Three words sum up comic Lewis Black’s disappointment so far in the 21st century…
No. Flying. Cars.
OK, I’ve felt a little let down, too, brought up as I was on writers like Heinlein, Clarke, and Bradbury.
When I was a grade school punk, I really thought we’d be colonizing the stars by 2001, just like the movie promised.
Nope.
But an amazing number of predictions from the great sci-fi writers HAVE come true.
We’re just not paying enough attention.
For example, in 1964, the late Isaac Asimov wrote an essay imagining what 2014 would be like.
Here are just a few crazy thingamabobs he predicted 50 years ago…
— Microwaves (“Kitchen units will be devised that will prepare ‘automeals,’ ” Asimov wrote.)
— Internet (“Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone. The screen can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books.”)
— 3-D High-Definition Flatscreens (“As for television, wall screens will have replaced the ordinary set … In fact, one popular exhibit at the 2014 World’s Fair will be such a 3-D TV, built life-size, in which ballet performances will be seen.”)
— GPS (“Much effort will be put into the designing of vehicles with ‘robot-brains’ …”)
— Roombas (“…a robot housemaid; large, clumsy, slow-moving but capable of general picking-up, arranging, cleaning and manipulation of various appliances.”)
— Wireless Gadgets (“The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course, for they will be powered by long- lived batteries running on radioisotopes.”)
Pretty spot-on guesswork from a writer now dead 22 years, huh?
Wanna predict your OWN future with some reliability?
Here’s how —
Just keep doing the same stuff you’ve been doing for the past five years.
Or you could try this…
“The best way to predict your future is to create it” — Peter Drucker
