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GTOM
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I wondered, whether anyone in the past had written a story, that gave at least a good approximation of our present?
The Simpsons had an episode where Donald J Trump was elected president!GTOM said:I wondered, whether anyone in the past had written a story, that gave at least a good approximation of our present?
rootone said:The original Star Trek 'communicators' were an interesting bit of fantasy at the time.
Imagine that!, a pocket sized device that could be used to communicate with anyone anywhere who also had such a device.
Robert Heinlein, writing as Anson Macdonald, wrote "Solution: Unsatisfactory", in which nations arm themselves with radioactive dust. But since it is hard to defend against, the outcome is the same as with nuclear bombs: every dust-possessing nation becomes dependent on the goodwill of every other one.Do you see, then, that the important prediction is not the automobile, but the parking problem; not radio, but the soap-opera; not the income tax but the expense account; not the Bomb but the nuclear stalemate? Not the action, in short, but the reaction?
That is, technobabble. Or like this?There could be the excitement of a last-minute failure in the framistan and the hero can be described as ingeniously designing a liebestraum out of an old baby carriage at the last minute and cleverly hooking it up to the bispallator in such a way as to mutonate the karrogel.
Lots of visual-media SF is not much better about spaceships."The automobile came thundering down the stretch, its mighty tires pounding, and its tail assembly switching furiously from side to side, while its flaring foam-flecked air intake seemed rimmed with oil." Then, when the car has finally performed its task of rescuing the girl and confounding the bad guys, it sticks its fuel intake hose into a can of gasoline and quietly fuels itself.
Yes. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I feel like Frankenstein's monster every morning.GTOM said:I wondered, whether anyone in the past had written a story, that gave at least a good approximation of our present?
Brave New World is a dystopia, not an approximation, but I remember being a little bit taken by the idea of soma, considering the antidepressant prescription trends seen in many modern countries... (EDIT: I should add I'm absolutely not against antidepressants)Wikipedia article said:From birth, members of every class are indoctrinated by recorded voices repeating slogans while they sleep (called "hypnopædia" in the book) to believe their own class is superior, but that the other classes perform needed functions. Any residual unhappiness is resolved by an antidepressant and hallucinogenic drug called soma. (my bolding)
Still it's a prediction, as not all things (predictions) can be self-fulfilled, whereas the ones that they eventualy do it's logical and expected that they would! ...TeethWhitener said:There's also somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy to consider: Person reads SF story, thinks "Hey that's an interesting widget," goes on to invent said widget. I seem to remember Steve Jobs being inspired by some of the designs from Star Trek (but I could be making that last part up).
Walkie-talkies dated back to World War II, and it was not impossible to imagine a long-range one. In fact, I think that "walkie-talkie" is a nicer name than "communicator" -- though not much shorter, it is rhythmic.rootone said:The original Star Trek 'communicators' were an interesting bit of fantasy at the time.
Imagine that!, a pocket sized device that could be used to communicate with anyone anywhere who also had such a device.
Cell phones, smart phones, mini computres etc. are multi-tools, kind of like "Selma" in Time-Trax (with police captain "Darien Lambert" - 90's (Fox TV series) [1993]). "She" was a holographic super-smart portable mini talking computer (in a Universal AT&T card [at that time] appearence (for time-travel under-cover purposes)), equiped with multi-tool, credit card and mobile communications (AT&T at the time +/over the 90's internet) ... !lpetrich said:ST's communicators seem less capable than present-day low-end cellphones, let alone smartphones.
what about 'water world'?Ken Fabos said:I don't recall any stories featuring global warming, despite the "greenhouse" mechanism being a solid part of the scientific literature well before it came to wider public attention - yet I've read stories written after, set in near futures, where it failed to get any mention, even as general background. Including by some "hard" SF writers who could not have been ignorant of it. Stories featuring it rate their own category now.
Heinlein did seem to predict the loosening of censorship of matters sexual within broadcast media. I kind of wish his "shipstones" (ubiquitous energy storage devices appearing in "Friday") or something like them could end up being real.
To say it was unimpressed is praising itKen Fabos said:Simon, I don't recall stories with global warming before it became a significant public issue, ie predicting it. Plenty of SF I've never read or watched of course. "Waterworld" was released in 1995, 7 years after the IPCC was set up. I was unimpressed by that movie - well, by most SF movies; their makers almost seem to make a point of abandoning all scientific accuracy, as if including any at all must automatically make it boring or something. I suppose now it would be called an early CliFi movie.
I think that most or some of these things were already present in the 80's (at least in the US, e.g. credit cards and electronic IDs ...).MulderFBI said:The 1982 novel by Polish sci-fi author Janusz Zajdel titled "Limes inferior" (english Lower Limit). It foresaw the use of electronic wallets, credit cards, ID cards, biometric readers.
Stavros Kiri said:I think that most or some of these things were already present in the 80's (at least in the US, e.g. credit cards and electronic IDs ...).
+ I will really have to read the novel to form an opinion as to whether it really foresaw the present.MulderFBI said:You are right but in a communist countries those technologies were for sure not present.
Science fiction (SF) is a genre of literature that explores the potential impact of scientific and technological innovations on society and the human experience.
This means that the SF work predicted or imagined a future that has since become a reality in the present.
Some examples include George Orwell's 1984, which predicted the surveillance state and the use of technology for mass control; Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon, which envisioned space travel and the moon landing; and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, which explored the impact of genetic engineering and mass consumerism.
SF authors often use scientific research and trends in technology and society to inform their writing. They also use their imagination to extrapolate and speculate about potential future developments.
Studying these works allows us to reflect on the relationship between science, technology, and society. It also gives us insight into the human imagination and our ability to shape and be shaped by the future.