# 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:** 4
**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, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/61 "2006-07-01T22:56:55Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > I never said he was full of shit…that’s your term. Perhaps I should have phrased it, “Don’t just contradict **WordMan** in a drive-by post and then run away.” (You don’t want to be like \ ***Clothahump,** do you?) Getting back on track: Bruce Sterling once wrote a short called “We See Things Differently,” which had a lot of telling predictions about the rise of radical Islam in a modern, high-tech world. You can find it in his 1992 collection [url=]_Globalhead._ The same collection has another story on the same theme: “The Compassionate, the Digital.” \*If you don’t know the username, do a post search in GD or the Pit. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2006, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/62 "2006-07-02T00:28:40Z")
> [@ululate](#): > > Well, in 1950, what publisher would’ve paid for this story of the far-off year 2000: > > _“By then, we’ll have landed on the moon! And then decided not to go back. Oh, and those atomic weapons we used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? They’re everywhere, but since then nobody’s used 'em even once; the Soviet Union had tons of 'em pointed at us, we thought there was maybe going to be a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but then there wasn’t a war and they just collapsed. So instead, Americans of the future discuss things like gay marriage. And folks can get laser beams shot into their eyeballs to improve their vision, but most of them stick to glasses or contact lenses anyway. And folks can cook with microwave radiation, though they still often use a stove instead.”_ > > That’d be dull and implausible at the same time. 😉 You know, I wonder if you could write a story along those lines today. Have some fun with how wrong the ideas everyone was writing in the 40s and 50s turned out and have the protagonist with a novel accurately predicting today struggle to get it published and the like. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2006, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/63 "2006-07-02T00:34:54Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Perhaps I should have phrased it, “Don’t just contradict **WordMan** in a drive-by post and then run away.” (You don’t want to be like \ ***Clothahump,** do you?) And as I mentioned in another post, BG, stop trying to draw me into your inanities. I realize that I piss you off because I’m right more often than I’m wrong, but stop using me as your personal boogeyman. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2006, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/64 "2006-07-02T00:35:42Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > And as I mentioned in another post, BG, stop trying to draw me into your inanities. I realize that I piss you off because I’m right more often than I’m wrong, but stop using me as your personal boogeyman. This is the only instance, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2006, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/65 "2006-07-02T00:49:20Z")
And I’m not using you as a “bogeyman,” but as a bad example, **Clotha.** ---
**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:** [July 2, 2006, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/66 "2006-07-02T01:20:50Z")
> [@Skald the Rhymer](#): > > I think the correct answer is “none, really, but lots of them get bits & pieces right.” > > That said, Robert Heinlein completely nailed the internet in _Friday_. Go back & re-read _Friday_. It had a lot more to say than that. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2006, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/67 "2006-07-02T01:27:43Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > I will go with Huxley’s **Brave New World** - pacifying the masses via pharmaceutical substances, in vitro fertilization leading to designer babies according to class structure, movement towards a utopian society - everyone is cared for and gets what they need - that robs them of freedom. That gets my vote, especially because of the control-through-sensory overload thing. But there are plenty of works on this list that I haven’t seen or read. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2006, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/68 "2006-07-02T02:19:15Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Perhaps I should have phrased it, “Don’t just contradict **WordMan** in a drive-by post and then run away.” And why not? This isn’t GD or the Pit–it’s not the place for an in-depth debate. And there was nothing in-depth about WordMan’s statement, it was a drive-by political hip-shot. Why doesn’t it deserve a reply in kind? OOOooooh, right…I forgot…because you AGREEE with his politics and disagree with mine. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2006, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/69 "2006-07-02T03:38:15Z")
The collection _2020 Vision_, published in 1970, had two stories that always stick in my memory. The first, _Build Me a Mountain_ by Ben Bova, predicts that the space program will stall because of lack of political will, even though we have all the necessary technology to colonize the planets. And _Eat, Drink, and Be Merry_ by Dian Gablon, has the government meddling around in people’s personal food choice…for their own good, of course. Just yesterday, the Chicago City Council took up a bill that would ban the use of cooking oils containing trans fats in the city’s restraunts. Of course, I strongly believe that the best prediction for what will happen in the future comes at the beginning of G. K. Chesterton’s early science fiction novel _The Napoleon of Notting Hill_: > [@](#): > > The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called “Keep to-morrow dark,” and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) “Cheat the Prophet.” The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. Then they go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun. ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2006, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/70 "2006-07-02T06:48:52Z")
**RikWriter** and **BrainGlutton** , you’re both out of line here. Cafe Society is not the place to be continuing your personal feud. **BrainGlutton** , you threw your gauntlet down in his Pit thread–please keep it there. If he doesn’t want to attend that thread (as is his choice), don’t use threads in other forums as proxy. Let’s get back to the thread topic. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2006, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/71 "2006-07-02T14:01:46Z")
Thanks, **Skipmagic** - again, I am happy to stay out of what is apparently discussion with some history. But **Rikwriter** - while you say I did a drive-by and clearly I have a political bias that comes through, surely you can acknowledge that the currect situation - declaring a “war” on Terror - without any formal trappings of war such as an official declaration approved by Congress, so whether you agree with their need to do so, you have to agree that War as it is formally, historically been defined has been spun differently - that is being used to foment support by the masses to accord more power to an Executive, coupled with increase tech-based monitored of individuals’ lives on a non-targeted, mass basis - smacks of 1984? That is the only point I am trying to make… ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2006, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/72 "2006-07-02T14:24:06Z")
**Wordman** , now **you’re** out of line for trying to get in one last comment, after **Skip** told the other guys to cut it out. The appropriate response to personal insults in this forum is to report them to a Moderator, and NOT to respond. Not to try to get in the last word. Not to reply at all. That way, when the Moderator looks at what’s happened, you’re the good guy and the insulter is the bad guy. When the teacher comes out to the playground, there’s a clear victim and a clear perpetrator. As soon as you start responding in kind, you murky the waters. At that point, the teacher comes to playground and breaks up the fight, without worrying about who started it. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2006, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/73 "2006-07-02T14:54:03Z")
> [@C K Dexter Haven](#): > > **Wordman** , now **you’re** out of line for trying to get in one last comment, after **Skip** told the other guys to cut it out. > > The appropriate response to personal insults in this forum is to report them to a Moderator, and NOT to respond. Not to try to get in the last word. Not to reply at all. That way, when the Moderator looks at what’s happened, you’re the good guy and the insulter is the bad guy. When the teacher comes out to the playground, there’s a clear victim and a clear perpetrator. > > As soon as you start responding in kind, you murky the waters. At that point, the teacher comes to playground and breaks up the fight, without worrying about who started it. Understood and I very much apologize - I thought I was trying to separate the non-political point I was trying to make from the debate my original post apparently re-ignited. I can see where that was not accomplished and is probably not possible - sorry for my role… ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2006, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/74 "2006-07-02T15:24:40Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > Go back & re-read _Friday_. > > It had a lot more to say than that. Re the Internet, the most interesting passage was when Friday is learning to do in-depth online research. At some point she grows curious about who owns and operates the computer system of the espionage agency she works for (and, as was made clear early in the book, she actually has no idea whether she’s working for a government or a multinational corporation or what). The computer keeps giving her confusing, obfuscatory answers to each line of questioning. Finally she asks the computer flat out: “Who owns you?” The computer, quite reasonably, claims it can’t understand the question. After several tries she phrases it in terms an expert system **should** be able to handle and process – and the computer immediately shuts down. Has anything like this ever happened to you? ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2006, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/75 "2006-07-02T15:46:48Z")
> [@C K Dexter Haven](#): > > The appropriate response to personal insults in this forum is to report them to a Moderator, and NOT to respond. Not sure what you’re referring to, but I didn’t see any personal insults at all…not HERE anyway, although there were probably some in the Pit thread BrainGlutton started. There was political argument, but unless telling someone they are not being objective is a personal insult, I didn’t see any. ---
**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 2, 2006, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/76 "2006-07-02T21:35:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Every name on this list that has a Roman numeral after it?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_popes) Oh, okay, so it’s pretty impressive after all. I sure wouldn’t have been able to guess that the new pope would take the name “Benedict” out of all those choices. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2006, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/77 "2006-07-02T22:05:35Z")
Okay, this thread has had sufficient hijackings that I figure one more won’t hurt. I was born in 1953, and came of age post-sputnik. Whenever the subject of the future comes up, I always annoy my son by repeating the same line. I always knew I’d see the first men to walk on the moon, but I never expected to see the last. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/78 "2006-07-03T00:19:08Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > This is the only instance, IIRC. No, it’s not. You did it in another thread. Let it be the last. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/79 "2006-07-03T00:20:53Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > And I’m not using you as a “bogeyman,” but as a bad example, **Clotha.** I should probably take that as a compliment, considering the source. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/80 "2006-07-03T00:40:37Z")
> [@chorpler](#): > > Oh, okay, so it’s pretty impressive after all. I sure wouldn’t have been able to guess that the new pope would take the name “Benedict” out of all those choices. But we have no reason to suppose it was anything but a guess. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752.md?page=5)