Posted on 07/25/2012 10:09:45 AM PDT by JerseyanExile
Well, at least he got one prediction correct. According to wikipedia he is indeed old but not dead...
One of my idle fantasies is to buy a used copy of that same book and go through the then-experts' predictions - and not grade them gently, either. Just goes to show you, the future really is unpredictable.
He's had to have left some half finished manuscript in his attic. I'll wait for the promised publishing date later this year. I'll even buy the Nook version since he said I could get a computerized version. :-(
The average American will be a pathetic round-bottomed weeble-wobble with WHITE TEETH AND the attention span of a gnat and glued to the television,
I have told my wife history will show us to be round people with white teeth. LOL
It’s fun to see the bulls-eyes. Zelazny got the death of cash and e-books. Benford got the economy and came pretty close on text speak. Feinberg nailed medical imaging.
Asimov died a short five years after his lame predictions. Either he didn’t take this opportunity seriously or his powers of observation and cognition were sliding remorselessly down hill.
Orson Scott Card was a boomer in his peak years and his predictions were spot on.
*ping*
Most of these guys are left-wing nutbags. Asimov’s answer, however, is so flippant that I can’t help but think he was being sarcastic, perhaps taking a jab at those who, at the time, blamed everything on Reagan, from AIDS to starving peasants in Africa.
Gene Wolfe is pro life, very conservative both thought and actions.
Robert Silverberg is my favorite author.
Just as soon as Spider Robinson gets around to channeling him, it’ll be written.
BFL
So was Asimov being a tool or was that sarcasm?
Orson Scott Card...the re-tribalization of Africa
Well, he got that one correct, only he probably didn’t know it would take place in large US urban centers!
Unfortunately Asimov was being a tool.
In his “Science” columns in the mag F&SF he predicted that man would consume the entire mass of the solar system in a few hundred years at the rate of growth of the 70s.
I believe he was also the force behind getting the SF writers to take out the public ad against the Vietnam war. He never outgrew his NYC liberalism.
Wish that were true. I read the timeless Foundation trilogy in the 11th grade (written in the 50s as I recall) and after was delighted to learn Asimov had penned a second trilogy of the books maybe a couple of decades later — until I read the politics-laden leftist tripe which, as I recall, had the surrender of human autonomy to some “Gaia” (sic?) Earth entity, evils of human persuit of resources/leisure being the main thrust. The books were just painful and exhausting to get through: zero reward for reading, exactly zero resemblence to the original books. Asimov, like so many others, didn’t age like fine wine.
I wonder what a hundred random sci fi writers from 1987 would say if they were told that in 2012 the United States of America no longer would have the capacity to send a single man into Earth orbit, much less to the moon or beyond. Not a consequence of nuclear or globally destabilizing war or other catastrophic event, just the inevitable fallout from social engineering and wealth redistribution most of them likely supported.
What a pity. I guess it proves one can be a genius in one field, and be a complete buffoon in other endeavors.
Bm
Mostly wrong. None of them foresaw the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of Islam, the death of the American space program, or the election of anyone like Obama.
I like Card a lot. He's pretty spot-on sometimes.
Those of you who like hard military SF who haven't already should check out John Ringo. I just finished reading the last book of the Alendata series. It rocked. if you go to Baen.com's free library, you'll find the first couple of books availsble for free download. He's fairly conservative, and generally fairly hard on the muslim hordes. If you get to the book "yellow eyes", you'll like his commentary at the end about the modern-day 'elite'.
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