5 Sci-fi Authors Who Predicted the Future - Augustman
Augustman Logo
Style
Culture
Gear
Food & Drink
Travel
Wellness
AM Select
E-Magazine
Most Trending
5 Sci-fi Authors Who Predicted the Future
Most Recent
5 Sci-fi Authors Who Predicted the Future
Most Trending
How Apple Leather Is Charting A New Frontier In Sustainable Fashion
Most Recent
10 Instagram Accounts To follow If You Adore Watches
  • Fashion
  • Watches
  • Grooming
Most Trending
Life in Edo | Russel Wong in Kyoto Exhibition Explores Japanese Culture And Craftsmanship
Most Recent
Lethal Weapons: Anthony Mackie And Sebastian Stan Discuss The Falcon and The Winter Soldier
  • Design
  • Events
  • Art
  • Music
  • Film & TV
Most Trending
Mercedes-Benz’s Carbon-Neutral Drive Begins With The Mercedes-EQS
Most Recent
Lost & Found: 5 Things You Need To Know About The Apple AirTag
  • Tech
  • Motoring
Most Trending
Pretty Sweet: Dolce & Gabbana And Fiasconaro Are Celebrating Italian Confectionery
Most Recent
Lost Distillery: Rare Brora Whiskies Are Going Under The Hammer
  • Dining
  • Drinks
Most Trending
Check Out These Lavish European Castles Available For Rent
Most Recent
Are “Health Passports” The Key To Restarting Global Travel?
  • Travel Guides
  • Hotels & Resorts
Most Trending
These Famous Athletes Also Run Successful Lifestyle Brands
Most Recent
Can’t Sleep? Try These Effective White Noise Devices
  • Fitness
  • Health
Most Trending
Unsportsmanlike Conduct: The Biggest Scams In Sports
Most Recent
What Makes You Happy? Singaporeans Reveal Their Top 50 Simple Pleasures In Life
  • Men of the Year
  • MVMT
  • August Mentors
  • A-Listers
  • Hit List
  • sg
    • MY
    • SG
  • Search
5 Sci-fi Authors Who Predicted the Future
Sort & Filter
Close Filter
Sort By
Date
Relevance
Filter By Category
All Categories
All
Style
Culture
Gear
Food & Drink
Travel
Wellness
AM Select
Apply
Filter By Location
singapore
All Countries
Culture
Lethal Weapons: Anthony Mackie And Sebastian Stan Discuss The Falcon and The Winter Soldier
Culture
Life in Edo | Russel Wong in Kyoto Exhibition Explores Japanese Culture And Craftsmanship
Culture
Live The High Life At These Most Extravagant Penthouses
Augustman Logo
sg
5 Sci-fi Authors Who Predicted the Future
Back
All  Style
  • Fashion
  • Watches
  • Grooming
Back
All  Culture
  • Design
  • Events
  • Art
  • Music
  • Film & TV
Back
All  Gear
  • Tech
  • Motoring
Back
All  Food & Drink
  • Dining
  • Drinks
Back
All  Travel
  • Travel Guides
  • Hotels & Resorts
Back
All  Wellness
  • Fitness
  • Health
Back
All  AM Select
  • Men of the Year
  • MVMT
  • August Mentors
  • A-Listers
  • Hit List
E-Magazine
  • Malaysia
  • Singapore
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
Sort & Filter
Close Filter
Sort By
Date
Relevance
Filter By Category
All Categories
All
Style
Culture
Gear
Food & Drink
Travel
Wellness
AM Select
Apply
Filter By Location
singapore
All Countries
Culture

5 Sci-fi Authors Who Predicted the Future

Darren Ho
12 Feb 2018
Article Hero Image
Trending Now
Lost & Found: 5 Things You Need To Know About The Apple AirTag
GearRead More
What Makes You Happy? Singaporeans Reveal Their Top 50 Simple Pleasures In Life
AM SelectRead More
10 Instagram Accounts To follow If You Adore Watches
StyleRead More
Lethal Weapons: Anthony Mackie And Sebastian Stan Discuss The Falcon and The Winter Sol...
CultureRead More
Here's your ticket to incisive commentary and insights from the celebrity sphere. Sign up for our newsletter.

Douglas Adams has been vindicated. Not because of the ‘Don’t Panic’ sign that was taped to Elon Musk’s Tesla’s dashboard. The Tesla he sent hurtling somewhere into the outer part of the solar system. (For which he wins the title of ‘Grand Nerd Wizard’.) If you didn’t watch the launch, it’s worth a quick view here.

 

‘Don’t Panic’, if you don’t know, is the tagline of Adams’ imagined Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s a digital book that is a universal encyclopaedia of life, the universe, and everything. Adams tackles a heavy issue in the book. He asks what the meaning of life, the universe and everything is, and offers an answer that is incredibly simple: 42. Now it turns out, Adams was right all along. A recent completed cellular study revealed there are 42 million protein molecules in our cells. Coincidence? Perhaps, but I don’t think that’s how Adams got that number right all those years ago.

 

Here’s my alt-truth: sci-fi writers are in fact prophets who foretell the secrets of the universe. Of course, not all sci-fi writers are prophets. Most of them are in fact nonsensical bullshitters who have never had a proper date. And some are just plain bad writers. But amongst the chaff are the true prophets. They write, unknowingly, the knowledge of the universe into their work.

Adams was a prophet. And so was the guy who wrote about driving a car through space. And here are some others I believe bore the Word of the Universe in their art. Only the future will reveal if our hypothesis is is true. Well that or twisting the truth to make sure they seem like true prophets.

1. Douglas Adams. See above. No further explanation needed, unless you are looking to understand the interconnectedness of everything.

2. Aldous Huxley. Not so much the socio-political climate of our world today which appears in some way to resemble the painfully apathetic nature of society, but of the way people were bred in artificial wombs and in a very real sense grown. There are plenty of other examples in sci-fi where artificial wombs are depicted, but Huxley represents one of the earliest depictions of such a reality.

3. Edward Bellamy. Looking Backward 2000-1887, was written by Bellamy in the late 19th century and he predicted Internet shopping and quick delivery (hello, Amazon Prime Now), debit and credit cards, universal credit, podcasts and the rise of socialism and nationalism. We may be 18 years late to the game, but his predictions over 130 years ago are remarkably accurate.

4. Ursula K. Le Guin. The late great lady of sci-fi describes a world in The Left Hand of Darkness where people have no fixed sex and are ambisexual. They adopt sexual attributes only once a month, with no predisposition for either sex. The evolution of gender and the end of gender disparities seems to have started, though not quite in the way she foresaw. (Image from LA Times.)

5. Arthur C. Clarke. Childhood’s End is an almost perfect observation of the space race as it exists today. The encountering of the Overlords, aliens who are benign overseers of our world supervising international affairs, is more than believable. (Remember the Oumuamua asteroid from out of this galaxy?) Perhaps they are already here and in 50 years, they will reveal themselves to all of civilisation. And let’s not forget his prediction of digital media and video communications in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

entertainment
science fiction
sci-fi
fiction
books
authors
Darren Ho
Talk to Me About:

Up Next For You

Dave Grohl Of The Foo Fighters Is Releasing A Memoir
AFP Relaxnews
Culture
Classic Books That Will Take Travel-Starved Readers Around The World
Manas Sen Gupta
Culture
What You Need To Know About Museum Of Ice Cream Singapore
Richard Augustin
Culture
Yung Raja Is Rapping His Way To The Top Of Hip-Hop
Richard Augustin
Culture
Here's your ticket to incisive commentary and insights from the celebrity sphere. Sign up for our newsletter.
×
Where are you?
Tell us so we can display what you want to see.
  • Malaysia
  • Singapore
Malaysia Singapore
Advertise About Privacy Policy Terms & Conditions
© 2021 Copyright Augustman
;