# Most prophetic piece of Science fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 18, 2021, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506 "2021-06-18T01:35:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2021, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/21 "2021-06-18T16:54:33Z")
> [@JohnnyEcks](#): > > Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner. _“Christ, what an imagination I’ve got”_ ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2021, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/22 "2021-06-18T17:01:23Z")
I’ll have to read _A Logic Named Joe_, but I think that I’d vote for _The Machine Stops_ as well, if only for longevity. It didn’t just predict the internet, it predicted _social media influencers_. In 1909! ---
**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:** [June 18, 2021, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/23 "2021-06-18T17:08:35Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > A far better prediction (though progress has made the device obsolete) is his prediction of the pocket calculator in “The Feeling of Power.” I attended a lecture he gave in 1976 where he brought this up, adding “I even got the color of the numbers right!” The numbers were red, like the red LED digital numbers in the first pocket calculators. But within a couple of years, those energy-devouring LED calculators had their displays replaced by the more efficient liquid crystal-polarizer displays that were gray. So he got the color right – for a few years. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2021, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/24 "2021-06-18T17:13:32Z")
**Brazil** predicted with rather staggering accuracy how desk-bound employees of the future would waste time at work. (At 1:00 onward.) [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/7xNnRBksvOU/hqdefault.jpg "Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985) - Ministry of Information") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xNnRBksvOU) ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2021, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/25 "2021-06-18T17:24:26Z")
ST: DS9 had crew members using large cards to do personal computing before iPads came out. By the same token, requesting the ship’s computer to search and compile records could take a few days. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2021, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/26 "2021-06-18T17:53:25Z")
> **[Amazon.com: The Smuggled Atom Bomb eBook : Wylie, Philip: Books](https://www.amazon.com/Smuggled-Atom-Bomb-Philip-Wylie-ebook/dp/B00VH7B9U0)** > > Amazon.com: The Smuggled Atom Bomb eBook : Wylie, Philip: Books The first act of Nuclear Terrorism has not happened yet. Philip Wylie wrote about it in the early 1950s. > **[Amazon.com: Los Angeles: A.D. 2017 eBook : Wylie, Philip: Kindle Store](https://www.amazon.com/Los-Angeles-D-Philip-Wylie-ebook/dp/B00OPJW8QG)** > > Los Angeles: A.D. 2017 - Kindle edition by Wylie, Philip. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Los Angeles: A.D. 2017. Wylie again–writing of Ecological Catastrophe. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2021, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/27 "2021-06-18T18:55:34Z")
I’m really hoping that it’s not _12 Monkeys._ ---
**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:** [June 18, 2021, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/28 "2021-06-18T19:10:15Z")
One of Jules Verne’s most impressive predictions is still underappreciated. In his novel **Robur the Conqueror** – sort of a heavier-than-air-craft version of **20,000 Leagues Under the Sea** – Verne has the titular Robur flying around the world in his craft (which he calls an _aeronef_ ) named the _Albatross_, which is a sort of super-helicopter, with numerous fixed upward rotors constantly turning to keep the Albatross aloft. That’s a pretty whacko idea. It would require a virtually infinite power source, of the sort Verne imagined for the _Nautilus_. But that’s not the interesting part. Verne wanted the ship to be constructed of something extremely light (for obvious reasons) yet extremely strong – something even better for this purpose that the aluminum that he had the _Columbia_ made of for **From the Earth to the Moon**. He found the ideal material. In modern terms, it was a “composite”. It really was a composite by the modern definition > [@](#): > > A **composite material** (also called a **composition material** or shortened to **composite** , which is the common name) is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials.[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_material#cite_note-1) These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or physical properties and are merged to create a material with properties unlike the individual elements. Within the finished structure, the individual elements remain separate and distinct, distinguishing composites from [mixtures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixture) and [solid solutions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_solution) (Wikipedia) They didn’t have a term for it back then. This isn’t hedging or generous interpretation on my part. He really did have 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.” (Chapter 7 – [The Project Gutenberg eBook of Robur the Conqueror, by Jules Verne](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3808/3808-h/3808-h.htm#chap07) ) Even up to recent times, reviewers didn’t quite know what to make of this. One described the material as “a kind of plastic”. I’ve talked to professors of Aero/astro Engineering, and they seem unaware that Verne did this. Even books on the use of composites in aeronautical engineering don’t seem to notice it. But the _Daedalus_ man-powered craft built in 1987-8 used them, and today you can buy gliders made of composites – for the same reason Verne advocated them. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2021, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/29 "2021-06-18T19:29:42Z")
More from ‘Die Frau im Mond:’ They said they would need to accelerate to 11,200 meters/second, which is escape velocity. (OK, that’s just math, but it was still impressive to have that detail in a movie of that time.) They used a multi-stage rocket. They wanted to limit the rocket to 4Gs of acceleration, which is pretty much what the Saturn V astronauts endured. Weightlessness in space (although I think they missed the reason as to ‘why’ they were weightless). They used a figure-8 trajectory, which is what the Saturn V rockets used. (Yeah, technically it’s not actually a ‘figure 8,’ but that’s the easiest way to show in on a chalkboard.) Retro rockets to slow down the rocket for landing. Although they did miss some factual stuff like the Moon having a breathable atmosphere, and hills full of gold. Or did they? ? ? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2021, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/30 "2021-06-18T19:39:40Z")
Niven’s _"[The Flight of the Horse"](https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781625791177/9781625791177___4.htm)_ is pretty prophetic about what Man is doing to the Earth. ---
**Author:** ![ArtBeforeScience](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@ArtBeforeScience](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArtBeforeScience)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2021, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/31 "2021-06-18T20:44:39Z")
Nobody’s shouted yet for the biometrics and genetic manipulations in _Gattaca_. Stealing someone’s fingerprints to get into Corporate, and a caste-based society with genetically engineered designer babies as the privileged elite. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2021, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/32 "2021-06-18T21:05:03Z")
Since we have to list the predictions: > **[7 retail-related ways the world we live in is like the dystopian future from...](https://www.businessinsider.com/7-ways-the-world-is-like-idiocracy-retail-edition-2020-7)** > > Somehow, the dystopian future predicted in Mike Judge's 2006 film "Idiocracy" no longer looks like a worst-case scenario. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2021, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/33 "2021-06-18T21:38:26Z")
> [@JohnnyEcks](#): > > Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner. I came in here to post about John Brunner, but not about _Stand on Zanzibar_. I’m thinking of _The Shockwave Rider_. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2021, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/34 "2021-06-19T02:02:29Z")
> [@ArtBeforeScience](#): > > Nobody’s shouted yet for the biometrics and genetic manipulations in _Gattaca_ Biometrics featured as a key plot element in the 1992 hacker film _Sneakers_ - “My voice is my passport”. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2021, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/35 "2021-06-19T02:58:53Z")
I think it’s important to state that predicting one thing right doesn’t imply that you’ve predicted other things right. On the contrary, most pieces of science fiction get a few things right and aren’t anywhere close to other things. The reason that I read/watch/listen to/experience science fiction is to get a chance to think about some of the many things that could happen in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2021, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/36 "2021-07-16T18:22:09Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > > [@bob\_2](#): > > > > Asimov predicted: > > > > Automatic coffeemakers > > Video calls and VoIP services > > Vehicles with ‘Robot-brains’ > > Satellites in geostationary orbit > > A far better prediction (though progress has made the device obsolete) is his prediction of the pocket calculator in “The Feeling of Power.” And seven years earlier, in _Foundation_, he had Hari Seldon also wielding a pocket calculator: “Seldon removed his calculator pad from the pouch at his belt. Men said he kept one beneath his pillow for use in moments of wakefulness. Its gray, glossy finish was slightly worn by use. Seldon’s nimble fingers, spotted now with age, played along the hard plastic that rimmed it. Red symbols glowed out from the gray…” > [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > ST: DS9 had crew members using large cards to do personal computing before iPads came out. By the same token, requesting the ship’s computer to search and compile records could take a few days. I don’t recall it ever taking that long in any incarnation of _ST_. And personal computing on small flatscreens goes back at least to _2001: A Space Odyssey_. See the third image here: [» 2001 A Space Odyssey](http://www.mccallstudios.com/2001-a-space-odyssey/) Or this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDha7nj4s10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDha7nj4s10) It was even evidence in court a decade ago: [https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/did-stanley-kubrick-invent-ipad](https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/did-stanley-kubrick-invent-ipad) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2021, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/37 "2021-07-16T19:43:56Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > It would require a virtually infinite power source, of the sort Verne imagined for the _Nautilus_ . In Verne’s work, the Nautilus was powered by batteries, charged at a hidden base with a coal mine and power plant (the smoke disguised as discharge from a volcano). It was the Disney movie that made it a mysterious and nigh-infinite power source, implied to be nuclear. ---
**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:** [July 16, 2021, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/38 "2021-07-16T20:04:21Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > In Verne’s work, the Nautilus was powered by batteries, charged at a hidden base with a coal mine and power plant (the smoke disguised as discharge from a volcano). It was the Disney movie that made it a mysterious and nigh-infinite power source, implied to be nuclear. I’m well aware of that. But Verne’s submarine ran far, far longer than any submarine then (or now) could run on batteries, and he couldn’t recharge them at sea using diesel engines. His batteries were better than Tesla’s. ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2021, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/39 "2021-07-16T20:12:18Z")
“The Marching Morons” (1951) by Cyril M. Kornbluth is the predecessor to “Idiocracy”. Probably little read now due to overt racism. “I Remember Babylon” (1960) by Arthur C. Clarke: Red China will subvert the United States by beaming subtle propaganda via satellite TV. “History is on our side. We’ll be using America’s own decadence as a weapon against her, and it’s a weapon for which there’s no defence (sic)”. ---
**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:** [July 16, 2021, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/40 "2021-07-16T22:16:02Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > “I Remember Babylon” (1960) by Arthur C. Clarke: Red China will subvert the United States by beaming subtle propaganda via satellite TV. “History is on our side. We’ll be using America’s own decadence as a weapon against her, and it’s a weapon for which there’s no defence (sic)”. Yeah, but their fiendish plan was to broadcast stuff from Indian temples and the like - stuff that wouldn’t even make it onto Pornhub today. Clarke did uses geosynchronous satellites in a number of SF stories, including those collected in “Islands in the Sky.” The Wireless World article was first. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506.md?page=3)