Many years ago, Robert Heinlein (if you don’t know who he was, shame on you!) made a number of predictions based on his knowledge of science and human nature. They follow:
Robert Heinlein’s 19 Predictions –
This is what he wrote, in 1949 – published in 1952.
“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.”
Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov made similar predictions. (See: http://mentalfloss.com/article/57157/arthur-c-clarke-predicts-future-1964 and http://mentalfloss.com/article/54343/12-predictions-isaac-asimov-made-about-2014-1964 ) In each case, each man was partly right and partly wrong. Where they were wrong, they were almost embarrassingly off the mark, but where they were right it seems almost prophetic. These effects are less a function of the intelligence of the men involved (considerable in all cases), and more a reflection of human beings’ natural tendency to experience what I will call ‘parochial tunnel-vision’. We all believe that we’re the center of the universe and that nothing was as good, and people were stupider in the past than they are now. On the other hand, our forward vision is so murky, that we can’t clearly imagine a reasonable future. We believe, in fact, that we live at the pinnacle of civilization, and that things can only go Star Trek or Walking Dead from here on out. Both views are wrong.
Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein – often called the ‘Big 3’ of classic science fiction – were very intelligent, no doubt, but they suffered from the same blindness as the rest of us. The fact that they weren’t as blind as we tend to be, can be marked up to two things: 1) they knew their science and technology – better than most anyone of the time; and 2), they weren’t afraid to look like fools. In fact, each man stated in one way or another that the chief difficulty was to over-reach rather than under-reach when it came to prediction, because to be too cautious was to be absolutely wrong.
So, in the spirit of these great prophets of science-prediction, and with more than a little nod to my own monumental hubris, I too will attempt a look into the future. (Oy…) Ok, here goes. In the next 50 years –
- Intelligent life will be living on Mars… and among the asteroids, possibly on Venus. In short, we should see colonies spring up in five distinct areas: Mars, the Moon, the larger moons of the outer planets (includes various asteroids), Venus, and a number of independent space colonies. Children will be born in the next fifty years, and grow to adulthood, who have never touched Earth. This is not a ‘nice-to-have’ idea, it’s essential for humanity’s survival. More on that, later.
- Closely related – terraforming will become a growth industry. Terraforming Mars will be a problem – terraforming Venus will be a BITCH.
- Armed fundamentalist groups will attempt to overthrow the legitimate governments of their countries and establish a “Kingdom of Heaven”. This is not limited to the Islamic states and is in fact already beginning. These attempts will fail, but the ensuing chaos will not be fun. Violent suppression of all religion is a likely result.
- NASA will either cease to exist or revert to a job that government agencies do quite well – regulation and oversight.
- Commercial spaceflight will become the only kind. The possibilities for abuse are rampant, so I hope that NASA does stick around… just to keep everyone above board.
- Computer monitors, keyboards, mice and in fact the whole apparatus of modern computing will go away. Information Technology will take over. You will be able to summon a video on thin air in front of you anywhere in the world, modify it to your needs and use voice or mental commands to access any information, anywhere, anytime. Cell phones, laptops, pads and other hardware will also disappear. The resultant electronics industry collapse will be sudden and painful. Goodbye, Apple.
- Education problems will be solved in an unforeseen manner. What we will see is not an improvement in educational theory, but a complete change. Schools as we know them will cease to exist. Direct download of information to the brain is not unlikely. This also smacks of Big-Brotherism, so watchdog groups will spring up to protect the innocent. Since an entire liberal arts education may be ‘burned’ into a mind in a matter of moments, people will start to work at a younger age. Child labor laws will be modified. Day care centers will replace schools.
- Energy will finally become free to all, virtually unlimited, despite loud and sometimes violent attempts by the energy companies to stop or stall this outcome. If this happens concurrently with several other predictions here, the world economy will collapse and there is likely to be a global civil war. Our only salvation may come from our space colonies, so let’s get building!
- Because of the backlash against organized religion, it may become illegal to hold or promote ‘heretical’, non-scientific views. Hide your Bibles.
- There will be a brief flirtation with a ‘One World Government’ – the Internet will be both its bulwark and its destruction. Neo-feudalism may result, but city-states will be quickly subsumed by regional and ethnic states. Nuclear weaponry will be outlawed – on Earth.
- Fusion power will only be one of many new power sources open for business. Gravity will be harnessed. Cold fusion will be re-discovered and legitimized. We are less than 20 years away from the instantaneous transmission of inorganic matter. Organic matter (especially people) will take much longer to perfect.
- If you can transmit matter, you can rearrange it. Replication technology will reach full fruition, marking an end to poverty and hunger, but not violence.
- Between free energy, free food, free Internet and the collapse of most of the world’s economy, the daily lives of ordinary people will change radically. No, we will not get a Roddenberry future – initially it’ll be a huge mess, with near total unemployment, political upheaval and civic unrest. But people can’t live in barbarism forever, regardless of the doomsayer’s visions. Cottage industry, wholesale artistic revolution and ‘living mobile’ (moving constantly just for the adventure) will become the new norm for Earth-bound humanity. Monetary systems won’t go away, they will become playthings.
- Space-bourne humanity will create most of the new technology, much of the new art, and all of the new multi-planetary economy. Get used to the idea of ‘credits’. Cryptocurrency will become the only kind. Space will spawn the first multi-trillionaires.
- Starflight will become possible, in terms of human lifespans, and the Great Diaspora will begin. This event will mark the end of humanity’s vulnerability to local disasters. ‘Armageddon’, if it even happens in the next 100 years, will be a local problem.
- We will find ways to repair the damage we have done to Earth.
- There will be a ‘Next Testament’.
Some will say that this list doesn’t go far enough, others will say I’ve gone too far. I’m only calling things as I see them. The changes, wonders and terrors I have related do not mean we are destined to live in a Paradise on Earth, with all social ills only a distant memory – far from it. People are still selfish, greedy and stupid on the whole. There will still be violence, rape, discrimination and murder. In fact, unless drastic measures are taken, the gentrification of humanity is likely to result in ever increasing trouble, just from boredom. I will deal with this issue in other places.
This list is not all-inclusive, either, but for brevity I couldn’t put down everything. Only time can show how close I’ve gotten with some of this stuff, but I feel pretty confident in my conclusions. I think ‘Admiral Bob’ would approve.
TGC
Note: this blog is a re-issue of a rant I put out a number of years ago. Still relevant.