What past predictions of the future got right

[Kyng]

Many of us love to make predictions and prophecies about the future: it's a pursuit that's about as old as human history itself. Nowadays, we're still making prediction after prediction on a daily basis: some of these will come true, but many won't (especially given how contradictory many of these are). 

If we want to know what predictions of the future are likely to come true, then perhaps it's instructive to take a look at past attempts to predict what was then the future, and see what they got right. In this video, YouTube user Second Thought explores this, and lists past predictions from a variety of fields which turned out to be correct (and what turned out to be horribly wrong ): 



If you haven't got time to watch the full video, then here are some of the more interesting examples: 
 

• Self-driving cars were predicted in the 1950s (although, they also thought cars might have aeroplane-style controls - which never caught on, as they were complicated and unnecessary);
  
• People in the 1920s correctly predicted that we'd one day have our phones with us everywhere (although they thought the phones would be mounted on our chests!);
  
• By the 1960s, people were predicting that we'd one day be doing most of our learning on computers (although, their timing was off: they expected this to be the norm by 1999. In reality, this is still a work-in-progress, although things are definitely trending in that direction);
  
• Again, by the 1960s, there were pretty accurate predictions of people shopping on computers within the comfort of their own home (although, some of the earlier predictions had shoppers communicating with humans over a telephone);
  
• If these predictions were way off on anything, it was sociological change. For example, in the 'phone' prediction, only men had phones with them, and in the 'home shopping' prediction, it was still the husband paying for everything.
  
• Oh yeah, and if you make it all the way through, this video ends with a great ad transition  ! 
  

So, does anyone know of any other examples of past predictions of the future that ended up being correct?

[MegaphoneStallone]

Stopped when the ad came on!
Man, I love videos like this and I think it's hilarious the way they thought the patriarchy would live on.

[Deleted User 8]

The Simpsons had predicted that Trump would be president, in an episode aired in 2000. Sixteen years later, the show was right.

Coincidence? I think not.

[Kyng]

Reminds me of the "20 years from now" skits on Laugh-In in the 1960s and the 1970s . 

One of those correctly predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. (Granted, they went on to suggest that it would be replaced by a moat full of alligators, but getting something like that to the exact year is pretty impressive). They also made references to "President Ronald Reagan" - which got a good laugh from the audience, since he was regarded as something of a joke at the time!

(Sadly, I can no longer find a good clip of this on YouTube )

[Nick]

Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992) certainly made some predictions about the future that ended up wrong, but he did get some interesting ones right:

“Men will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better.” - According to the article, more and more of us are living in urban areas as time goes on.

“Gadgetry will continue to relieve mankind of tedious jobs.” - It's not difficult to imagine how automation has engulfed many areas of labor.

“Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence.” - Hard to contest this, if we take "robots" to refer to the humanoid-esque machines we find in Asimov's stories.

“Large solar-power stations will also be in operation in a number of desert and semi-desert areas.” - Fortunately, we are beginning to transition into solar-power by way of solar farms.

“Much effort will be put into the designing of vehicles with ‘Robot-brains.’” - The article goes so far as to call it an "arms race" to the production of self-driving cars.

“Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone.” - Facetime and Skype are some such examples of this.

While not all of these predictions are given precise timelines, it's interesting to see how past-humanity thought how now-outdated technology would eventually evolve into. Solar energy and self-driving cars, while not commonly relied on, seem so conceptually ingrained into our society that it seems almost foreign to think that we'd go in another direction.

[Eremurus]

Stopped when the ad came on!
Man, I love videos like this and I think it's hilarious the way they thought the patriarchy would live on.

It does in every single non-developed nation, though. 

[MegaphoneStallone]

Stopped when the ad came on!
Man, I love videos like this and I think it's hilarious the way they thought the patriarchy would live on.

It does in every single non-developed nation, though.    

Back in those days though, anyone who wasn't like their 'perfect white Western' selves was inferior. So let's not deny the American videos were not exactly a looking glass into the future of the world, they were a look at their future selves.

I'm not denying misogyny is a disgusting trait the world over to this day. It's a sad reality. But in the views of these people depicted at the times they were depicted, they were the enlightened ones...I guess not much has changed as perhaps we'd like to think - the West still has a superiority complex.

[Eremurus]

Stopped when the ad came on!
Man, I love videos like this and I think it's hilarious the way they thought the patriarchy would live on.

It does in every single non-developed nation, though.     

Back in those days though, anyone who wasn't like their 'perfect white Western' selves was inferior. So let's not deny the American videos were not exactly a looking glass into the future of the world, they were a look at their future selves.

I'm not denying misogyny is a disgusting trait the world over to this day. It's a sad reality. But in the views of these people depicted at the times they were depicted, they were the enlightened ones...I guess not much has changed as perhaps we'd like to think - the West still has a superiority complex. 

Please cut to the chase, I don't really know what you're trying to insinuate here.

[MegaphoneStallone]

It does in every single non-developed nation, though.     

Back in those days though, anyone who wasn't like their 'perfect white Western' selves was inferior. So let's not deny the American videos were not exactly a looking glass into the future of the world, they were a look at their future selves.

I'm not denying misogyny is a disgusting trait the world over to this day. It's a sad reality. But in the views of these people depicted at the times they were depicted, they were the enlightened ones...I guess not much has changed as perhaps we'd like to think - the West still has a superiority complex.   

Please cut to the chase, I don't really know what you're trying to insinuate here.  

- Mysogyny bad. Inexcusable. It's everywhere, but it's not everyone - developing nation or not. But it should be nowhere and no one.
- Racist attitudes at the time the clips in the video above shown were rife - and the western superiority was real. The apparent assumption in these videos were that the patriarchy would stay real where they were (The enlightened West) into the future, which is interesting now looking back over the last 60 years or so.
- The west (or so called developed nations) is still massively racist, still making everyone else (in their land or not) 'the other' and still has a superiority complex...Not to mention the rise of supremacy or nationalist movements lately.

I guess my point in a nutshell is, developed nations aren't so great either.
The problems may be different, but they're still pretty ****ing bad.

[Kyng]

Okay, we're getting wildly off-topic here. The only point here that's on-topic at all is "The apparent assumption in these videos were that the patriarchy would stay real where they were (The enlightened West) into the future, which is interesting now looking back over the last 60 years or so."

Can we please get back to discussing past predictions of the future?