# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![bobsmom101](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobsmom101/32/2867_2.png) [@bobsmom101](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobsmom101)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2021, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/61 "2021-07-17T20:45:40Z")
I nominate Pohl and Kornbluth’s _The Space Merchants_, copyrighted in 1952. Predicts the dominance of multinational corporations, environmental collapse, and ecological justice warriors. Still a great read. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2021, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/62 "2021-07-17T21:07:41Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Asimov predicted: I also recall in one of Asimov’s _Foundation_ stories a character when to their local spaceport and got a ticket from a kiosk that sound a lot like the check-in kiosks you’d find at every airport nowadays. And we don’t have spaceports… but Branson and Musk are working on it. > [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > They also had the “[Two-way wrist radio](https://www.dicktracymuseum.com/new-page)” which predicted the Apple Watch. Some of these things I wonder if they aren’t so much “predictions” but more cases of old sci-fi influencing what future generations of engineers decide to build. That is, a kid grows up watching Dick Tracy or Star Trek, becomes and engineer when they grow up, goes to work for Apple, and goes “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to build a watch like Dick Tracy had?” Or a tablet computer that looks an awful lot like the PADDs they used in ST:TNG, etc. ---
**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:** [July 17, 2021, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/63 "2021-07-17T21:24:39Z")
What does “prophetic” mean? Does it mean predicting something that is very common much later, regardless of whether it was hard to predict? Does it mean something that hardly anyone would have guessed happened much later, regardless of whether it became common? Does it mean something that it would have been terrible if it happened, but it didn’t? Lots of things were predicted in science fiction many times, so it’s not surprising that some of them happened, often because the people who caused the thing to happen read several of the stories that predicted it. Lots of things were predicted just in one story. When enough stories are written, inevitable just by luck one of them will correctly predict something that seemed unlikely. Lots of stores predicted terrible things that luckily didn’t happen. ---
**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:** [July 17, 2021, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/64 "2021-07-17T22:32:18Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Lots of stores Lots of stories ---
**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 17, 2021, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/65 "2021-07-17T23:34:01Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > [Pet peeve rant] Almost everything we think of as being invented by science fiction, meaning the stuff that appeared in sf pulps after _Amazing Stories_ , was around much earlier, usually in the 19th century. Almost nobody reads 19th century proto-science fiction today - for very good reasons: most of it makes me want to scratch my eyeballs out - but dropping future predictions into their stories was totally common and often amazingly, I mean astoundingly, I mean very accurate. The one that got me was Star (Cassiopeia), space opera from 1854. > **[C. I. Defontenay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._I._Defontenay)** > > Charlemagne Ischir Defontenay, writing as C.I. Defontenay (1819–1856), was a French science fiction writer. His Star, ou Psi Cassiopea of 1854 is seen by some as an example of proto-space opera. Others see Defontenay as a predecessor of Olaf Stapledon. Star describes the discovery in the Himalayas of a stone that has fallen from the sky. After opening it, it turns out to contain a metal box where the narrator finds some paper manuscripts. After two years of study, he managed to decipher them a De... Silverberg wrote an editorial about it and I found that Wollheim had reprinted it (DAW #167) and I owned it. Quite remarkable since it was not set on Earth except for a short segment about finding the story. Not that much prediction, though, but more sophisticated than Verne. ---
**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 18, 2021, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/66 "2021-07-18T01:41:43Z")
One important point to remember is that science fiction is never written about the future. It’s often set in the future, but what it’s about is always the present. ---
**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:** [July 18, 2021, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/67 "2021-07-18T02:22:14Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > inevitable inevitably ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2021, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/68 "2021-07-18T17:29:07Z")
Yeah, pretty much all political examples are just people taking modern politics and just transposing them in the future to make a point. A story of a silver tongued right wing fascist President backed by Christian fundamentalists with the slogan MAGA is literally somebody just taking Ronald Reagan’s platform and putting it in the future, where it became applicable to George W Bush, McCain, Romney, and finally Trump’s campaigns. ---
**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:** [July 19, 2021, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/69 "2021-07-19T01:45:01Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > One important point to remember is that science fiction is never written about the future. It’s often set in the future, but what it’s about is always the present. [Carper’s Law](https://www.flyingcarsandfoodpills.com/introduction): The Future is Never About the Future. It Is Always About Today. The [Corollary to Carper’s Law](https://www.flyingcarsandfoodpills.com/sf): Science Fiction is Never About the Future. It Is Always About Today. > [@Asuka](#): > > A story of a silver tongued right wing fascist President backed by Christian fundamentalists with the slogan MAGA is literally somebody just taking Ronald Reagan’s platform and putting it in the future, where it became applicable to George W Bush, McCain, Romney, and finally Trump’s campaigns. Or you could look to _[It Can’t Happen Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_Here)_, a 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis. > The novel describes the rise of Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, a demagogue who is elected President of the United States, after fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and “traditional” values. Just like fusion power is always 50 years in the future, “traditional” values are always whatever was 50 years in the past. It’s a disease. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2021, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/70 "2021-07-19T02:03:10Z")
Windrip was clearly inspired by Huey Long. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2021, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/71 "2021-07-19T02:07:52Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Or you could look to _[It Can’t Happen Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_Here)_ , a 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis. Or [“If This Goes On —”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22If_This_Goes_On%E2%80%94%22) published 5 years later. ---
**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 19, 2021, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/72 "2021-07-19T12:52:45Z")
Hm. I think I independently came up with that statement, but I’m not at all surprised to hear that someone else came up with it before me. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2021, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/73 "2021-07-19T15:22:34Z")
Probably stretching the definition of ‘science fiction’, but certainly prophetic, is Morgan Robertson’s 1898 novella ‘Futility’ which told the story of a giant ocean liner called the ‘Titan’ that hit an iceberg while crossing the Atlantic in April and sank, 14 years before the Titanic sinking. More in the science fiction category is his 1914 short story “Beyond the Spectrum”, about a future war between the United States and the Empire of Japan after Japan launches a sneak attack on a U.S. naval fleet headed for Hawaii. The science fiction part would be a weapon using ultraviolet light that blinds and burns the enemy, which has been compared to the radiation from nuclear weapons, though that might be a bit of a stretch. Here’s a good article listing all similarities between his writing and the real thing, for those who aren’t familiar: The number of similarities between the Titanic and the fictional Titan are pretty remarkable: > **[Spooky: Who Was Morgan Robertson And Did He Predict the Titanic tragedy,...](https://spookythingsonline.wordpress.com/2018/09/17/who-was-morgan-robertson-and-did-he-predict-the-titanic-tragedy-pearl-harbor-and-the-a-bomb-long-before-they-happened/)** > > For Morgan Robertson, the future was now. “Now” for him was his lifespan, 1861-1915. I’m no expert on seers, but writer Morgan Robertson’s seeming predictions of the Titanic… ---
**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:** [July 19, 2021, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/74 "2021-07-19T17:11:52Z")
From your link: > Hasan wrote “ _after the sinking of the Titanic, Robertson gained great acclaim for being a clairvoyant, a title he denied_ . > > “ _No_ ,” Roberston would reply. “ _I know what I’m writing about, that’s all_ . Perfect. The “coming war” genre was extremely popular in the years before WWII. I remember a book gathering examples on that era specifically, but the closest I can find is I. F. Clarke’s _Voices Prophesying War: Future Wars, 1763–3749_. Most were by Englishmen predicting an attack from the continent, but it could be anybody against anybody. Wiki has an article on them under [Invasion Literature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_literature). Not surprisingly, some details they forecasted proved to close to the reality, the barrage balloon specifically. And the lies of their propaganda created the atmosphere for the later reality of rumors of atrocities. ---
**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:** [July 19, 2021, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/75 "2021-07-19T17:14:10Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Hm. I think I independently came up with that statement, but I’m not at all surprised to hear that someone else came up with it before me. I’ve been saying it for decades and I’m positive I wasn’t first. I have no idea who was. But somebody had to codify it and give it a name. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/76 "2021-07-20T00:28:22Z")
No discussion of pre-Hiroshima A-Bomb stories is complete without a mention of Cleve Cartmill’s 1944 story, **Deadline** , which not only got the attention of scientists working on the Manhattan Project but also prompted the FBI to pay a visit the the offices of _Astounding Stories._ Editor John Campbell only admitted after the war that he knew there was a top secret scientific program going on in or around Los Alamos, NM, because so many of his subscribers had changed their mailing addresses to the area. According to Edward Teller, the story painted a fairly accurate description of isotope separation and the physical characteristics of the bomb and caused quite a stir among the assembled scientists at Los Alamos more than a year before the weapon became known to the public. Otherwise, it’s kind of a crap story. ---
**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:** [July 20, 2021, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/77 "2021-07-20T01:00:35Z")
I have a long analysis of the story behind and beyond “Deadline” in the New York Review of Science Fiction link I gave in post #20. Cartmill literally copied Campbell’s letters to him on atomic power. Then the idiot lied to the FBI when they came to investigate and claimed it was all his know-how. He backed down real fast and turned over all the letters. Campbell never printed another story about atomics during the war. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/78 "2021-07-20T17:48:38Z")
I think Campbell might have also told the FBI that a foreign power could make inferences from his _ceasing_ to publish such stories. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/79 "2021-07-20T18:23:09Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > Some of these things I wonder if they aren’t so much “predictions” but more cases of old sci-fi influencing what future generations of engineers decide to build. That is, a kid grows up watching Dick Tracy or Star Trek, becomes and engineer when they grow up, goes to work for Apple, and goes “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to build a watch like Dick Tracy had?” Or a tablet computer that looks an awful lot like the PADDs they used in ST:TNG, etc. I forget where it was, but many years ago, I saw the argument, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it”, which carries the same idea. We have neat things today because the people who read about them years ago thought they’d be neat to have in real life. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2021, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/80 "2021-07-20T19:01:34Z")
Somewhere I read that one of the main engineers involved wth developing the cell phone was trying to reproduce the communicators on Star Trek. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506.md?page=5)