Who says science fiction can't predict the future?

[womzilla]

Or, at least, science-fiction readers?

We all feel whipsawed by the powerful, but the one kind of power we can imagine putting a check on is the power of our own elected government. It's a lot easier to pass term limits, or sunset-law provisions, than it is to reign in the power of international corporations or the national-security apparatus. So we wind up hobbling the one kind of Big Power which, however remotely, we have some kind of connection with and influence over.

Of course, the corporations and military-security guys absolutely love this. With luck they can get us to drop all this tiresome democracy stuff altogether. Given the evolution of the anti-government strain in American life, I suspect they'll get their wish. And I suspect we'll come to look back on the late twentieth century as a golden age of relative freedom.

--Patrick Nielsen Hayden, 13 Sept 1998, on rec.arts.sf.fandom

Comments

[barondave.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of the 21sh Century left, so we'll see.

Heinlesin predicted Nehemiah Scudder would be elected president in 2012, and he was only a dozen years off.

[washa-way.livejournal.com]

I bet this one of those times where PNH is getting no satisfaction whatsoever out of being right.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

God damn, I miss RASFF. And I post there every day.