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From blind fortune-tellers to tech experts, many throughout the years have had a go at predicting the future – with varying levels of success.
One such look forwards through time is a reader’s digest called Saturday Review World published in August 1974.
The issue speculated on what the world would be like 50 years into the future – 2024 – and featured thought pieces from famous names like Neil Armstrong, Wehrner von Braun, and Jacques Cousteau.
The 136-page issue features ‘Clippings from tomorrow’s newspapers’ written by iconic sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov, famous for introducing the ‘three laws of robotics’.
He also wrote I, Robot, a collection of sci-fi short stories published in 1950, which inspired the 2004 film of the same name starring Will Smith.
Asimov’s feature, imagining news stories written 50 years into his future, suggested he thought humans could have a colony on the moon – not quite a reality today.
But what did he get right, or wrong? Metro takes a look back.
Quarter-millennial plans to feature nostalgic end of the United States
This speculative article imagines that a ‘global economic board’ was set up in the 1990s.
It suggests that borders and divisions between countries have become much less important, reducing ‘the divisions of the world population on racial, linguistic, and cultural bases’.
Asimov then suggests that in 2026 the United States would no longer be considered an individual country – warning that this could spark ‘demonstrations of large size’ from nationalists.
It’s safe to say this hasn’t come to pass, with national and cultural identity just as important as ever for many.
There is the World Economic Forum, which could fulfil the role of Asimov’s ‘global economic board’, but the WEF was established in 1971 meaning he may have already been aware of or inspired by the concept.
Lunar colony dedicates new division
Not only does this article imagine there would be humans living on the moon in 2024, Asimov also speculates that among these are ‘native Lunarites’ – 38 children aged between two months and 11 years, who were born and raised on the moon.
The piece predicts that by the end of the 21st century, the moon will feature 5,000km of tunnelling and be home to about 500,000 people.
There’s not much to say on this one, except that the possibility of humans living on the moon is nowhere near fruition in reality.
Remember chickens?
This piece seems to suggest at a future of veganism, calling chicken ‘old fashioned’ and suggesting eating ‘chicken-flavoured pressed-nut-bean loaf’ would be easier than keeping and breeding poultry for yourself.
The piece also says ‘their eggs are quite edible if correctly prepared’, imagining a future where swathes of the population have forgotten the taste and preparation methods of animal products.
Again, Asimov’s prediction misses the mark a bit.
While vegan diets are growing in popularity, with the range of imitation meat products growing each year, they’re certainly not the norm or anywhere near to replacing the popularity of meat just yet.
Ecto-baby celebrates first birthday
This piece seems to hint at the possibility of IVF and other fertility treatments becoming more easily accessible in the future.
Jenny, ‘the little girl with the glass mother’, is described as the first test-tube baby developed in a ‘glass placenta’ to survive more than one month past term.
IVF was first developed in the late 1970s, a few years after the article was written, and treatments have come on leaps and bounds to allow more and more parents to have children.
However, although some babies born extremely prematurely can be placed into an artificial womb to allow them to gestate outside of the body, the possibility of babies fully developing outside of the womb from conception to birth is definitely still within the realm of science-fiction right now.
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