- Culture
Times Dystopian Novels Predicted Real Life Events
Science fiction can get eerily detailed sometimes, especially when displaying an imperfect, dystopian future. Well, at least we can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that it's all just stories, right? Well... not quite. You see, there have been times when dystopian novels have turned out to be terrifyingly accurate. From digital media to atomic bombs, we have seenthings predicted in dystopian novels enter real life, many in the last few decades.
Now, that's not to say thatreal-life stories from dystopian books come to pass every day.We aren't in a totalitarian society where we hunt each other for sport, we're still able to breed, and the world isn't completely frozen over. But there are rare occasions where fiction starts to feel less like stories, and more like prophecy.
"Fahrenheit 451" Predicted the Scourge That Is Reality TV
Photo: vaincomforts / flickr / CC-BY-NC 2.0Real people sometimes come home, hop into a chair, and then watch television shows all about the lives of other real, sometimes deplorable people. This is entertainment now. We just sit, watch other people's lives, and ignore our own for a bit. Sound familiar? If you read Fahrenheit451, you sure bet it does! You see, in this novel, everyone watches something called "The family." Basically, several walls of your home are screens that show the family and their trivial little problems so you can indulge in some escapism for a while. What's weird is that Bradbury predicted this kind of escapism TV back in 1953, before any of the current Kardashians were even born [that lucky man].Buy on AmazonTinder Is So Easy, But It Was Even Easier In "Logan's Run"
Photo: Devlin Thompson / flickr / CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0In modern culture, sometimes we don't have time for dating, so we turn to apps like Tinder and Bumble for assistance. However, we weren't the first to do that. In the novel, Logan's Runpeople don't really get married. Instead, if they needed to get some creature comforts, they would use a computer to find someone they wanted to have sex with. Then, if the other person was up for it, they would meet up and get busy. This prediction of casual dating technology comes from back in 1967, so it's actually hardly a new idea.Buy on AmazonWe Currently Live Under "1984"-Style Surveillance
Photo: Dallas1200am / flickr / CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0Buy on AmazonWho needs privacy anymore, right? 1984 certainly thought it was valuable, and made that point by showing a dystopian society in which we are watched all the time, no matter where we go and what we do, by an overseeing power called Big Brother. The thing is, this was written in 1949, before the days of home surveillance, airport cameras, and literally everything else we now have in our daily lives. No matter where we go, there are cameras all over the place. Now, whether Big Brother is always watching you depends on who you ask. Yet again, Orwell totally called it.
"Stand on Zanzibar" Creepily Predicted Many Aspects of Our Current Society
Photo: RA.AZ / flickr / CC-BY 2.0This novel may have been written in 1969, but it had some Nostradamus-esque powers. The number of things this book predicted about modern society is astounding. School shootings, China being an economic power, the European Union, Viagra, Detroit's poverty, laser printers, On Demand TV, hookup culture, and even electric cars are all aspects of Stand on Zanzibar, and there are even more similarities. The only thing that it didn't seem to predict accurately was widespread eugenics, so let's hope we don't see that aspect any time soon.Buy on Amazon