# What Book, Movie, or TV show most accurately predicted the future? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 30, 2006, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752 "2006-06-30T14:16:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2006, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/21 "2006-06-30T21:29:44Z")
[**Let’s Visit the World of the Future!**](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070303/)🙂 [You could download it in 2003 – don’t know if you still can.](http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/FIST2004-1/X0722_You_MUST_Download_Le.html) ---
**Author:** ![FlightlessBird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/cdc98d/32.png) [@FlightlessBird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlightlessBird)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2006, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/22 "2006-06-30T21:46:09Z")
I never read it, but wanted to just for the reason it belongs in this thread. The book, \*\*[Paris in the Twentieth Century](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/034542039X/qid=1151703539/sr=1-14/ref=sr_1_14/104-6114563-9715115?s=books&v=glance&n=283155) \*\* by Jules Verne Written in 1863(!) and depicting a mid-20th centruy Paris… > [@Jules Verne(the real one)](#): > > While the narrative contains many startling predictions(among them fax machines, electronic calculators, automobiles and elaborate subway systems)there is little here in the way of either plot or character development. It’s probably the reason I stayed away, it’s supposed to suck… ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2006, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/23 "2006-06-30T21:48:27Z")
While many fans attribute numerous important concepts of cyberspace to author William Gibson, I’d like to look a bit farther back, to [True Names](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312862075). In this striking work of fiction (written in 1979 and published in 1981, long before personal computers and the Web became part of our daily lives), Vernor Vinge gives vividly imagined details of many concepts which are everyday Internet realities today. Vinge’s online communities prefigure chatrooms and multi-user domains in an uncannily accurate fashion (complete with a few disagreeable and destructive individuals who take pleasure in wreaking havoc). Vinge was, as far as I can tell, the first SF writer to use the term “avatar” to describe a digital image that represents an anonymous user. Vinge called the online access point a “portal.” As you read this 25-year-old story, it seems contemporary: much of what was fictional in 1979 is factual today. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2006, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/24 "2006-06-30T21:59:03Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Yeah, 1984 wasn’t about technology, the technology is irrelevant. 1984 was about rolling up the techniques that dictatorships of the 20th century had pioneered into one horrible perfect dictatorship. There had been dictatorships before Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy, but never totalitarian dictatorships, and 1984 was the first to really explore what these totalitarian systems were all about. And Orwell (my personal hero) got it flat wrong, IMO. Psychologically, I mean. When O’Brien finally explains to Winston Smith the Inner Party’s real core motives, it turns out to be a politics based on sadomasochism. The leaders don’t want luxury or long life or happiness for themselves, only power. The aim of power is power – “An endless pressing, pressing, pressing on the nerve of power!” And how does one man prove his power over another? By making him suffer – otherwise you cannot be sure he is obeying your will and not his own. Thus, dissidents like Smith are essential, even to be quietly encouraged and enabled – because without such, the Inner Party members would not have the pleasure of breaking down their minds and building them up again. There might be some dictators or party officials whose minds actually work that way. There might even be some few who, like O’Brien, are consciously aware of it and revel in it. But it’s not essential to the system of Communism or even Nazism. Communism was founded by truly high-minded, altruistic men like Lenin and Trosky, who had the arrogance to presume they knew what was best for all, and to such a degree of scientific certainty that they owed no more tolerance to dissenting views than astronomers owe to the Flat Earth Society. The real tragedy of Communism is that it is a classic case of **good** intentions paving the road to Hell. As for the Nazis, they thought about everything in national or “racial” terms – they were as different from Oceania’s English Socialist Party as if they came from a different planet. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2006, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/25 "2006-06-30T22:13:20Z")
I’m hoping Heinlein was wrong about the whole Nehemiah Scudder/Fundie situation, but I’m not entirely convinced he was. If anything, Shrub may have started the ball rolling a little early. Admiral Bob had his Fundie get elected in 2012… ---
**Author:** ![want2know](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@want2know](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/want2know)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2006, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/26 "2006-06-30T22:13:38Z")
I don’t know about total accuracy, but some aspects of John Carpenter’s **They Live** seem a bit prescient: –The ever-growing division between the rich and the poor –The increasing numbers of the “working poor”. We’re not at the point where working people live in tent cities just yet, but with real estate prices skyrocketing across the nation and the increasing number of million-dollar condos being constructed (at least here in Vegas), one wonders not if, but when it will come to pass. –The almost hypnotic state of apathy/contentment of the general population. For quite a while, people have been in lockstep with the current administration’s “war on terror” while being blissfully ignorant of the cost in money, human lives, our freedoms, etc. It is only lately that the populace seems to be “waking up” to the reality of our situation and have begun speaking out in increasing numbers. Now, obviously, we haven’t been taken over by a greedy alien race, but watch a couple of hours of Fox News, then watch this movie. I’ll bet you anything that, even for just a fleeting second, you’ll find yourself going, “Hmmmmm…” ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2006, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/27 "2006-06-30T22:24:25Z")
I was going to say Jules Verne as well. Verne’s very famous for having predicted many future developments (various technologies, space travel, etc.) so much so that _The Onion_ had a parody article about a newly discovered Jules Verne story in which he predicts the invention of cell phones. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2006, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/28 "2006-06-30T22:54:06Z")
> [@want2know](#): > > I don’t know about total accuracy, but some aspects of John Carpenter’s **They Live** seem a bit prescient: Prescient? The film wasn’t set in the future. My take was, Carpenter was predicting nothing, he was providing a fantastic **explanation** for the status quo. It’s interesting to compare _They Live_ with the original _Invasion of the Body Snatchers._ The 1956 film was based in a perfectly nice (for middle-class white people) society, threatened by Evil Aliens who wanted to slip in and take it over. The 1988 film was set in a society where things had so far turned to shit, that the only explanation was, the Evil Aliens are **already in charge!** ---
**Author:** ![FlightlessBird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/cdc98d/32.png) [@FlightlessBird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlightlessBird)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2006, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/29 "2006-06-30T23:04:44Z")
**mobo85** , Funny stuff! [http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39398](http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39398) “Le Telephon-Photographique” ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2006, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/30 "2006-06-30T23:19:56Z")
How about [The Running Man](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093894/)? I distinctly remember when I saw the movie that I found it a little over the top that (a) the government would be able to manipulate the media so completely, (b) that the public taste for capital punishment would ever get so high that it would intersect (c) a taste for live action gladiatorial combat. Well, FOX news is pretty much a mouthpiece for the Republican party, our collective taste for lurid violence has only grown, and “Reality TV” gets ever closer to deathsport. I really believe we could see something not too dissimilar to “The Running Man” on air in the US within 20 years, in some possible futures. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2006, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/31 "2006-06-30T23:21:48Z")
Every time I flip past Fox News or some right wing conservative pundit pontificating I figure the world postulated in [The Marching Morons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons) is one step closer to reality… Spay and neuter your pets, people, is all I’m sayin’… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2006, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/32 "2006-07-01T00:01:29Z")
One of Robert J. Sawyer’s books (I can’t remember which one at the moment) accurately predicted the name of the new pope. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2006, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/33 "2006-07-01T00:27:02Z")
Which isn’t as impressive as a lot of other predictions, IMO, since, if you postulate that the Pope would continue a “named line,” the possible names and numbers are already defined. This may be a GD thread… ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2006, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/34 "2006-07-01T00:32:10Z")
> [@robardin](#): > > How about [The Running Man](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093894/)? I distinctly remember when I saw the movie that I found it a little over the top that (a) the government would be able to manipulate the media so completely, (b) that the public taste for capital punishment would ever get so high that it would intersect (c) a taste for live action gladiatorial combat. > > Well, FOX news is pretty much a mouthpiece for the Republican party, our collective taste for lurid violence has only grown, and “Reality TV” gets ever closer to deathsport. I really believe we could see something not too dissimilar to “The Running Man” on air in the US within 20 years, in some possible futures. Tonight! In Madison Square Garden! For a purse of $10 million! 25 Iranian prisoners of war vs. the **East LA Crips!** Tonight’s weapon: **Chainsaws!** 🙂 To ensure a vigorous contest, all survivors of the losing team **will** be crucified . . . ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2006, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/35 "2006-07-01T00:39:04Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Which isn’t as impressive as a lot of other predictions, IMO, since, if you postulate that the Pope would continue a “named line,” the possible names and numbers are already defined. > > This may be a GD thread… Good point. How many lines are there? ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Clam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3bc359/32.png) [@Happy\_Clam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Clam)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2006, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/36 "2006-07-01T00:39:53Z")
> [@robardin](#): > > How about [The Running Man](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093894/)? I distinctly remember when I saw the movie that I found it a little over the top that (a) the government would be able to manipulate the media so completely, (b) that the public taste for capital punishment would ever get so high that it would intersect (c) a taste for live action gladiatorial combat. > > Well, FOX news is pretty much a mouthpiece for the Republican party, our collective taste for lurid violence has only grown, and “Reality TV” gets ever closer to deathsport. I really believe we could see something not too dissimilar to “The Running Man” on air in the US within 20 years, in some possible futures. One of my personal crackpot theories (it may be time for a new thread on that…) is that there will, in fact, be live gladiatorial combat, or something like it, on television within, perhaps, 10 years. We already are willing to torment the “contestants” pyschologically, emotionally and even physically (Survivor, I’m a Celebrity…, et al), and recently there was a live TV stunt fo a magician playing Russian roulette with another man, firing the single loaded chamber into a wall. I reckon we’ll start seeing people willing to risk their lives openly in five years, doing foolhardy things like ridiculous stunts or playing with wild animals first. A few will die, the networks will realise that nobody minded much (and that viewing figures went through the roof), and _Who Wants to Be a Sacrifice on the Altar of Public Voyeurism_ will be the favourite program of 2016. As predicted by _Running Man_, of course (man, I almost strayed from the OP there! Glad I dodged that bullet! 😃 ) ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2006, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/37 "2006-07-01T00:41:12Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Tonight! In Madison Square Garden! For a purse of $10 million! 25 Iranian prisoners of war vs. the **East LA Crips!** > > Tonight’s weapon: **Chainsaws!** 🙂 > > To ensure a vigorous contest, all survivors of the losing team **will** be crucified . . . If it was legal to do a show like that, I think there’s money to be made with the concept. **LET’S GET READY TO RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM-BLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLE!** ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2006, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/38 "2006-07-01T00:45:09Z")
> [@chorpler](#): > > Good point. How many lines are there? [Every name on this list that has a Roman numeral after it?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_popes) ---
**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 1, 2006, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/39 "2006-07-01T01:49:33Z")
> [@](#): > > How about The Running Man? I distinctly remember when I saw the movie that I found it a little over the top that (a) the government would be able to manipulate the media so completely, (b) that the public taste for capital punishment would ever get so high that it would intersect (c) a taste for live action gladiatorial combat. Instead of Stephen King’s take, why not give credit to Robert Sheckley? His **Prize of Peril** predicted life-or-death game shows on TV three decacades before The Running Man. Heck, it was filmed twice, one time before Stephen King started being published: > **[Das Millionenspiel (TV Movie 1970) ⭐ 7.7 | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066079/)** > > 1h 36m > **[The Prize of Peril (1983) ⭐ 6.6 | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084540/)** > > 1h 38m According to Harlan Ellison, Sheckley phoned him when he first heard about “The Running Man”, and wondered why King was ripping him off. They didn’t think that was like King, and concluded that he’d probably read and forgotten about TPoP, and it resurfaced from his subconscious. I’ve noticed a lot of such recycled plots in King’s work. ---
**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:** [July 1, 2006, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/40 "2006-07-01T02:11:45Z")
Always nice to see a lively discussion! I was actually going to say that I think the film version of _V for Vendetta_ is probably the potentially closest for how society- at least in the UK- could potentially look in the next 15 years or so. I don’t mean with the whole Totalitarian Party and the Blackbaggers and so on… but the actual visuals (ie, everything looks much as it does now, but there’s lots of nifty techno-gadgets) is, in IMO, probably a fairly accurate view of how things will look. I’ll get back to you in 2021. 😃 The OP was aiming for the fictional work that got the closest overall feel to what things should look like when the time period in question finally came around- so while it’s pretty amazing that Jules Verne predicted Fax Machines and Robert A. Heinlein foresaw cellular phones, it’s slightly outside the scope of the OP- as fascinating a subject as it is in its own right, though! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752.md?page=3)