material, so hard that the bowie-knife of Phil Evans could not scratch it, and Uncle Prudent could not explain its nature? Simply paper! > > For some years this fabrication had been making considerable progress. Unsized paper, with the sheets impregnated with dextrin and starch and squeezed in hydraulic presses, will form a material as hard as steel. There are made of it pulleys, rails, and wagon-wheels, much more solid than metal wheels, and far lighter. And it was this lightness and solidity which Robur availed himself of in building his aerial locomotive. Everything—framework, hull, houses, cabins—were made of straw-paper turned hard as metal by compression, and—what was not to be despised in an apparatus flying at great heights—incombustible. The different parts of the engines and the screws were made of gelatinized fiber, which combined in sufficient degree flexibility with resistance. This material could be used in every form. It was insoluble in most gases and liquids, acids or essences, to say nothing of its insulating properties, and it proved most valuable in the electric machinery of the “Albatross.” > **[Robur the Conqueror](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3808/pg3808-images.html#chap07)** Such paper-based composites were used in Verne’s time to make railroad wheels that offered a very smooth ride. They were also used for other projects requiring great strength and light weight. It’s so prescient that nobody thought of using composites on airplanes in the Real World for another seventy years, and composites didn’t really become important until they started building human-powered aircraft like the _Daedalus_, where light weight became very important. That craft used carbon-fiber composites. > **[MIT Daedalus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Daedalus)** > > The MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department's Daedalus is a class of three human-powered aircraft that included Daedalus 88 – which, on 23 April 1988, flew a distance of 115.11 kilometres (71.53 mi) in 3 hours, 54 minutes, from Heraklion on the island of Crete to the island of Santorini. The flight holds official FAI world records for total distance, straight-line distance, and duration for human-powered aircraft. > The class was named after the mythological inventor of aviation, Daedalus, and... ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/64 "2024-08-26T17:43:15Z")
Yes, clock. Sorry. Fits with my contention that the Future keeps being lost and then repredicted and then lost again and then discovered as an archaeological treasure. Nothing better to illustrate this than the flying car. The first newspaper story I can find of a flying car appeared on August 18, 1901, which would make it the first heavier-than-air flight as well. (Some people still insist this to be the case although it was a fictionalized version of a failed attempt.) It was forgotten. In 1917, a flying car was exhibited at an airshow. It never flew. It was forgotten. In 1921, a flying car might have flown in France. It was forgotten. In 1937 Waldo Waterman flew a car. The flying car was here for sure! It was forgotten. A convoy of flying cars appeared from then until now, some announced, some prototypes, a few for sale. Almost inevitably newspapers treated each as the first flying car, here at last. The internet does better, with many writers - including me - documenting the long history, but seems to be talking in an echo chamber. To be fair, history is too vast and too deep to be comprehended by any one person. Specialists are needed to mine the nuggets. The history of the Future is a tiny, neglected niche even among historians. I admit to getting frustrated about how little attention is paid to what I think is an important aspect of our technological society. I’m sure that Cal, who has written many wonderful articles that touch on it through optics, must feel the same. Science fiction is the way that the majority of people look at past glimpses of possible futures. Yet too many people seem to think that this is the only way, that the writers invented the future out of their own heads rather than reading the news and extrapolating it into a story. Another frustration. I’ve come to the point where I’d rather read bad newspaper articles than bad fiction. But I’m weird. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/65 "2024-08-26T17:49:50Z")
Missed this. J. Schlossel, in 1928, wrote “To the Moon By Proxy,” in which a paralyzed inventor sends his robot to the moon, through whose “eyes” he can see everything via “radio television.” ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/66 "2024-08-26T18:05:40Z")
> [@peccavi](#): > > Not as prescient as one would think, given that it was made sixteen years after **Stand on Zanzibar** (John Brunner, 1968) featured a supercomputer that achieves sentience, Shalmaneser, capturing all of the data in the world and thinking: > > _“Christ, what an imagination I’ve got.”_ Not to even mention _Colossus_ by D. F. Jones (1966), adapted into the movie _Colossus: The Forbin Project_ in 1970. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/67 "2024-08-26T18:32:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > While we’re at it with phones, plenty of science fiction authors predicted pocket phones, but Heinlein had at least two stories where someone deliberately left their phone behind because they didn’t want to be contacted. Mack Reynolds, in stories set in a future where everyone had shares of a stock fund that paid enough dividends to live on and couldn’t be sold, often had his protagonists use cash to avoid being traced, which they could be if they used credit cards. This was in the very early 1960s. Credit cards existed, but they couldn’t be traced immediately back then, and were not as common. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/68 "2024-08-26T18:33:51Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Not to even mention _Colossus_ by D. F. Jones (1966), adapted into the movie _Colossus: The Forbin Project_ in 1970. Oh, the idea of sentient and powerful computers goes back _way_ before D.F. Jones. One of my favorites is the 1954 short-short story _Answer_ by Fredric Brown (the master of the short-short). Boiled down to its even shorter essence: > [@](#): > > Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel. > > Dwar Ev stepped back and drew a deep breath. “The honor of asking the first question is yours, Dwar Reyn.” > > “Thank you,” said Dwar Reyn. “It shall be a question that no single cybernetics machine has been able to answer.” > > He turned to face the machine. “Is there a God?” > > The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of single relay. > > “Yes, now there is a God.” > > Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab the switch. > > A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch shut. > **["Answer", a short story by Fredric Brown, 1954](https://calumchace.com/favourite-relevant-sf-short-story/)** > > "The honour of asking the first question is yours." He turned to face the machine. "Is there a God?" The mighty voice answered, "Yes, now there is a God." ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/69 "2024-08-26T19:36:50Z")
Brown’s story was written two years before Asimov’s much more famous “The Last Question,” which has a similar ending. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2024, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/70 "2024-08-27T01:43:03Z")
Aldous Huxley predicted both IVF and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in **Brave New World** back in 1931. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2024, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/71 "2024-08-27T01:53:04Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Aldous Huxley predicted… Fetal Alcohol Syndrome He predicted a medical condition that had already existed for thousands of years? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2024, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/72 "2024-08-27T02:10:31Z")
I don’t know if it was formally described in medicine at the time. Also, did BNW specifically say that alcohol was what was used to produce deltas and epsilons? ---
**Author:** ![Cumberdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@Cumberdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumberdale)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2024, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/73 "2024-08-27T02:15:29Z")
The Transatlantic Tunnel from 1935 predicted flat screen TV and videophones. It was about an American and British plan to build an undersea tunnel connecting New York and London. Several decades before the Chunnel was built (1994) connecting England and Europe. ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2024, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/74 "2024-08-27T12:52:25Z")
He identified a condition that was not yet “formally known” to medical science when the novel was published. And to answer **Lumpy** , yes; “Brave New World” explicitly says that alcohol was used to stunt the development of fetuses that were to be created as “lower castes”. One of the main characters, Bernard Marx, is an Alpha+, but is shorter than other people of his high caste. There are whispers behind his back that the worker assigned to his batch of embryos added alcohol by mistake to the circulation system of the artificial womb where Bernard’s embryo was developing. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2024, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/75 "2024-08-27T16:57:01Z")
_Ender’s Game_ published in 1984 didn’t get the part about being at war with aliens correct. But there is a subplot involving Ender’s brother and sister who are influential bloggers and social media stars, before these concepts existed. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2024, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/76 "2024-08-27T18:03:55Z")
> [@zimaane](#): > > But there is a subplot involving Ender’s brother and sister who are influential bloggers and social media stars, before these concepts existed. > **[Locke and Demosthenes](https://xkcd.com/635/)** > > Dear Peter Wiggin: This letter is to inform you that you have received enough upvotes on your reddit comments to become president of the world. Please be at the UN tomorrow at 8:00 sharp. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2024, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/77 "2024-08-27T18:17:47Z")
Adam Carolla had (still has) a superpopular podcast that he spun off into a 2014 book about everything he thought was wrong with the world and his simple solutions. He called it _President Me_. Scott Card was more prescient than he knew. ---
**Author:** ![SuntanLotion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suntanlotion/32/16165_2.png) [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2024, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/78 "2024-08-27T18:56:23Z")
I own that book. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2024, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/79 "2024-08-27T20:19:58Z")
> [@JoseB](#): > > And to answer **Lumpy** , yes; “Brave New World” explicitly says that alcohol was used to stunt the development of fetuses that were to be created as “lower castes”. Oddly, they didnt add in smoking? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2024, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128/80 "2024-08-27T20:33:36Z")
That would have to be an effect of nicotine in particular, since _in vitro_ fetuses can’t smoke. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prescient-piece-of-science-fiction/1006128.md?page=5)