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Sci-Fi Writers of the Past Predict Life In 2012
cylonlover writes "As part of the L, Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future award in 1987, a group of science fiction luminaries put together a text 'time capsule' of their predictions about life in the far off year of 2012. Including such names as Orson Scott Card, Robert Silverberg, Jack Williamson, Algis Budrys and Frederik Pohl, it gives us an interesting glimpse into how those living in the age before smartphones, tablets, Wi-Fi and on-demand streaming episodes of Community thought the future might turn out."
I wonder if this is any more accurate than their predictions of the years 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, or 2010
This is vaguely interesting, but imo, near-term predictions of technological development aren't really what you go to sci-fi for. If you really want an accurate prediction 15 years out, there are more qualified but generally less exciting people to get it from than sci-fi authors: that's near enough that you really just need people with a good amount of historical knowledge, extensive information about current developments, and perhaps especially, accurate knowledge of current research progress, prospects, and bottlenecks. And a decent ability to synthesize and evaluate all those variables.
Sci-fi's strengths are, instead, more about what-if than what-is-likely. One kind is technological what-ifs, imagining (at least in hard sci-fi) conceptually plausible but not anywhere near buildable technologies and their results and implications; and ethical/political/etc. what-ifs, analyzing how future societies might operate (often in either dystopian or utopian visions).
At least, that's what I go to sci-fi for.
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Even when they're get something right, they usually miss the real use or significance of it, or they characterize it in some bizarre way. A lot of people predicted, for example, that people would one day all have computers in their homes, but they almost all botched how they would actually be USED.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Murray Leinster predicted the internet in the March 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction in a story titled A Logic Named Joe (full text at the link).
Murray Leinster predicted the internet in the March 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction in a story titled A Logic Named Joe (full text at the link).
Forster predicted "internet" social networking and remote shopping in 1909. http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html
L Ron Hubbard was a popular SF writer before he went nuts. (Or more (or less?) charitably speaking, before he figured he could accumulate wealth and power by inventing a religion.) A lot of writers go a bit weird in their old age (more specifically a lot of people go weird in their old age, but authors are in a pretty good position to publicize their own weirdness) but very few manage to go so far as to taint everything they've done before. Heinlein, James P Hogan, Terry Goodkind, Orson Scott Card, they all went a bit off the deep end later, but you can still admit to liking their earlier stuff and recommend that other people check it out without shame. (Well, except maybe for Orson Scott Card. I'll admit to liking his old stuff, but i'd be hesitant to suggest anyone actually support him by paying money for any of his books, even the older ones.)
For L Ron Hubbard though, Scientology has overshadowed everything else he ever did.
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David Brin is not included in these predictions, but he started writing a book called "Earth" in 1987 that had some interesting predictions of its own for the near future (2038, in his case).
-Networked computing connects all the people on the globe, and becomes the dominant way people access news and information.
-Computers shrink to the point where they become wearable, and people carry them around with them at all time.
-It becomes common for people to carry around small personal video cameras so they can record every moment of their lives. They then go home and upload portions of the video onto this computer network, sharing the videos for people around the world to see.
He later said of those predictions in particular. "... but I think the ideas were already latent -- almost obvious -- when I started writing the book...".