Yeah, Number 11 sure sounds like it panned out.
He had several near-misses, I’d say.
I’d give him #2, for sure, too.
17 is pretty spot-on as well. Most of the rest, not so much.
On balence most of the predictions are so far off that he is a false prophet indeed.
I wish 7 were true, but these days investors trump actual art lovers.
Number 8 is spot-on: a psychology writer recently commented that citations from Freud these days were rare to none.
The prediction about Communism is eerily prescient.
He has about the same accuracy as anyone predicting 50 years out.
He’d have really blown me away if he predicted the Cubs and Red Sox would still not have won a World Series since the early part of the century (true as of 2000).
He patted my hand. "Cheer up, Flicka. Always remember that, when things seem darkest, they usually get considerably worse. He took his phone out of his pocket and made a call. "This is Senator Fries. I want the Director... I just called to tell you that I'm coming by to stuff you into one of your own helium tanks. Oh, say about fourteen or a few minutes after. That should give you time to get out of town. Clearing." He pocketed his phone.
I thought we were suppose to have flying cars by now!
Mr. Heinlein seem to be suffering from a lack of cynicism when he made this set of predictions (I was never a Heinlein fan and would like to see his revised 1966 set). Just going by the 3 excerpted examples given, he should have realized that the coming about of item # 2, would have a profound affect on items # 1 & 3...
2. Contraception and control of disease is revising relations between the sexes to an extent that will change our entire social and economic structure.
Contraception did. Women are in the workforce to an extent unimagined in 1952, and the social structure is utterly changed.
3. The most important military fact of this century is that there is no way to repel an attack from outer space.
Accurate.
6. We'll all be getting a little hungry by and by.
He's right. I'm peckish right now.
11. Your personal telephone will be small enough to carry in your handbag. Your house telephone will record messages, answer simple inquiries, and transmit vision.
Dead on.
17. All aircraft will be controlled by a giant radar net run on a continent-wide basis by a multiple electronic "brain."
More or less.
19. Mankind will not destroy itself, nor will "Civilization" be destroyed.
True dat.
True, but he was by no means the first. The concept of a hand-held device serving as a computer terminal was described in the 1949 book "Giant Brains-or Machines that Think" by Edmund Berkeley.
"We can even imagine what new machinery for handling information may some day become: a small pocket instrument that we carry around with us, talking to it whenever we need to, and either storing information in it or receiving information from it."
I wish point 7 were true.
11 is bang on, 12 is ruled out
15 was incredibly accurate considering how inevitable communism's rise seemed in 1952
Number 11 is dead on. I’m posting this on an android phone. The one about cancer is almost true, since sciencists are looking aat the regeneration of limbs.
Well, he got about 3/19.
Boy, he really blew #4. We’ve done it several times.
Too bad about 12.
18 was a wide miss too. If anything, beef is even less expensive, while fish is getting more expensive.
While he was a socialist in his young adult age, he became so libertarian in his latter years as to provoke numerous attacks from the left. It is interesting that, almost a quarter-century after his death, many of his books are still eminently readable and enjoyable.
If you grok this, thank RAH and Michael Smith! If you have ever used a Waldo manipulator or slept in a non-patentable waterbed - thank RAH for the seed of an idea!
If you think Heinlein is dated, try some of these RAH quotes on for size;
One can judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all important and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down by authority. - "Doctor Pinero" in Life-Line (1939) Anthropogenic Climate Change anyone?
Every law that was ever written opened up a new way to graft. "Red Planet" (1949) Oxley-Sarbanes and MFGlobal?
I could go on but why spoil your fun.
1 is correct. We could send men to Mars if we were willing to pay for it. The tech exists.
2 is absolutely right. The massive changes to family structure could not have occurred otherwise. Arguably the most profound changes in our society are directly related to this prediction.
3 is still true.
4 was arguably disproved by the Iraq War, which was at least partially pre-emptive in nature.
5 has not yet come true, but this is at least partly because he didn’t foresee housing becoming a major investment, giving society an incentive to prevent new technology from reducing the price of existing housing stock.
6 untrue. He didn’t foresee the Green Revolution. There is less hunger now than ever in history.
7 is unfortunately untrue. I personally think it will come true eventually, but the phony in art is still dominant. However, the prediction is true insofar as the general public utterly ignores the phony in modern classical music, art, poetry, etc. The “artists” are producing for each other and a small pretentious elite.
8 came true, though we’re still working on it.
First part of 9 untrue, but we’re working on the 2nd part.
10 untrue, though more to a failure of will than a lack of adequate technology.
11 absolutely true.
12 untrue.
13 untrue.
14 is true. This is a major objective, though we still don’t have a clue how to go about it. There is no inherent logical reason why the gravitational force can’t be controlled as we do with the electromagnetic force.
15 true. Communism has disappeared in fact, though not in name, as a system of government. The motivations behind it, of course, continue to go strong.
16 was accurate, though the issue was dealt with by expansion of the use of absentee ballots and changes in residency requirements on a state level rather than by amendment to the Constitution.
17 could be true tomorrow, if we wanted to implement it.
18 did not come true, largely because of the Green Revolution which freed up land and other resources for meat production rather than grain to feed people directly.
19 is, so far, true.
I count 9 as accurate, with some of the others potentially or partially so. That’s a damn good percentage for 50 years out.
1. Interplanetary travel is waiting at your front door — C.O.D. It's yours when you pay for it.
Wonder what he'd think about Obama ceding space to the Russians and Chinese?
2. Contraception and control of disease is revising relations between the sexes to an extent that will change our entire social and economic structure.
Pretty darn close.
3. The most important military fact of this century is that there is no way to repel an attack from outer space.
Reagan was ahead of the game here, though the chattering classes and intelligentsia derided him. Space based attacks remain a threat, which we are choosing not to address.
4. It is utterly impossible that the United States will start a "preventive war." We will fight when attacked, either directly or in a territory we have guaranteed to defend.
Oops.
5. In fifteen years the housing shortage will be solved by a "breakthrough" into new technologies which will make every house now standing as obsolete as privies.
The subprime mortgage?
6. We'll all be getting a little hungry by and by.
Dang. I'm hungry now. Of course, I'm going to fire up the smoker in a few hours.
7. The cult of the phony in art will disappear. So-called "modern art" will be discussed only by psychiatrists.
If only.
8. Freud will be classed as a pre-scientific, intuitive pioneer and psychoanalysis will be replaced by a growing, changing "operational psychology" based on measurement and prediction.
LOL
9. Cancer, the common cold, and tooth decay will all be conquered; the revolutionary new problem in medical research will be to accomplish "regeneration," i.e., to enable a man to grow a new leg, rather than fit him with an artificial limb.
Swing and a miss, though the artificial limbs are getting pretty good.
10. By the end of this century mankind will have explored this solar system, and the first ship intended to reach the nearest star will be a-building.
I think he's just early on this one. Give capitalism time and it will happen. Wait on government and, well, wait.
11. Your personal telephone will be small enough to carry in your handbag. Your house telephone will record messages, answer simple inquiries, and transmit vision.
Nailed it.
12. Intelligent life will be found on Mars.
We still haven't discovered intelligent life inside the Beltway.
13. A thousand miles an hour at a cent a mile will be commonplace; short hauls will be made in evacuated subways at extreme speed.
Hard to do on solar and wind.
14. A major objective of applied physics will be to control gravity.
No, it's to control the climate (or, at least government grants).
15. We will not achieve a "World State" in the predictable future. Nevertheless, Communism will vanish from this planet.
...and reappear in the Oval Office.
16. Increasing mobility will disenfranchise a majority of the population. About 1990 a constitutional amendment will do away with state lines while retaining the semblance.
And around 2013, Texas will secede (assuming an Obama rigged re-election).
17. All aircraft will be controlled by a giant radar net run on a continent-wide basis by a multiple electronic "brain."
Heading in this direction.
18. Fish and yeast will become our principal sources of proteins. Beef will be a luxury; lamb and mutton will disappear.
Clearly, he didn't see the rise of Islam.
19. Mankind will not destroy itself, nor will "Civilization" be destroyed.
True.
I want to hear from the visionary who predicted the rise of the Welfare State that stunted much of the progress predicted by others...