Deja-vu or prediction ?

[the black fox]

Call me crazy if you want , but I’m a die hard sci.fi fan from way back , and one of my likes is to watch old films from the 50’s and 60’s … now our current world weather scenario .I.e excessive heat , reservoirs and rivers drying up , fires burning up forests all over the place ,coupled with weird rainfall events in other parts of the world . Fits the script of a book later made into a film , I have read and watched both .

The name of it “ the day the earth caught fire” the events in the book/film were caused by atomic testing throwing the earths orbit out of synch .. current events make me wonder if it’s not to far from a prediction . Don’t just base replies on the u.k look at events worldwide and join the dots . .???

The film is freely available on u.tube watch it and scratch your head

 

[Bobsyeruncle]

 

[Nod]

The beginning of the world was in the past, the end is in the future. Hopefully, I won't be around for the end any more than I was around for the beginning!

I just hope we don't manage "proper" space travel before we (as a species) go extinct - all we'll do is screw up the next place we inhabit.

 

[simon ess]

Good science fiction has more or less predicted a lot of things because good science fiction is based on science.

Arthur C Clarke and comm. sats. for example.

I think it was Heinlein who described a version of the internet in the 1940s. He called it Multivac.

There's one story about a writer, I forget who, published a short story involving advanced tech and got a visit from the CIA asking how he knew about that. The story may or may not be true.

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

current events make me wonder if it’s not to far from a prediction .

I doubt it could get much further from reality. The amount of water on this planet has been estimated at 333 million cubic miles. The only event that comes to mind as a possible cause of its total evaporation is the sun exploding (AKA going nova). So "The Day the Earth Caught Fire" doesn't really qualify as science fiction in my book ( sorry ).

For my money, good science fiction starts from good science fact and then extrapolates a future based on believable science and engineering. John Brunner's "The Shockwave Rider" is, in my opinion, good science fiction. Given when it was written, it makes a good fist of predicting a world that looks, in many ways rather like the worst aspects of our own. Arthur C Clark pulled off the same trick in a number of his books, He was wrong in detail but close enough in general to get a silver star for effort.

I'm of the opinion that most of what gets described as "science fiction" is nothing of the kind. It's fantasy fiction (and there's nothing wrong with that). Just don't think it even comes close to predicting anything, except by accident. In some ways, fantasy fiction is more honest than science fiction. It tells you lies, sweet little lies.

 

[Bobsyeruncle]

lies, sweet little lies.

Wonder where he "Nicks" that from?

 

[the black fox]

O.k the heats getting to me I think , what with that and Jeff bezo riding a giant dildo into space chasing the first virgin into space .. the worlds gone mad , Arthur c Clarke gave us a couple of talks when I was working on special effects on 2001 a very serious guy if I remember . We used to work till dinner time and spend the afternoon in a conference room getting lectures and watching takes ,voting on the music etc interesting days

 

[ancient_mariner]

The day the earth caught fire is pure unscientific fiction, but there has been lots of good solid stuff from sci-fi. Multivac was Asimov IIRC in Marooned off Vesta from 1939. I do recall the astronauts in 2001 a Space Odyssey having tablet computers, as did the Enterprise crew in Star Trek TOS.

 

[sphexx]

I'm of the opinion that most of what gets described as "science fiction" is nothing of the kind. It's fantasy fiction (and there's nothing wrong with that). Just don't think it even comes close to predicting anything, except

True but I think there’s an in between kind that’s usually called science fiction but is also a commentary on the current world. I can’t think of a suitable example at present because I haven’t read sci-fi for many years but Orwell’s 1984 (which wouldn’t usually be classed as either sci-fi or fantasy) is near what I’m thinking of.

 

[woof woof]

I liked the Asimov Foundation books but the idea that the thoughts and actions of the masses could be predicted and manipulated by an elite few is surely just too far fetched to ever happen.

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

Multivac was Asimov

Asimov himself was quite clear that Multivac was a parody of computing, as it stood when he started writing his loosely connected series of stories. The really interesting thing is that Douglas Adams then parodied Asimov's parodies when he created his "ultimate computer" joke in "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy".

Incidentally: it's claimed that a writer called Robert Townes persuaded Asimov to withdraw the first of the Multivac stories ("Question") which had appeared in "Computers and Automation" magazine, on the grounds that the ending was the same as that of Townes's story "Problem for Emmy", and which is the core of the "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" storyline!

Sometimes, the writing of science fiction is even more interesting than the stories themselves...

 

[ancient_mariner]

I liked the Asimov Foundation books but the idea that the thoughts and actions of the masses could be predicted and manipulated by an elite few is surely just too far fetched to ever happen.

OTOH I find the Idea extremely plausible - humanity en masse acting semi-statistically, rather than as individuals.

 

[woof woof]

OTOH I find the Idea extremely plausible - humanity en masse acting semi-statistically, rather than as individuals.

I was kidding... as I'm sure we're being manipulated all the time now,

Oh and another "Let there be light" moment is in Dark Star. I recommend that film, it has me in stitches and apart from being very funny is IMO a good sci fi film.

 

[Nod]

Wonder where he "Nicks" that from?

Staying (vaguely!) in science fiction, Stevie was once engaged to Captain Kirk but broke the engagement when she realised she'd be Stevie Shatner-Nicks...