Has anyone else had a story where they had to actually predict the future?

[8letters]

The inspiration for My Lingerie-Loving Sister Moves In was the Houston Astros in 2017 having a great season after years and years of mediocrity. The thing I ran into was that I was ready to publish the story before the Astros 2017 season was finished. I ended up predicting that the Astros would lose to the Dodgers in the World Series. After the story was published, the Astros defeated the Dodgers 4-3, and I had to adjust the story.

The story I'm currently working on I decided to set in this summer because the timing of the difficulties Covid inflicted made starting the story this May the best choice. But the story doesn't end until November, which is well into the future. So once again, I'm predicting the future (but the prediction this time is that life is going to be pretty ordinary for college students for the next six months).

 

[gunhilltrain]

"Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future." Supposedly Yogi Berra said it.

The only science-fiction story I have is set in 2114, but let's face it, it was fiction, not an essay trying to make prognostications. It did have androids (really advanced ones) and AI, but who knows?

In the real world, I have discussed and considered some shorter predictions, but I'm usually mostly wrong. As an example, in the first Gulf War, I knew the Iraqis were going to lose, but I never thought it would be that fast and relatively easy. In the second Gulf War (2003), I made the opposite mistake. It looked like it was all over quickly, but I didn't expect the insurgencies to drag on for another six years or so. (Actually, no one did. "Mission Accomplished.") The invasion of Afghanistan seemed to be over in about ten days (so I thought), but it actually went on for another twenty years. And the final results were right back where they had started. There is plenty of blame for that to go around.

 

[KeithD]

In a mainstream espionage novel published in the early 1990s, I wrote in the assassination of an Israeli prime minister modeled on Yitzhak Rabin. In 1995 Rabin was assassination just as I had described in the earlier book.

 

[windar]

The inspiration for My Lingerie-Loving Sister Moves In was the Houston Astros in 2017 having a great season after years and years of mediocrity. The thing I ran into was that I was ready to publish the story before the Astros 2017 season was finished. I ended up predicting that the Astros would lose to the Dodgers in the World Series. After the story was published, the Astros defeated the Dodgers 4-3, and I had to adjust the story.

Of course, subsequently the Astros were found to have been stealing signs (a definite no-no for those of you who are not baseball afficionados) as well as in the ALCS where they had beaten the Yankees to reach the World Series. So, perhaps, under fair conduct, your prediction was right after all...

 

[tenyari]

In the real world, I have discussed and considered some shorter predictions, but I'm usually mostly wrong. As an example, in the first Gulf War, I knew the Iraqis were going to lose, but I never thought it would be that fast and relatively easy. In the second Gulf War (2003), I made the opposite mistake. It looked like it was all over quickly, but I didn't expect the insurgencies to drag on for another six years or so. (Actually, no one did. "Mission Accomplished.") The invasion of Afghanistan seemed to be over in about ten days (so I thought), but it actually went on for another twenty years. And the final results were right back where they had started. There is plenty of blame for that to go around.

Those particular examples are actually great illustrations about how easy some events are to predict, but how people willfully choose to ignore predictions counter to what they desire to believe.

Looking at them without bias we can see:

1. Gulf War 1: An invasion by a vastly superior well trained, well equipped, and well supplied military that has no objectives to hold any territory.
2. Gulf War 2: The same kind of initial invasion, but now the goal is occupation.
3. Afghan: Again, same kind of invasion but now the goal is occupation.

Occupations almost never work. People don't see them as liberations, they see them as occupations, and the coalesce around pushing out the occupier. The longer such conflicts go on, the longer "reasonable" partisans get pushed out and extremists gain the upper hand.

The most famous example of this problem in history is the Haitian revolution - where France's continual betrayal of reasonable Haitians (killing off all the guys who wanted a liberal democracy based on equal rights even for French expats, and who were open to trade with France), in the end left them with a guy who's nickname was some term for butcher, who's tactics were so brutal he had to execute many of his own soldiers that refused to carry them out. We've literally had the playbook for 'how NOT to do an occupation / resist a war for independence' for 200 years, and people keep ignoring it.

the best move to make after an occupation is to put a reasonable local authority in power - even if it's one that you were just at war with, and work to remove your own influence. Even that rarely works. Germany is a stark counter to most examples. Note that in Japan, the Imperial family was left in power and a 'narrative' was crafted to say they 'had not been behind the war anyway' in order to sell it to those who wanted to burn the place to the ground. But this was only really done to prevent an insurgency.

I suppose when we look at Ukraine we can see the impact of a military being so corrupt that it's budget for training, equipment, and supplies has actually ended up building mega-yachts... It has clearly turned what should have been a 'Gulf War 2' into a 'Vietnam'. The Russians might still win militarily, and then just end up with an Afghanistan. They believed it would be a 'Gulf War 1' because they only listened to 'yes men' advisors who told them the locals wanted to be invaded...

Prediction like that isn't just limited to military issues. If you step out of biases and look at wider research on a topic you can often see that almost everything in modern history was correctly predicted before it happened - just usually by unpopular folks who were ignored. Not always, but often enough those folks had sound research and not 'advocacy' in their predictions. That presents another major hurdle though: people who are not advocating for any given side are often buried in the discourse, hard to find until after the fact.

 

[Bramblethorn]

1. Gulf War 1: An invasion by a vastly superior well trained, well equipped, and well supplied military that has no objectives to hold any territory.
2. Gulf War 2: The same kind of initial invasion, but now the goal is occupation.
3. Afghan: Again, same kind of invasion but now the goal is occupation.

Occupation of a rugged country with famously long experience of resisting invaders, at that.

Re. Iraq, "never start a land war in Asia" was a meme long before Gulf War 2, for a reason.

I suppose when we look at Ukraine we can see the impact of a military being so corrupt that it's budget for training, equipment, and supplies has actually ended up building mega-yachts... It has clearly turned what should have been a 'Gulf War 2' into a 'Vietnam'. The Russians might still win militarily, and then just end up with an Afghanistan. They believed it would be a 'Gulf War 1' because they only listened to 'yes men' advisors who told them the locals wanted to be invaded...

All this, but credit also to Ukrainian preparation. They had effectively eight years' notice that Russia intended to invade and they made good use of that time.

Back to the OP: "Loss Function" starts in the recent past and runs into the future, including covid and a fictional ex-Soviet country with echoes of Ukraine. But I was able to keep the future bits pretty vague. I think there's reference to somebody driving "a car" about 2040, but other than that the main danger is that relevant AI technology might advance faster than my timeline.

 

[ElectricBlue]

If you're going to write about the future, keep it vague, because you'll be wrong.

Apropos of that, here's a historical snippet:

From a question on the history of IBM on their website, "Did Thomas Watson say in the 1950s that he foresaw a market potential for only five electronic computers?" IBM offers the following explanation:

We believe the statement that you attribute to Thomas Watson is a misunderstanding of remarks made at IBM’s annual stockholders meeting on April 28, 1953. In referring specifically and only to the IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine -- which had been introduced the year before as the company’s first production computer designed for scientific calculations -- Thomas Watson, Jr., told stockholders that “IBM had developed a paper plan for such a machine and took this paper plan across the country to some 20 concerns that we thought could use such a machine. I would like to tell you that the machine rents for between $12,000 and $18,000 a month, so it was not the type of thing that could be sold from place to place. But, as a result of our trip, on which we expected to get orders for five machines, we came home with orders for 18.”

 

[gunhilltrain]

Sorry, tenyari, it's kind of late and I didn't expect such a detailed response. (It was just sort of throwaway lines on my part.) Maybe tomorrow.

 

[tenyari]

Sorry, tenyari, it's kind of late and I didn't expect such a detailed response. (It was just sort of throwaway lines on my part.) Maybe tomorrow.

The TLDR was just that the evidence we need to make good predictions is usually waiting there to be used, but human nature causes us to ignore it. Plus of course, us "regular folks" get our info screened for us, so we often don't get to see the bigger picture until after the fools in charge have made their mistakes.

 

[RetroFan]

I've never written a story set in the future, but oddly enough in the later months of 2019 I published two stories that seemed to foreshadow things ahead.

In one, 'Spying On A Spoiled Brat' which has a contemporary setting, the narrator Steve gets a call from a co-worker Barry to say he is sick and can't come to work. Steve notes that Barry sounds like he has the flu in 1919, not 2019. In the other, 'Sally and the Sailor' which takes place in 1943, tomboy narrator Sally works at a factory during the Second World War which she enjoys, but when she contracts measles she is forced to stay home for two weeks and not allowed to attend work even when her illness has cleared up in case she infects the other women there, the factory obviously very busy during the war. Sally and her mother drive each other nuts during Sally's two weeks of quarantine.

It's just coincidence, but kind of strange that I should write two stories with those themes just before the world was turned upside down.

 

[jsmiam]

…Asterisks…

You were right. Your prediction just didn’t account for all that cheating. ;-)

 

[oggbashan]

I have written several SF stories that assume that space travel is common:

My Tripletit stories; my Shelacta stories - a planet where things are slightly different; and my Christmas Fairy 3-part story.

 

[MelissaBaby]

When I started my series, Mary and Alvin, I planned for it to cover a period of about sixty years in the main characters lives. But I didn't ready think through the fact that it wouldn't conclude until sometime in the 2070's.

I put a lot of work into world building the small town in Maine where most of the narrative takes place. That was lucky, because, really, not that much changes there. I started a thread here asking for suggestions, and took the advice of those who said, "You created a Mayberry, nothing has to change," referring to the town on the old Andy Griffith show, which seems timeless to viewers decades after it was created.

For the most part, I stuck with that advice, and it has worked out well. I gave a few nods to change; the town got more chain stores and restaurants, for example, and the names of new characters reflected more demographic diversity. Over the time old time Maine families got more neighbors named Chou, Ruiz, etc. Beyond that, I stayed away from making any guesses about the future. If you are not writing straight out Sci-FI, it's better that nothing changes, than to be wrong, imo.

 

[gunhilltrain]

When I started my series, Mary and Alvin, I planned for it to cover a period of about sixty years in the main characters lives. But I didn't ready think through the fact that it wouldn't conclude until sometime in the 2070's.

I put a lot of work into world building the small town in Maine where most of the narrative takes place. That was lucky, because, really, not that much changes there. I started a thread here asking for suggestions, and took the advice of those who said, "You created a Mayberry, nothing has to change," referring to the town on the old Andy Griffith show, which seems timeless to viewers decades after it was created.

For the most part, I stuck with that advice, and it has worked out well. I gave a few nods to change; the town got more chain stores and restaurants, for example, and the names of new characters reflected more demographic diversity. Over the time old time Maine families got more neighbors named Chou, Ruiz, etc. Beyond that, I stayed away from making any guesses about the future. If you are not writing straight out Sci-FI, it's better that nothing changes, than to be wrong, imo.

Just curious - the 2070s; you mentioned more chain stores and diversity, for example. Is that about it for the changes? That would be well over fifty years beyond when you finished writing the series, I think. I can remember fifty years ago (1972) quite well and some things changed a lot but others surprisingly didn't. I would say 1922 to 1972 was more profoundly different, based on what I've read and what my grandparents told me.

A 1973 car as envisioned in 1923. Looks a bit like an AMC Pacer? Not really. Notice that they didn't update the clothing much. What's with those face coverings only on the women?

 

[Eviehere]

Yes, and both President Jo Jorgensen and Vice President Spike Cohen have invited me to the White House a couple of times to celebrate. I don't mind the fact that I have to ride in the back of a windowless panel van or enter "The Residence" through the secure underground parking facility with a blindfold on. But I am somewhat dismayed that the President-- the first female President by the way-- lives in a residence that for some reason remids me of an apartment building's basement.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've dealt with this in a story, but the main reason is my stories tend to have vague settings. I like to focus on the erotic storyline and leave the setting vague so the reader has some freedom the setting as they want to.

 

[Blind_Justice]

"Ghost in the Machine" is a cyberpunk dystopia. As such, I did extrude some then-acute issues and amplified them, including the US's military involvement in the Middle East dragging on late into the 2030's and some cloud services gaining a life of their own.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

In several of my "Sci-Fi" stories I have predicted the fall of America. Wasn't hard to do.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Oh, it does fly too.

Paleofuture - flying car

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Read an article this morning that tells a tale right out of my story, "Betting on the Aces"

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/13/how-doj-took-the-malware-fight-into-your-computer-00038932

 

[GrushaVashnadze]

This is how I predict the future:

"Fucking or Non-Fucking?" asked the lady behind the ticket counter.
"Fucking, please," replied Alison confidently.
"First Class or Shit Class?"
"First, please."
"Two-berth, four-berth, or seat?"
"Uh... what's the difference?"
"Well, it's a long journey, so frankly, if you're planning on doing any fucking, I would avoid the seat carriages. You can just about give a blowjob, but there's barely room to spread your legs. Are you travelling alone?"
"Yes."
"Then I'd go for a four-berth fucker. More fun that way: you might get a nice little orgy going."
"Okay, that sounds good. So, one ticket for the 10.30 Whiteshit Express to London, in a First Class four-berth fucker. How much is that?"
"One thousand three hundred and forty-four euros."
"Here you are. Thanks a lot, you've been very helpful. Lick my pussy, ma'am."
"Lick m' pussy, young lady. Have a good trip."

If that vision amuses you at all (is it utopian or dystopian?), you can read more in my novel Alison Goes to London

 

[Lovecraft_Lore]

By 2070 everyone will be cyborgs. There will be many copies of each of you on-line. Everything you do is monitored by the control state. The fourth forms will exist beyond numbers. There will be large numbers of have nots, always plotting, always waiting, for their chances to get a piece of the good life.

Many jobs will have been outsourced to machines. Robots will build houses. The water will be toxic.

The shadow moves in the dark. We cannot get out. They are coming!