In your opinion, what sci-fi story do you think will be the most accurate for our future?

[Squilookle]

Why does The Fifth Element come to mind?

Oh yeah, because McDonalds is still around in it. That sounds pretty distopian (and accurate) to me.

Also those apartments are totally what it will be like in the future.

 

[Corven]

I'd say Idiocracy looks to be where we're headed if we look at things realistically.

Not this again. Look, I know Idiocracy is touted by pseudo-intellectuals as some great prophetic film but really it?s just a comedy movie. It?s a good comedy movie but it?s just a comedy movie, and frankly the only way humanity would collectively be brought down to that level of stupidity is if some force caused civilization to reset from square one. So short of someone proving the impending collapse of all of human civilization I would appreciate it if people would stop saying ?Idiocracy? or at least, you know, explain how it gets to that point.

I?m sorry but this just really bugs me.

Take a chill pill dude I was just being contrarian to other users answers of how they think humanity will mirror things like star trek and such.

I don't honestly think there is an increase in the amount of stupid people today, There have been stupid and ignorant people throughout history, but we don't tend to document what stupid people have to say in the history books.

Whereas today the amount of ways ignorant people have found to broadcast themselves to the public, and have their message have some sort of permanence, has increased.

 

[MetroidNut]

Most accurate depiction of the future? Probably something by Asimov or Clarke - something truly timeless. Beyond that, everything is a product of its time. For example, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a magnificent game, and part of the reason is that it doesn't show a realistic future. It instead shows the early 2010s' idea of the future - all our hopes and fears about technology, recession, and corporate power realized. That's what makes it so poignant, but it means that its vision of the future can't come to pass, just like Aliens can't, and just like Star Trek can't. They're all too rooted in the present they come from to really be the future.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

What sci-fi like star trek, 2001, and some Asimov have taught me is that we can't predict how technology will turn out. I say that the future won't be anything like what it is presented in sci-fi today. Though if I had to choose I would say... well, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Minus the space baby ending and a different date.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Most accurate? Quite simple really.

Spoiler

OT: IT actually quite undecided at this point. If the conservatives get their way, then 90% of the population with be a bunch of mind numbed idiots, who shout and cheer at anything that backs their patriotism/religion.

If the liberals (or whatever is the opposite) get their way then anything could happen.

 

[Da Orky Man]

I can't say I've ever seen a sci-fi anything that is even close to being possible. Really, if you looked at 50s/60s sci fi, none of them come anywhere close to us now. They always expand on the tech they had now, missing the entire Information Revolution. The world in 50 years time will be just as odd to us as now is to a 60s hippy.

 

[hino77]

Probably some amalgamation of cyberpunk stuff, like Deus Ex. Corporations getting more and more power, selfaugmentation, that sort of thing. We are so close to a future like that, we can basicaly see it on the horizon, we only need technology to advance a little further(based on what we see today, it`s not unrealistic) and couple of things we see today go more hardcore. Though i hope its more Star Trek than Blade Runner.

 

[Esotera]

Some horrible future where everything is more expensive & the earth is a lot less forgiving. There's an energy crisis, population crisis, and the earth has just started responding to global warming. The internet (or its succesor) is still around though.

Basically like the third book in the Destiny's Children series (Stephen Baxter).

 

[Asclepion]

Ideally: The Culture. A utopia run by AIs that are millions of times more intelligent than a human.

More likely: Any story where humans cause their own extinction.

 

[Asclepion]

For instance, I could easily see Halo's UNSC and its technology, politics, ship design, etc as our future 500 years from now.

You're out of your mind.

Halo still uses 7.62x51mm NATO rounds. In the 16th Century, the most powerful weapon was the cannon, which could put a good size hole in a castle wall. In the 21st Century the most powerful weapon is the hydrogen bomb, which can put a good size hole in the planet.

In the 26th Century, I sincerely doubt humans will use 500 year old weapons. If humans as we know them exist at all.

 

[Fluffythepoo]

Sadly im unaware of any movies based on a Malthusian catastrophe dark enough to realistically show our future. They always make the mistake of keeping up the pretense of "survivors" either managing to eek out a living or escaping from the planet before it happens. We would need to drop alot of our irrational optimism if we ever hope to aim for a realistic future or even a accurate portrayal of one. Beyond that probable near future, They will never make a movie about the far future as movies about dead planets with just irradiated rocks and nothing going on arent likely to sell big at the box office.

Spot on, I think the phrase dystopian wasteland sums it up for me. I think we are way more likely to run out of resources or wipe ourselves out through nuclear war then before we ever get off planet and start raping the universe of its infinite resources which is the ONLY way we wont end up wiping ourselves out if you look at current statistics and the trends associated with them.

EDIT

Which is quite sad because the only thing stopping us from being a space faring nation is the fact that we cant function as one cohesive world level/united social structure and this type of endeavor takes UBER co-operation and shared resources and thought/man power and we just aren't ever going to be that nice to each other.

In the short term future we are already seeing cyberization and eugenics offering multiple paths for man to manipulate there own evolution but I couldn't make a guess how that will tun out because wide band social morals dictate greater change and I don't know if we will ever find a comfortable moral ground for there deployment within our social paradigms.

Also even if we covered the planet in a nuclear winter we would only be killing of life as we know it, eventually the planet would start to generate life again. Its incredably hard to kill a planet it takes other solar entity's (comets, suns going super nova ect) and we are no where near that powerful.

Currents data indicates a systemic exponential decline in violence that started about 10 thousand years ago (coinciding with the rise of agriculture). We now live in the most peaceful time known to man and its only getting more peaceful.


OT:
For the next few decades a rise in nano technology and virtual reality is all im sure of.. something along the lines of a matrix-esque virtual reality environment becoming a common way to interact with other people would not be unreasonable (minus the evil yet adorable mechanical squids)

 

[Korten12]

For instance, I could easily see Halo's UNSC and its technology, politics, ship design, etc as our future 500 years from now.

You're out of your mind.

Halo still uses 7.62x51mm NATO rounds. In the 16th Century, the most powerful weapon was the cannon, which could put a good size hole in a castle wall. In the 21st Century the most powerful weapon is the hydrogen bomb, which can put a good size hole in the planet.

In the 26th Century, I sincerely doubt humans will use 500 year old weapons. If humans as we know them exist at all.

While I may not agree technologically, I can easily see bits and pieces of UNSC history taking part. Since up till the Human-Covenant War, everything is pretty sensible to happen. Insurrection, Interstellar War, etc... Also the whole UEG, ONI, and UNSC I can easily see coming to reality. I doubt the same names but similar concepts.

Also to be fair on the bomb part, their is the NOVA bomb in Halo which can destroy a small planet with just one of it and nearly destroy an average planet.

While I understand people would love to see a Star Trek like society become our future, I just can't see it. That's coming from someone who is actually very optimistic about the future.

 

[Volnamix]

Call me cynical but my guess is something close to Soylent Green...

 

[LarenzoAOG]

Dead Space.

Runaway population growth, utter lack of resources, government subjugated by big businesses and Totally-Not-Scientologists.

Don't want to sound like Debby Downer here but while playing through all three Dead Spaces recently couldn't help but think, "Really doesn't seem to far-fetched."

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Yeah, call me a cynic, but I don't see most of sci-fi becoming real anytime soon. Some parts of it, yes, but as whole entities most sci-fi universes are just implausible. Plus I don't even read or watch sci-fi that much. If there was a sci-fi story that told about humans in a world which has been vastly depopulated (into like 500 million people at most), cooperating, developing new technologies based on our own and eventually reaching for the stars, I'd pick that.

Plus no flying cars. Absolutely not.

 

[Kyrian007]

Well, to unfairly hedge any actual bet I'd say Arthur C. Clarke's "The Fountains of Paradise." It seems very reasonable and we're nearly there with the technology now (just missing a few major things we could develop in the next century or so.)

If I were being more pessimistic I'd still go with works that have sound scientific theory like the classics of Clarke, Heinlein, or Asimov; but chose a more of a downer type work. Mid-range would be something like "Songs of a Distant Earth" or pessimism would be "Hammer of the Gods" or Clarke and Baxter's "Light of other Days."

 

[Asclepion]

While I may not agree technologically, I can easily see bits and pieces of UNSC history taking part. Since up till the Human-Covenant War, everything is pretty sensible to happen. Insurrection, Interstellar War, etc...

That didn't make sense either.

The SPARTAN project was created to fight the Insurrection, and I can't figure out how super soldiers were supposed to stop a terrorist campaign. I seriously doubt our lack of genetically engineered soldiers is the reason the Iraq war lasted for so long.

In my opinion it would've made more sense if they were created for suicide runs on the Covenant.

While I understand people would love to see a Star Trek like society become our future, I just can't see it. That's coming from someone who is actually very optimistic about the future.

That's why I said the Culture. This is the only way a utopia could be achieved, by placing it out of human control.

 

[J Tyran]

For instance, I could easily see Halo's UNSC and its technology, politics, ship design, etc as our future 500 years from now.

You're out of your mind.

Halo still uses 7.62x51mm NATO rounds. In the 16th Century, the most powerful weapon was the cannon, which could put a good size hole in a castle wall. In the 21st Century the most powerful weapon is the hydrogen bomb, which can put a good size hole in the planet.

In the 26th Century, I sincerely doubt humans will use 500 year old weapons. If humans as we know them exist at all.

In Halo firearms underwent evolution rather than revolution sure they still use chemical propellants but the guns are lighter, more reliable, the propellants are better. They still do the job, they killed covies just fine.

Why invent a fancy energy weapon when a kinetic kill round fired by chemical propellants is still effective? The UNSC does have its own WMDs too, planet killing nukes etc.

 

[Olas]

Okay, so I haven't seen the actual movie and will need somebody to back me up on this, but from everything I've heard Looper paints a pretty down to earth and therefore realistic depiction of the future, minus the obvious invention of time travel.

I imagine the future will be a lot like the present just with better computers, fatter people, and more income inequality.

The problem with trying to predict the future is your best guess is to take current trends and try to extrapolate them forward, we're limited to our own line of sight. But the path of human advancement isn't a clear and distinct strait line, it curves back and fourth as new factors/inventions that we previously had no idea about completely change the direction of advancement.

I can't think of any sci-fi story from the past that predicted the internet or social networking, a huge and glaring problem with most of them since that's been the biggest thing in recent years and isn't going to go away.


Brave New World did a good job foreshadowing at least the cultural and social changes of the future. Overconsumption, products being made disposal, a huge emphasis on social engagement and almost a fear of solitude, an extremely liberal outlook on sexuality and drug use, turning all things exotic and natural into spectacles for entertainment. Huxley's dystopian future basically came true, just with differences in technology.

 

[KaZuYa]

I think the film Elysium coming out this year is going to turn out pretty accurate, maybe not a space station a certainly restricted green zones for the rich elite while the rest of the world can tear itself apart with disease and famine. We could cure disease and feed the whole world, we could house everyone and keep them warm, we could build a beautiful world and reach out to the stars and seed our legacy. But we won't and why because the people in power wouldn't allow it claiming it would cost an unimaginable amount of money, which is the big lie, money means nothing it only hold the power people give it and it's people who would block this by any means. Sounds depressing but these people would rather the world burn then give up one cent or ounce of power and that's what I honestly see happening either global oppression or global war.