How-To Geek
Ray Bradbury’s Predictions about Future Technology that have been Fulfilled
Ray Bradbury wrote about many wonderful items of technology in his stories of the future, but you may be surprised to see just how many of them have become reality.
Note: Visit the blog post linked below to see the full-size version of the chart.
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Comments (6)
Akemi Iwaya (Asian Angel) is our very own Firefox Fangirl who enjoys working with multiple browsers and loves 'old school' role-playing games. Visit her on Twitter and Google+.
- Published 06/15/12
No he didn’t. These weren’t predictions in any sense of the word. These were imaginings, just like the countless other items in the books which have come nowhere near fulfillment. And in truth it’s not exactly a huge leap from the TV in the corner to one that takes up a wall, now is it? And an automatic teller is not even close to a bank staffed by robots .. it’s little more than a glorified chocolate bar dispenser.
This reduction of sci-fi authors to predictors of technology goes on all the time and it’s a very sad reflection on us. Bradbury’s fiction, like that of Clarke, Verne or Wells is concerned not with technology but with the human condition. The technology merely serves as the environment in which the human drama is played out and it is the inability to see this that so often is responsible for the downgrading of sci-fi as not ‘proper’ literature. It is time that the world learnt that the epithet ‘prophet’ which is so casually bandied about in this regard has absolutely nothing to do with prediction of the future and everything to do with the inevitability of human failing, be it comic or tragic, whatever the year and however ‘advanced’ the technology.
Barry, you seem grumpy today. If you don’t like articles just don’t read them.
Yeah, what’s up with all the “real science” proselytizing today? Some nimnol in the Trivia section was on a rant, too.
And while it may not be a stretch to some to see what is going on today and see what it might grow up be in the future, the harsh reality is that most people DON’T. The fact that Bradbury and others did–quite intentionally, thank you–does indeed make them “predictors”, not mere “imaginers”.
Not that I can imagine how anyone would have the nerve to denigrate imginers, either, since withiut them the world we know would not exist.
+1 Counter number 5. Relax Sir Barry and save the free pic as a wallpaper and thank HTG for their time to share it with us. Don’t forget how humble and free this info is. Thanks HTG.
Why so serious, Barry? Lighten up, life’s too short. Loved the post.
Who researches these things? Modern ATMs are from the 70s, I had earbuds in the early 1980s, and mono earphones predate Fahrenheit 451