# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2021, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/101 "2021-07-21T17:39:23Z")
Wow! How is this illustration not more famous? It should have been on a dozen magazine covers in 2020. Next, you’ll tell me there’s a line in the story: “And then half the students exclaimed to the professor: ‘Sir, you are mutified!’” ---
**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 21, 2021, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/102 "2021-07-21T18:35:13Z")
On the other hand, apparently neither of the illustrators, and perhaps not the author, could envision the notion of the images of the students being smaller than life size, and hence the Visiphone as a whole must be the size of an entire lecture hall. I mean, it’s not like the professor could clearly see the faces on the panes clear up in the corner. ---
**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 21, 2021, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/103 "2021-07-21T22:21:06Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > OK, that’s from the April 1956 Amazing, the 30th anniversary edition. Page 50. The issue also has predictions about 2001 from experts on the future such as Sid Caesar and Salvador Dali. Need to look at these! ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2021, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/104 "2021-07-21T22:36:02Z")
I’ve read that one - and should have thought of it as an example. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2021, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/105 "2021-07-22T08:45:07Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Wow! How is this illustration not more famous? It should have been on a dozen magazine covers in 2020. > > Next, you’ll tell me there’s a line in the story: “And then half the students exclaimed to the professor: ‘Sir, you are mutified!’” No, but there’s a student who turns up late due to connection issues (hence the one blank screen). ---
**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:** [July 22, 2021, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/106 "2021-07-22T08:51:46Z")
If anything, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a pretty good description of modern-day North Korea - a state perpetually at war with an imaginary enemy, in a constant state of technological and societal decline, where the elite live lives of leisure and the peasantry and workers are subject to the arbitrary rules of a regime that punishes any dissention harshly (when they aren’t being treated like they don’t exist), and a good deal of the state’s propaganda is dedicated to show projects intended to project an illusion of bounty and plenty. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2021, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/107 "2021-07-22T10:02:56Z")
Back to the Future 2 had some good hits like picture-taking drones, Cubs wining the World Series and MLB in Miami, paying with a fingerprint, gigantic flatscreen tvs. Not to mention that we all know that hoverboards are real, but the government is keeping them locked up in the same warehouse as the Ark of the Covenant. Granted, it got plenty wrong. Public payphones and print newspapers? Yecch. ---
**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 22, 2021, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/108 "2021-07-22T13:23:19Z")
I’m still waiting for my ugly rubbery jacket with one arm longer than the other that shrinks to fit me. ---
**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:** [July 22, 2021, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/109 "2021-07-22T14:23:22Z")
And Max Spielberg really did become a film director: > **[Spielberg Jr makes debut](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/oct/03/news)** > > Director's 17-year-old son shows short film after four-week workshop ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2021, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/110 "2021-07-22T14:34:36Z")
Well, looking at his IMDB filmography, that’s his only credited title as director. ---
**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 22, 2021, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/111 "2021-07-22T14:47:17Z")
He probably doesn’t want to overshadow his dad. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2021, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/112 "2021-07-22T15:44:06Z")
I’m trying to think about which _cli_-fi novel was most prophetic. Any proposals? Ballard tends to be too dystopian. _Heavy Weather_ by Sterling? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2021, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/113 "2021-07-22T16:22:07Z")
Had to look this up: “Climate fiction.” (I thought maybe “clinical fiction,” as in epidemics.) ---
**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 22, 2021, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/114 "2021-07-22T17:11:29Z")
George R.R. Martin’s _Tuf Voyaging_ is a sf environmental satire, on one level (and one of my favorite sf books ever), but I wouldn’t call it prophetic, as such. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2021, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/115 "2021-07-22T18:00:09Z")
In an odd way, Wyndham’sThe Kraken Wakes. Not because I think AGW is caused by deep sea alien invaders but because a constant theme of the book is the total unwillingness of government and people to face the facts until it’s too late. There’s lots of “Ho ho these theories are all very fanciful Professor but we are practical men” stuff that has obvious parallels. ---
**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:** [July 22, 2021, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/116 "2021-07-22T21:13:11Z")
How exactly did these specimens get born? Artificial wombs? ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2021, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/117 "2021-07-22T21:38:49Z")
Presumably unspecified, but since humans are already born “early” (our infants are very helpless), there is no reason that the bulging forehead/giant brain couldn’t grow post-partum. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2021, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/118 "2021-07-22T22:06:11Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > How exactly did these specimens get born? Artificial wombs? And why did they all need glasses? It doesn’t seem to be part of the communication system. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2021, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/119 "2021-07-23T00:02:05Z")
In further support of _1984_’s predictive powers, we are quite a ways down the path of sending unwanted news down the memory hole. There are lawyers and Orwellian-sounding “digital risk protection services” helping businesses and individuals hide or delete unfavorable stories and reviews, or minimize the chance of search results turning them up. Some news organizations are proactively purging their websites of crime news to protect or rehabilitate reputations after the fact. ---
**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 23, 2021, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506/120 "2021-07-23T00:30:08Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > How exactly did these specimens get born? Artificial wombs? There are still women in the world. But private universities were almost all men-only in 1915. > [@dtilque](#): > > And why did they all need glasses? It doesn’t seem to be part of the communication system. It was pretty common at the time to assume that because the educated class was no longer doing manual labor that humans would evolve to have big, bulging brains but be physically weak and ineffectual. And reading would ruin eyes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-prophetic-piece-of-science-fiction/944506.md?page=7)