The Sword and Laser discussion

In 1987, Writers of the Future asked fourteen sci-fi authors to predict what the world would be like a quarter century hence and then placed these prophecies in a time capsule to be open in 2012. So how'd they do?

Isaac Asimov

Assuming we haven't destroyed ourselves in a nuclear war, there will be 8-10 billion of us on this planet—and widespread hunger. These troubles can be traced back to President Ronald Reagan who smiled and waved too much.

Gregory Benford

Oil is running out, but shale-extracted oil is getting cheaper. The real shortage in much of the world is…water.

Most Americans are barely literate, think in images rather than symbols

Algis Budrys

in 2012 all storable forms of energy will be expensive. Machines will be designed to use only minimal amounts of it.

Sheldon Glashow

Japan will be the central economic power in the world, owning or controlling a significant part of European and American industries. This "economic dictatorship" will be beneficial to Japan's client states, since Japan benefits by keeping its customers healthy and wealthy. Indeed, a peaceful and prosperous world community will owe its existence to this Pax Japanica.

Gene Wolfe

• The Thumb—Power: America and the U.S.S.R. preserve an uneasy accord, each testing the other's will within well-defined limits. No major nuclear war has taken place. Soviets are more like Americans (and Americans more like Soviets) than anyone else.

• The Index Finger—Learning: Vestiges of reading, writing, and spelling remain in the curricula of the public schools. Those who can read a few hundred common words are counted literate. The schools train their students for employment—how to report to computers and follow instructions. (Called interaction.) Fifty million adult Americans are less than fluent in English.

• The Fool Finger—Entertainment: Sports and televised dramas are the only commonly available recreations. The dramas are performed by computer-generated images indistinguishable (on screen) from living people. Scenery is provided by the same method. Although science fiction and fantasy characterize the majority of these dramas, they are not so identified.

• The Ring Finger—Love: There is little sex outside marriage, which normally includes a legal contract. A single instance of infidelity is amply sufficient to terminate a marriage, with damages to the aggrieved party; this is a consequence of the two great plagues of the past 25 years. (I do not include the one we call AIDS, because it began well before this was written.) The population of the planet is below six billion. People live in space and on the moon, but their numbers are not significant.

• The Little Finger—Minority: A literate stratum supplies leadership in government and most (though not all) other fields. Its members are experimenting with sociological simulations that take into account the individual characters and preferences of most of the population. Its aim is to increase the power of the literate class and further limit literacy, without provoking war with the U.S.S.R. or alienating the rising powers—China and the Latin American block. A literate counterculture also exists.

Roger Zelazny

It is good to see that a cashless, checkless society has just about come to pass, that automation has transformed offices and robotics manufacturing in mainly beneficial ways, including telecommuting, that defense spending has finally slowed for a few of the right reasons, that population growth has also slowed and that biotechnology has transformed medicine, agriculture and industry—all of this resulting in an older, slightly conservative, but longer-lived and healthier society possessed of more leisure and a wider range of educational and recreational options in which to enjoy it—and it is very good at last to see this much industry located off-planet, this many permanent space residents and increased exploration of the solar system. I would also like to take this opportunity to plug my new book, to be published in both computerized and printed versions in time for 2012 Christmas sales—but I've not yet decided on its proper title. Grandchildren of Amber sounds at this point a little clumsy, but may have to serve.

So obviously that Zelazny's off his rocker with all those optimistic predictions, but everyone else was horribly, horribly right in predicting resource scarcity, mass famines and nuclear wars.

Zelazny's off his rocker?

When was the last time you wrote a check? I haven't in written more than 3 in the last year. The number of educational opportunities available now are ~staggering~ but no one wants to take them. They're not traditional opportunities, no. College is still expensive. But think about the last time you were curious about, say, the radius of Mars. How long did it take you to find out?

And he nailed the true goal/purpose/ theme of our time now: Marketing and Sales.

Rob wrote: "Zelazny's off his rocker?

When was the last time you wrote a check? I haven't in written more than 3 in the last year. The number of educational opportunities available now are ~staggering~ but ..."

YHBT, HTH, HAND.

"Most Americans are barely literate, think in images rather than symbols."

Getting there.

YHBT, HTH, HAND.

You have to believe, hope to hell, have a nice day?

Rob wrote: "YHBT, HTH, HAND.

You have to believe, hope to hell, have a nice day?"

Why are there so many n00bs on the Net these days? You can't even use a meme from the '90s anymore and have anyone get it.

You Have Been Trolled, Happy To Help, Have A Nice Day.

Glad I don't tweet either.

It is amazing how they can be dead wrong and perfectly correct in same paragraph, sometimes even in the same sentence.

A fair number of hits or almost hits to go with the way offs. I always think it's cute to read a "Japan will conquer the world through economics" prediction. We all so believed that back then. China best take note.

NO ONE predicted the return of square-bottomed knit ties.

These are awesome - thanks for posting! I am amazed at how right (and wrong) some of the authors were on different aspects. I wonder if they did so well because they were always speculating about the future in their works or whether all of us could be somewhat decent at predicting some things about the future?

Anybody know if there are there plans to do something like this again with sci-fi writers of our time?

Stephanie wrote: "Anybody know if there are there plans to do something like this again with sci-fi writers of our time? "

i don't know about sci-fi writers of our time but there was a show called FourCast that had guests on and they made and discussed various predictions about the future on every episode. It was really good. They ended it a few months ago but there is a large back catalog of shows to listen to if that sounds interesting to you.

link: http://twit.tv/fc (note: their individual website seems to have gone offline but this is a link to all their shows.)

Thanks Micah, I'll check it out!

Stephanie wrote: "Thanks Micah, I'll check it out!"

I forgot to mention that it is Tom that was 1/2 of the permanent hosts. The other was Scott Johnson on who's network the podcast feed is distributed. They are both very entertaining guys and always brought on great guests to discuss the future.

Is it me or is Shadowrun becoming eerily true...

I like that they did this...just shows how the future is still the big unknown...bummer Zelanzy isn't around to see this opened.

In my pocket, I have a device only slightly larger than a credit card. It can access basically any information in the world, take pictures and video, serve as a GPS, use for payment, and it allows me to share pretty much anything I want with anyone in the world almost instantaneously.

Given how crappy most land drivers are, I've always been happy to have traded flying cars for smart phones.

that is exactly why we need self driving cars be they flying or land bound...

I would trade smart phones for flying cars or even working long-distance jetpacks any given day.

I remember a late 90s interview with Bruce Sterling where said in general (and I'm paraphrasing heavily), SF authors are cultural commentators who generally predict extreme future scenarios and are frequently shown to be wrong, and thus they shouldn't be put in charge of anything. (This was also a dig at Newt Gingrich, who had just written the alt-history novel 1945).

I don't read a lot of futurists, but the one book I read that best predicted our present was Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.

That comic reminds me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZT...

I have a bunch of issues of FUTURE LIFE from the 70s (a spinoff of Starlog), and every issue they'd ask a bunch of authors/scientists/scifi personalities to prognosticate on a variety of questions. I should scan in those whole issues, but maybe I'll start with some of the "In the future..." predictions.