The Predictions of the Future in the Entertainment Media

People have always been and will always be curious about what is going to happen in the future. The unknown and mysterious about the future intrigues us, humans. That is the reason to why many people are trying to guess how life will be like. Therefore this investigative essay will look into how people in the past have predicted the future. The movie “Back to the future part 2” came out in 1989 and was directed by Robert Zemeckis. In the movie, they time travel to the year 2015 to straighten out a family problem, according to the article in DailyNews (“2015 predictions 'Back to the Future 2' got right, wrong”, 21/10-2015). According to the article did the movie do some predictions on how life would be like in 2015. Several of the predictions were accurate, but some were not. One example of a prediction that came out to be true is the ability to do video real-time conversation. Applications, where you use video to do real-time conversations, like snapchat, facetime and Skype are all a big part of our daily life nowadays.

The article also mentions that the movie predicted that the use of fingerprints and other biometric identification would become a reality in 2015. Most of our phones nowadays actually are using fingerprints for identification. Biometric identification will probably grow bigger into future, claims the article. A couple of the biggest mistakes in the future prediction, that the article mentions, are that nowadays we do not have flying cars or phone booths. Cars have not changed much since the eighties like phones definitely have. Going to phone booth today would be as strange as driving in a flying car.Mary Shelley wrote the novel “Frankenstein” in 1818, which is about the scientist Victor Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein creates a monster from a dead body. According to the article in BusinessInsider (“These 15 sci-fi books actually predicted the future”, 28/11-2015), some medical breakthroughs were predicted in the novel. For instance, organ transplants and head transplants are both mentioned in the novel. Frankenstein’s monster is an example of head transplantation and organ transplantation, according to an article in Reuters (“'Frankenstein' predicted concept key to modern biology: study”, 28/10-2016). Back in 19th century, when the novel was written, science was just beginning to explore the new world of dead tissue reanimation claims the article in BusinessInsider. Nowadays organ transplantations are normal in the medical world, but back in the 19th century, it was closer to fiction than reality. Head transplants are still classified as fiction for most scientists and doctors. Although there a few that believes it would be possible to a head transplant with humans.

This claims an article in IFLScience (“The First Human Head Transplant Has Been Scheduled For 2017”, 2016). The article mentions the Italian neuroscientist Sergio Canavero who announced 2016 that he would perform the world’s first human head transplant. According to an article in Popular Science (“No, there has not been a successful human head transplant”, 17/11-2017), Canavero did not fulfil his goal of performing the first head transplant in 2017. Although it did not happen in 2017, it might happen in a near future. The book “1984” written by George Orwell in 1949 predicted how life would be like in 1984. The most famous and discussed prediction from the book is according to an article in TechKabaren (“30 years of 1984: 8 Tech predictions of George Orwell that have come true”, 9/10-2014) the continuous surveillance mechanism, also known as “big brother is watching”. In the book, there is surveillance everywhere you go. Through human agents, hidden mikes and telescreens that worked as cameras, the government could see you anywhere you were and what you did. Surveillance cameras are these days not monitoring everything we do, but there are some examples from our society today that the predictions from the book 1984 actually are true. The article published in TechKabaren mentions a few examples of how we are being surveillant by our governments. FBI, for instance, have the ability to turn a phone's microphone into a listening device from a remote distance. Which means that the FBI has the ability, if they want, to listen to whatever you say.

The article claims that Orwell mentions in the book that: “by a routine thaw a not even secret, all letters were opened in transit”. Most letters today have been replaced by emails, which even easier can be opened by governments. With the internet, the possibilities to surveillant a person on the other side of the globe has increased, claims the article published in TechKabaren.To summarize, people in the past have predicted the future in different ways. The movie “Back to the future part 2” predicted some technological advancement to the year 2015. The movie predicted, for example, that we would use biometric identification in the future and in hindsight we can say that they got it right. In the medical world the book “Frankenstein” predicted the use of dead tissue reanimation, like organ transplantation and head transplants. Although head transplants have not yet happened, organ transplants are now normal in the medical field. And lastly, the book “1984” predicted a world with surveillance from governments everywhere. Our world might not be as extreme as in the book, but it is not far away from reality.