Was sci-fi prophetic or overly optimistic?

[Delta4Embassy]

Arguably the best sci-fi movies ever made were made in the late 70s and 80s. Yet the near-future ones were set 30 to 60 years in the future which would be around now. "Blade Runner" for example is set in 2019. We are no where close to any of that technology. "2010" from 1984 had suspended animation and manned interplanetary travel - no where close. Even the undersea ones like "Deepstar Six," "Leviathan," and "The Abyss" haven't materialized.

Did technology spin-off in another direction at some point? Or were the writers just overly optimistic?

 

[Manonthestreet]

Direction is up to the people.....right now they are surrendering to govt.....

 

[defcon4]

Arguably the best sci-fi movies ever made were made in the late 70s and 80s. Yet the near-future ones were set 30 to 60 years in the future which would be around now. "Blade Runner" for example is set in 2019. We are no where close to any of that technology. "2010" from 1984 had suspended animation and manned interplanetary travel - no where close. Even the undersea ones like "Deepstar Six," "Leviathan," and "The Abyss" haven't materialized.

Did technology spin-off in another direction at some point? Or were the writers just overly optimistic?

They just estimated the dates wrong because they did not calculate the stupidity of the general population to promote more government instead of let science flourish. On the other thread yesterday we talked about the government hiding information about ET life and I am sure they have some quite awesome technology kept in secret too. I am sure that all the inventions/patents Tesla (just to mention one "inventor") had are locked up somewhere what also hinders faster growth.

 

[Old Rocks]

I started reading science fiction when I was 11 years old. That was in 1954. Science fiction has routinely missed the biggest developements.

For instance, watching the first men walk on the moon was deju vu. Had seen it in my head many times in science fiction stories. What was not predicted, and was as earth shaking as the the exploration itself, was that a large percentage of the people on earth were able to share the experiance live.

Then comes present communications. The desktop, cell phone, with the apps, simply was not predicted in the form it has taken. The fact that anyone with a computer and an internet connection has access to the knowledge of the whole world is something I did not see predicted at all. And it is a key factor in the rise of knowledge in the third world. One can go from goat herding to nuclear physics in one generation.