I was re-reading the late John Brunner's science-fiction novel Stand on Zanzibar today and noticed that his record as a predictor is actually not bad. He wrote this novel in 1968, and apparently did a great deal of homework in the physical, biological and social sciences while writing - and it shows.
I took a few minutes to draw up lists of things John Brunner predicted would happen in his novel by 2010:
predictions made by John Brunner in Stand on Zanzibar (1968, Ballantine, New York):
predictions which have been realized:
- widespread use of genetic engineering in consumer and industrial products;
- extensive mapping of the human genome;
- use of genetic engineering techniques to confer un-natural colors to mammals (glow-in-the-dark mice in real life; in the book, it was red, purple and green dogs, among other things);
- use of commercial airliners for commuting to and from work;
- widespread use of international satellite television networks for news and entertainment (CNN, Sky News, al-Jazeera in real life; Engrelay Satelserv and Reuters VideoAsia in the book);
- “designer” (illicit) drugs with chemical structure and pharmaceutical properties unknown at the time the book was written;
- reversion of Indonesia (referred to as “Yatakang” in the book) to right-wing or centrist government;
- supercomputers so densely constructed as to require cooling by liquid helium (Crays in real life, Shalmaneser in the book);
- widespread online access to reference information from home and libraries through the telephone network;
- widespread change of sexual and family relationship norms and mores in industrialized societies;
- local restaurants which accept orders through the telephone/computer network and deliver to your home;
- China eclipsing Russia as a military threat to the United States;
- widespread adoption of military weapons and tactics (“SWAT” teams) by local police forces to deal with riots and other forms of violent public disorder;
- multinational corporations with resources exceeding those of many small nations;
- widespread commission of mass murder for little or no discernible motive by irrational individuals;
- widespread dissemination of formulas for explosives, poisons, incendiaries and other means of mass destruction by pamphlet, circular, magazine and online information services;
- widespread online access to literature;
- widespread online access to pornography;
- acts of mass destruction - terrorism - committed as political or religious protest;
- presence on American soil of organized bands of terrorist saboteurs;
- economic and political integration of Europe as a "super state";
- screening potential parents for genetically transmissible diseases or defects;
- majority rule in South Africa;
- hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell technology usable in automobiles;
- military side arms which can fire very small missiles with explosive warheads (the US Army’s XM25 25mm Counter Defilade Target Engagement System in real life, the “kazow” in the book);
- a technology for mining some metals from the bottom of the sea which has problems with profitability;
- territorial expansion of China into the Western Pacific (in real life, this is evidenced by the construction of military bases by China in the disputed Spratly and Paracel island chains, the establishment of a Chinese county government on one of the Spratly Islands and the dispute between Japan and China over control of the Senkaku Island chain);
- widespread use of atomic clock standards in clocks and watches;
predictions from Stand on Zanzibar which have not yet been realized (the book’s set in 2010, so there are a few months left... ):
-eugenic legislation to coercively prevent birth of children with genetically transmitted or somatic defects, including state-mandated sterilization and abortion;
- widespread legalization/”decriminaliztion” of marijuana and other psychedelic drugs;
- self-aware computer(s);
- a subculture of people who commit sabotage of public transportation, water mains, other parts of the “infrastructure” as a hobby;
- widespread use of hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell technology in automobiles;
- commercial power generation by nuclear fusion
- inhabited bases for scientific research on the Moon
- orbital weapons platforms (as far as we know);
- rapid transit by electrically accelerated trains in evacuated tunnels;
- “pocket nukes” using less stable fissile materials than do standard nuclear weapons;
- outlawing of tobacco altogether in the US and other industrialized nations;
- Puerto Rico requesting and being granted US statehood;
- request for and granting of US statehood to the Sulu archipelago in the Phillippine Islands;
- outbreak of open hostilities between the US and the People’s Republic of China in the Pacific;
- covering of Manhattan Island and environs ("Greater New York") by a large, single geodesic dome;
- elimination of internal-combustion engines and most personally-owned vehicles nationwide in US.
predictions from Stand on Zanzibar unlikely to be realized in the foreseeable future:
-eugenic legislation to coercively prevent birth of children with genetically transmitted or somatic defects, including state-mandated sterilization and abortion (issue: the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution forbids interference with a citizen's person to this degree; the Roe v. Wade decision could be interpreted as reinforcing a woman's right to bear a genetically-challenged child);
- rapid transit by electrically accelerated trains in evacuated tunnels (issue: excavating tunnels long enough to provide long-haul transportation across the United States would probably require the use of many directional noncontaminating nuclear explosives (see John McPhee's The Curve of Binding Energy). Apart from that, the metal for accelerator coils and power handling, together with the continuing power demand for vacuum pumps to keep the tunnels in vacuum make it questionable that there is any cost advantage to this mode of transportation. Maglevs are still more boondoggle than practical in the United States; doubtless in John Brunner's native Britain the situation is different, if only because the distance between Land's End and John O'Groats is shorter than the length of many American states.);
- “pocket nukes” using less stable fissile materials than do standard nuclear weapons (anything much more fissile than plutonium will have problems of radiotoxicity from either neutron flux or gamma radiation either directly or from daughter products. Californium-252, for example, was proposed for the pocket nuke fissile by Herman Kahn in On Thermonuclear War but in reality proved a non-starter - I've seen a californium-252 neutron source (nothing even close to a bare crit for an explosion) being moved from its dedicated semi into the Louisiana State University Nuclear Science Center - the evolution involved about eight or ten people pushing the 55-gallon drum in which a source the size of a nine-millimeter pistol cartridge was moved with very long poles to where an overhead crane could be attached to it for transfer into a dedicated very large pool of water. Anything fissile enough to sustain a nuclear detonation from a projectile launched from a sidearm would have similar radiological properties);
- Puerto Rico requesting and being granted US statehood (issue: the status quo of Puerto Rico - a Commonwealth with no representation in Congress, hence no liability for Federal income tax, yet which receives a LOT of Federal funding for its government operations has been affirmed through several elections and referenda. I personally don't see any reason for either Puerto Riquennos or Congress to pursue a change in status toward statehood. We own that dirt and can legally defend it. That's all we care about.);
- request for by and granting of US statehood to the Sulu archipelago in the Phillippine Islands (issue: absolutely no support in Congress for the inclusion of a "state" with several million intensely nationalistic potential welfare recipients and other folks eligible for extensive Federal subsidies and earned income credits, and several armed insurrectionist groups, at least one of which is an Al-Qaeda affiliate. As it is, we might lose Hawaii, Texas and Alaska sometime this century. There are strong secession movements in each of those states.);
- covering of Manhattan Island and environs ("Greater New York") by a large, single geodesic dome (issue: WHY? There's no overpowering social or economic good in such a structure, and the cost would be immense, both of initial construction and upkeep. There's also the issue of ventilation.);
- elimination of internal-combustion engines and most personally-owned vehicles nationwide in US. (issue: the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution assures that citizens have the right to be secure in their property; in practice, this has resulted in several legally proscribed items such as machine guns remaining in private hands when they were owned by an individual before they were outlawed. This is called "grandfathering").
This list is not exhaustive or definitive by any means, just a way of starting a discussion and honoring the memory of John Brunner; whether one agreed with his politics or not (I didn't, particularly), his contribution to futurism and science fiction is undoubted.
