[ExI] Is future progress moving to virtual reality?

[BillK]

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 6:08 AM, spike  wrote:
<snip>
> What are some of the other future visions?  Many, perhaps most of them had
> to do with advanced forms of warfare.  Now our most advanced forms of
> warfare are computer viruses.  Well, OK then, good deal.
>
> Where in 50  year old futurist literature do we find anything analogous to
> the modern internet?  I never saw it.
>

Remember, science fiction writers are not futurists. They are authors
trying to tell a good story. It is fairly easy to imagine a new
gadget. But more difficult to imagine all the societal implications of
said gadget. Especially as in the real future said gadget will likely
arrive along with many other gadgets and changes in society. An SF
story doesn't have room for pages of exposition about future society.

Who predicted the internet is a popular topic in SF.
Try this page for an overwhelming history of the many writers who
wrote about computers, machine intelligence and the internet.
<http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/computers>

Though they don't mention "The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster.
Published in The Oxford and Cambridge Review (November 1909).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops>
or even George Orwell's '1984' written in 1948 that had a two-way
screen in every room and constant surveillance.

No list is ever complete!


BillK