# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![MacSpon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@MacSpon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacSpon)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/81 "2006-07-03T01:14:58Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > 1. Clothing styles; we are extremely conservative; a modern man’s suit toady is almost indistinguishable from ther style of 1915. No "jetsons’style clothing Are you sure? I look at the way many teenage girls dress lately, and I think we’re not so far off. 😉 ---
**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 3, 2006, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/82 "2006-07-03T01:16:50Z")
There have already been two separate posts by as many moderators telling everyone to quit with the hijacks, **Clothahump**. Maybe you missed them, I dunno, but considering you’ve responded in his Pit thread, you already knew there was a better place to work out your issues with **BrainGlutton** ’s posts. At this point all you’ve done is gather yourself a warning. Any further comments about the hijack(s) can be made in the Pit, or not at all. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/83 "2006-07-03T11:58:35Z")
> [@FlightlessBird](#): > > 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… > > It’s probably the reason I stayed away, it’s supposed to suck… Great point, **FlightlessBird** , Lots of fasicnating predictions. However, it doesn’t _completely_ suck. It ends abruptly, and is very distopian. The novel was written in the 1890’s but not published until 1994. This is a result of it being a sort of “lost novel” as Verne’s publisher refused to go forward with it. It’s very dark and cynical. I feel Verne might have been trying something different and maybe a little more polishing would have helped. Personally I enjoyed it. If n for no other reason as a curiousity. ---
**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 3, 2006, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/84 "2006-07-03T12:19:50Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But we have no reason to suppose it was anything but a guess. Well, yeah, isn’t that what every prediction being discussed in this thread is? Incidentally, I was mistaken – Robert J. Sawyer actually predicted that the next pope would be named “Pope Benedict XVI” in _two_ books, _The Terminal Experiment_ and _Flashforward_. The latter book is about people glimpsing the future, which of course led to people jokingly asking if perhaps he’d had a “flash forward” himself. Regarding how the name was picked, when asked “Was ‘Benedict’ a random choice on your part or did you do some kind of best-guess analysis?”, Rob himself said: “I looked at all the names of previous Popes, read a bit about the people who had taken those names in the past, and made a choice that seemed fitting.” ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/85 "2006-07-03T12:40:07Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > I would say _Network_ but Paddy Chayevsky at his most prognosticative fell far short of predicting the depths of depravity to which television would eventually sink. [Nigel Kneale](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_Sex_Olympics) wrote about reality TV with a psychopath used to boost ratings towards the end, all the way back in 1968. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/86 "2006-07-03T14:33:45Z")
I haven’t read _Farenheit 451_ in a long, long time, but I remember the tech (if not the political point of the book) being pretty good - my parents have a TV that does pretty much take up their whole wall, even if it isn’t immersive if they put two up. And there’s ear buds. And the experience of interstate travel where grass is a green blur. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/87 "2006-07-03T15:18:16Z")
I think _Dune_ resonates most with me–esp. when you’re talking about impoverishered desert-dwellers who are able to bring the universe’s greatest war machine to a grinding halt. “He who can destroy a thing controls a thing.” No giant worms yet, though. Or Holtzmann effects. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/88 "2006-07-03T15:36:17Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > …WE haven’t made a lot of progress in education: if anything, we have allowed standars to slip (try taking a highshool history exam from 1900). In 1900, a much smaller portion of the population went to high school than does today. A child who didn’t show academic aptitude would drift into a job or apprenticeship. So if anything, a more-difficult 1900 high school test is proof that we _have_ made progess (in making education universal). ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/89 "2006-07-03T15:48:36Z")
I always thought Orwell was very prescient with that boot-crushing-face line: not that _government_ would turn sadistic, but in the way the _public_ seems to have renewed, even increased, its ancient desire for bloodlust in the years since _1984_ was published. Imagine going back to 1948 and pitching shows like _Fear Factor_ to network execs. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/90 "2006-07-03T16:11:22Z")
One of the most striking but little-noted example was the description of the “upgrade treadmill” business model in Asimov’s story “Profession”: > [@Isaac Asimov](#): > > “Watching me! Spying!” cried the Novian. “I’ll tell you what it is. The new-model Metallurgists I got differed from the previous model only in knowing the use of Beeman Spectrographs. The tapes couldn’t be modified that much, not that much” (he held up two fingers close together) “from last year’s model. You introduce the new models only to make us buy and spend and come here hat in hand.” > > “We don’t make you buy.” > > “No, but you sell late-model technicians to Landonum and so we have to keep pace. It’s a merry-go-round you have us on, you pious Earthmen, but watch out, there may be an exit somewhere.” There was a sharp edge to his laugh, and it ended sooner than it should have. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/91 "2006-07-03T16:22:35Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > 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) - IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066079/) > > [The Prize of Peril (1983) - IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084540/) > 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. I’m also reminded of Robert Silverberg’s story “The Pain Peddlers”. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/92 "2006-07-03T19:41:26Z")
> [@ululate](#): > > Well, in 1950, what publisher would’ve paid for this story of the far-off year 2000: > > _“By then […] folks can cook with microwave radiation, though they still often use a stove instead.”_ Kurt Vonnegut’s _Player Piano_ (1952) made exactly that prediction. Like most “eerily prescient” descriptions of the future, it was a description of the present, blown up slightly. (The microwave oven was invented shortly after the second world war.) The main premise of _Player Piano_ is a fairly accurate bit of futurism for the exact same reason. (Mechanisation simultaneously easing labour and making technical marvels relatively accessible, while reducing the need for labour devalues it to the point that the gap between menial labour vs. technical skills and management increases to the point that class boundaries are nearly impermeable.) Futurist works that slightly exaggerate an emergent situation and project it into the future have a much better chance of keeping some verisimilitude as the decades pass. 😃 ---
**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, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/93 "2006-07-03T20:23:25Z")
Has this one been mentioned yet? Arthur C. Clarke’s 1960 short story [“I Remember Babylon”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_remember_babylon) predicted the advent of anything-goes TV. In fact, Clarke was being too timid. He expected the raw-sex-and-violence programming would have to be broadcast into the U.S. by satellite from another country, to evade content regulations. What would he say about the stuff we produce right **here?** “What **does** he say?” might be a better question . . . It’s so easy to forget that Clarke is still alive . . . ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/94 "2006-07-03T22:02:55Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > Go back & re-read _Friday_. > > It had a lot more to say than that. Oh, I’m perfectly aware of that, and I hope rather than believe that RAH was wrong about the Balkanization of North America. ---
**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, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/95 "2006-07-03T22:33:09Z")
> [@Skald the Rhymer](#): > > Oh, I’m perfectly aware of that, and I hope rather than believe that RAH was wrong about the Balkanization of North America. He was wrong. What divides our society today is primarily class, cultural and ethnic differences, not regional differences. After all, most people have relatives living in other states. Many – most, perhaps – will not die in the same state where they were born and raised. And the higher you are in the social scale, the less likely you are to be attached to one place. ---
**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, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/96 "2006-07-03T22:43:35Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > He was wrong. What divides our society today is primarily class, cultural and ethnic differences, not regional differences. After all, most people have relatives living in other states. Many – most, perhaps – will not die in the same state where they were born and raised. And the higher you are in the social scale, the less likely you are to be attached to one place. Regarding the above – from [_The Next American Nation,_](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684825031/qid=1151966530/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-8696644-3496124?s=books&v=glance&n=283155) by Michael Lind: > [@](#): > > The chief danger confronting the twenty-first century United States is not Balkanization but what might be called Brazilianization. By Brazilianization I mean not the separation of cultures by race, but the separation of races by class. As in Brazil, a common American culture could be indefinitely compatible with a blurry, informal caste system in which most of those at the top of the social hierarchy are white, and most brown and black Americans are on the bottom – _forever._ Behind all the boosterish talk about the wonders of the new American rainbow is the reality of enduring racial division by class, something that multicultural education initiatives and racial preference policies do not begin to address. > > In the absence of sustained popular pressure from below or concern about America’s international status, the white overclass has no incentive to combat Brazilianization in the United States. For one thing, any serious effort to reduce racial separation by class would inevitably mean higher taxes on the affluent – not just the rich, but the politically powerful upper-middle class. What is more, the dominance of the white oligarchy in American politics is strengthened by the emergent dynamics of a polarized society. In a more homogeneous society, the increasing concentration of wealth and power at the top might produce a populist reaction by the majority. But in a society like that of present-day America where a small, homogeneous oligarchy confronts a diverse population that shares a common national culture but remains divided along racial lines, the position of the outnumbered elite can be very secure. This is because the resentments caused by economic decline are likely to be expressed as hostility between the groups at the bottom, rather than as a rebellion against the top. In the Los Angeles riot, black, Hispanic, and white rioters turned on Korean middlemen, rather than march on Beverly Hills. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/97 "2006-07-03T22:44:10Z")
Arthur C. Clarke’s **The Naked Sun** has a society (The Solarians?) who shun personal contact and communicate though long ditance visual (holographic I think) communication. They never leave their houses. I was thinking about how nowadays so many people have formed relationships and such virtually. not by leaving their houses and meeting people but by online chats, messageboards and video conferencing. ---
**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, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/98 "2006-07-03T23:04:41Z")
In [_Islands in the Net,_](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0441374239/qid=1151967727/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-8696644-3496124?s=books&v=glance&n=283155) Bruce Sterling envisioned a society where some people have taken vegetarianism to the next level: Eating plants is unhealthy! Plants are full of **natural** insecticides! How can that be healthy for you or me?! So they won’t eat anything but “scop” – single-celled organic protein, grown in vats. That hasn’t happened **yet,** but it wouldn’t surprise me. If the [Breatharians](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breatharians) can get a following . . . In fact, it might not be such a bad thing if it did happen. Production of scop would have the lowest environmental impact of any food you can name. [the simpsons] LISA: I’m a vegetarian! HUNKY HIPPIE-BOY: Well, that’s a **start!** I’m a Stage-Three Vegetarian! I won’t eat anything that casts a shadow! [/ts] ---
**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, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/99 "2006-07-03T23:08:28Z")
> [@Gangster Octopus](#): > > Arthur C. Clarke’s **The Naked Sun** has a society (The Solarians?) who shun personal contact and communicate though long ditance visual (holographic I think) communication. They never leave their houses. I was thinking about how nowadays so many people have formed relationships and such virtually. not by leaving their houses and meeting people but by online chats, messageboards and video conferencing. Sounds a lot like E.M Forster’s [“The Machine Stops.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752/100 "2006-07-03T23:13:08Z")
> [@Gangster Octopus](#): > > Arthur C. Clarke’s **The Naked Sun** has a society (The Solarians?) who shun personal contact and communicate though long ditance visual (holographic I think) communication. They never leave their houses. I was thinking about how nowadays so many people have formed relationships and such virtually. not by leaving their houses and meeting people but by online chats, messageboards and video conferencing. Wrong writer: **The Naked Sun** is by Asimov, not Clarke. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-movie-or-tv-show-most-accurately-predicted-the-future/362752.md?page=6)