http://io9.com/5871053/robert-heinleins-predictions-for-the-year-2000-from-1952
I saw this a while back and found it again and Thot said I should post it here. Some pretty interesting things on the list. I liked this little gem- “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.” Almost right huh?
Here’s the actual list pasted in to make it easy to reference.
The United States will fight a “preventative” war? That one’s true.
So let's have a few free-swinging predictions about the future. Some will be wrong - but cautious predictions are sure to be wrong.
1. Interplanetary travel is waiting at your front door — C.O.D. It's yours when you pay for it.
2. Contraception and control of disease is revising relations between the sexes to an extent that will change our entire social and economic structure.
3. The most important military fact of this century is that there is no way to repel an attack from outer space.
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.
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.
6. We'll all be getting a little hungry by and by.
7. The cult of the phony in art will disappear. So-called "modern art" will be discussed only by psychiatrists.
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.
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.
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.
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.
12. Intelligent life will be found on Mars.
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.
14. A major objective of applied physics will be to control gravity.
15. We will not achieve a "World State" in the predictable future. Nevertheless, Communism will vanish from this planet.
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.
17. All aircraft will be controlled by a giant radar net run on a continent-wide basis by a multiple electronic "brain."
18. Fish and yeast will become our principal sources of proteins. Beef will be a luxury; lamb and mutton will disappear.
19. Mankind will not destroy itself, nor will "Civilization" be destroyed.
Here are things we won't get soon, if ever:
— Travel through time — Travel faster than the speed of light — "Radio" transmission of matter. — Manlike robots with manlike reactions — Laboratory creation of life — Real understanding of what "thought" is and how it is related to matter. — Scientific proof of personal survival after death. — Nor a permanent end to war.
Wow, Heinlein is as bad at predicting the future as a real psychic.
- The cult of the phony in art will disappear. So-called “modern art” will be discussed only by psychiatrists.
checks when this list was made
BWAHAHAHAHA!!!
1. Interplanetary travel is waiting at your front door — C.O.D. It’s yours when you pay for it. Not quite, though people ARE paying to get in to low Earth Orbit. (0-1)
2. Contraception and control of disease is revising relations between the sexes to an extent that will change our entire social and economic structure. I’m going to call this one a win. (1-1)
3. The most important military fact of this century is that there is no way to repel an attack from outer space. Not quite (1-2)
3. The most important military fact of this century is that there is no way to repel an attack from outer space. Pike is absolutely correct. I was thinking space ships reigning fire down on cities, but lobbing ballistic missiles in suborbital trajectories assuredly counts, and was one of the two very big threats of MAD (the other, of course, being the payloads on those ballistic missiles). (2-1)
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. Well, we invaded Iraq in 2001 (or was it early 2002?) so I’m giving this one on a technicality, unless someone can think of another not-protecting-ourselves-or-others example. (3-1)
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. Fail, though I wonder how far off this is. (3-2)
6. We’ll all be getting a little hungry by and by. Still hasn’t happened, thanks to GM crops (3-3)
7. The cult of the phony in art will disappear. So-called “modern art” will be discussed only by psychiatrists. This is pretty much a fail. If anything this has gotten “worse” though I don’t agree with him that “modern art” is “phony.” Some is crap, some is great. Just like with everything else in the world. (3-4)
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. I have no idea if the statement about Freud is correct, but I think the 2nd part is wrong. Someone correct me if something’s happened that I’m unaware of. (3-5)
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. FAIL, on all counts. (3-6)
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. The first half has been accomplished, in very small part, by robotic probe. The second is more a pipe-dream today than it was back then. (3-7)
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. You know what? This one’s so dead-on in all respects I’ll give him a pass on transmitting vision. It’s not like they couldn’t. It’s just that nobody wanted it. And today, face-time or whatever is gaining popularity. (4-7)
12. Intelligent life will be found on Mars. Wishful thinking much? (4-8)
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. Try 400ish miles an hour, but my last flight was close to a cent a mile. Still, the whole “evacuated subways” part pushes this squarely into the fail category. (4-9)
14. A major objective of applied physics will be to control gravity. I believe the major goal of applied physics today (besides keeping funding) is blowing things up. (4-10)
15. We will not achieve a “World State” in the predictable future. Nevertheless, Communism will vanish from this planet. Communism took a hit 10 years before 2000, but is still going pretty strong. (4-11)
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. I don’t understand the first part, but the second is laughably wrong. (4-12)
17. All aircraft will be controlled by a giant radar net run on a continent-wide basis by a multiple electronic “brain.” Yeah. (4-13)
18. Fish and yeast will become our principal sources of proteins. Beef will be a luxury; lamb and mutton will disappear. See above about GM food. (4-14)
19. Mankind will not destroy itself, nor will “Civilization” be destroyed. Hey! a win! (5-14)
[b]Here are things we won’t get soon, if ever:
— Travel through time[/b] Correct
— Travel faster than the speed of light Correct
— “Radio” transmission of matter. Correct
— Manlike robots with manlike reactions Eh, this one’s iffy but I’ll say correct.
— Laboratory creation of life I’m pretty sure this one’s a fail. I thought I read that someone did this last year.
— Real understanding of what “thought” is and how it is related to matter. That sounds like philosophy to me.
— Scientific proof of personal survival after death. Sure.
— Nor a permanent end to war. Ayup. These days you get them in pairs and triples.
So 5-14 for the “reasonable” predictions, and 6 (or so) out of 8 for the discounting of wacko predictions.
EDIT I corrected my numbers in that last line because I fail at count.
EDIT2 I correct it to reflect Pike’s observation below.
3. The most important military fact of this century is that there is no way to repel an attack from outer space. Not quite. (1-2)
Disagree there. That was the whole MAD thing.