Re:An Optimistic History of the Next 40 Years
by tomjen3 on Saturday January 07, 2012 @11:38AM
(#3437323)
The space travel thing didn't turn out as they guess, but on the other hand we now have regular cheap plane travel -- an ordinary guy can hop on a plane from Europe to New York without breaking the bank.
Not to mention the fact that you can even read what I am writing -- thousands of miles away, after it has been beamed through space and traveled under the Atlantic. Aside from This Perfect Day I don't know any science fiction which deals with an extensive communication network like that. And even in that book it was strictly used to control and lord over the citizens.
Re:An Optimistic History of the Next 40 Years
by notahacker on Saturday January 07, 2012 @09:57AM
(#3437106)
A corollary to Arthur C. Clarke's observation in the original article:
The most daring prophecies about space travel and AI will increasingly seem "laughably conservative" only inasmuch as they fail to change from decade to decade apart from the dates
There's a rule that anything impossible is always 20 years out. Perhaps a corollary: anything that's truly fanciful should be predicted for 40 years from now -- far enough away for audiences to have no idea of the practicality but close enough that most of them will enjoy reading it because they like believing such things might occur in their lifetime.