The oldest literary prophecy

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Baldanders

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Hi, all! How is it going?

Science fiction' cool, but, for me personally, the most valuable are works, which predicted things. There are a lot of examples, I guess, the last significant one in my life was the video game Death Stranding, which predicted isolation and even dinosaurs with umbilical cord (not a word-to-word prophecy, but still close enough to reality to be noticed by news agencies and people, and call Kojima genius again :sneaky:).

With all of this in mind, what's the literary work you can remember with something, that in time appeared to be real? Not just technologies themselves, but their influence on humanity too.
 
A book I loved as a young adult, and read many times, was A.C. Clarke's The City and the Stars. The book opens with Alvin and his pals engaged in an immersive virtual reality game. From memory it seems to them that they are battling creatures in a jungle. None of the kids has ever seen a jungle IRL, for they have never left their city, Diaspar - a city-in-a-bubble in the middle of a vast desert. This sort of 3D, immersive VR is almost upon us now - not bad for a book published 67 years ago. And I suppose the role the tech plays in the future world of Disapar is that of allowing people to 'experience' environments that have been lost to humans for countless aeons. This VR system is thus a memory bank of sorts.
 
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The Lord of the Rings isn't science fiction, but the picture of the Shire has foreshadowed a back-to-the-land movement since at least the 1970s. (There is an unwritten book about the influence of Tolkien on small farmers. communitarians, small-is-beautiful homeschoolers, etc.)

I don't know if the forthcoming book Small Farm Republic will have any Tolkien references, but it would seem entirely appropriate if it did.

www.smallfarmrepublic.com

John Klar

www.smallfarmrepublic.com www.smallfarmrepublic.com
 
Baldanders said:
With all of this in mind, what's the literary work you can remember with something, that in time appeared to be real? Not just technologies themselves, but their influence on humanity too.
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Noting your name here, I'm going to say The Book Of The New Sun. Far future wonder on a dying Earth...
 
The Machine Stops by E M Forester Written 1909 this short story, by writer not generally known for science fiction, to all intents and purposes predicted social media an from of the masses talking back and forth akin to the internet.
 
BAYLOR said:
The Machine Stops by E M Forester Written 1909 this short story, by writer not generally known for science fiction, to all intents and purposes predicted social media an from of the masses talking back and forth akin to the internet.
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Read this long ago & disliked it intensely (probably too young!). It may have predicted the internet & social media, but IMO it was predictive more in the sense of people becoming more house-bound, less active, more insular. We are never told why people now live in their rooms but clearly sthg has happened that has made this necessary. Today, it's more like internet/social media is what is making us want to conduct our social lives at a distance from others. Even when they're in public places, many people spend most of their time 'elsewhere' as they stare into their phone. So even though they are physically 'in the world', in a social sense it's as if they are in their room.
 
The World Set Free H G Well 1914 predicted atomic weapons

The Clockwork Man by EV Odle 1923 Appears to be the first Cyborg novel .
 
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In Isaac Asimov's Foundation. you have holograms .
 
There is a book from 1963 that describes all the ways that Jules Verne predicted future technology. Great book if you haven't read it.

Jules Verne: The Man Who Invented the Future​

www.goodreads.com

Jules Verne: The Man Who Invented the Future

The amazing life story of the person who is considered …
www.goodreads.com www.goodreads.com

Here is a review from Amazon that summarizes the biography well:
Somewhat simplified biography that is interesting in explaining why Verne became successful based on his interests and abilities. Emphasizes Five Weeks In A Balloon, From The Earth To The Moon, Round The Moon, Adventures Of Captain Hatteras, Journey To The Center Of The Earth, Captain Grant's Children, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Around The World In 80 Days, Mysterious Island, and to a lesser degree The Begum's Fortune, Propeller Island, The Barsac Mission, Carpathian Castle, Robur The Conqueror, Facing The Flag, Diary Of An American Journalist and Invasion Of The Sea. It also discusses people who were influenced in their careers and inventions by Verne.
 
Many believed, including Herman Melville, that Moby Dick was largely influenced by the November 20, 1820 sinking of the Essex, a whaling ship out of Nantucket, Massachusetts.

What is also true is that now, there are Orcas attacking ships near Gibraltar.

www.smithsonianmag.com

Orcas Are Breaking Rudders Off Boats in Europe

These interactions around Spain and Portugal might be a trend among juveniles, scientists say
www.smithsonianmag.com www.smithsonianmag.com

I, for one, do not believe the current whales are influenced by Melville. But I could be wrong.
 
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Cthulhu.Science said:
Many believed, including Herman Melville, that Moby Dick was largely influenced by the November 20, 1820 sinking of the Essex, a whaling ship out of Nantucket, Massachusetts.

What is also true is that now, there are Orcas attacking ships near Gibraltar.

www.smithsonianmag.com

Orcas Are Breaking Rudders Off Boats in Europe

These interactions around Spain and Portugal might be a trend among juveniles, scientists say
www.smithsonianmag.com www.smithsonianmag.com

I, for one, do not believe the current whales are influenced by Melville. But I could be wrong.
Click to expand...

Ever hear of the Bitting Sperm Whale ? it named Livyyan Melville in honor of Hermann Melville It lived in the oceans roughly about the same time as the Megalodon shark. It was the same size a Sperm whale but unlike a sperm whale it had teeth in both upper and lower jaws and each tooth was over a foot long , It hunted on other whales and some have conjectured that it may have battled Megladon.
 
A Logic Named Joe by Murray Leinster 1946 also predicted the Internet.
 
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