Do you really believe that people can see into the future?
The likes of Baba Vanga and Nostradamus certainly believed they could, and over the years, some of their predictions have become spookily accurate.
Elsewhere, many believe The Simpsons continues to predict the future, although the writers have never claimed to be psychic mystics.
It's easy to look back and say, "Wow, that predicted the future," but as we enter a new year, it's time to look back into the past and see what some thought the world would look like today.
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Back to the Future II might've got it wrong with the idea of Jaws 19 and the double tie, but in terms of video calling, biometrics, and even flying cars, it was pretty close to the world of tomorrow.
As reported by the BBC, a 1995 episode of Tomorrow's World predicted what the tech world would be like in 2025. In the episode, the late Professor Stephen Hawking predicted: "By 2025 we can expect big changes."
Joined by a group of experts, the team suggested the world of 2025 would be filled with cyberspace wars, multi-story agri facilities, and more.
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The idea of 'space mining' asteroids for precious metals was one that the team suggested (seemingly inspired by Red Dwarf), which is ironic given the recent discovery of one that could give everyone on Earth over $1 billion. There was also a mention of using a gigantic foam gel to slow down debris and 'space junk,' and even though it again missed the mark, space junk is a genuine concern.
The show came up with the wild idea that surgeons would become 'too popular' to travel to patients, leaving them to perform surgery using holograms and spatial gloves. Again, while not quite on the money, robots have become commonplace in tricky surgical procedures. The idea of going from the United Kingdom to Bangalore in Just 40 minutes isn’t quite possible yet, although a prediction about smart speakers (thanks Alexa) and VR headsets has come true.
One segment showed a woman going to a bank and complaining that there were no humans, able to withdraw her money by scanning a chip in her arm. Given how much we pay with our phones nowadays and there is actual tech for paying via microchips, that's another tick.
As for transport, Tomorrow's World incorrectly predicted the downfall of electric vehicles by 2025, but.
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Given what we've seen with Tesla's success and Jaguar going all-electric, there's a continued push into the market. Still, it was right that driverless vehicles would also see a massive boom by this year.
Presenter Monty Don has reflected on his prediction that the British woodland would be restored via genetic engineering but admits it was 'naive': "Tomorrow's World was by definition geared towards the way that mankind could change and improve the world, whereas what we have really learnt since then is that mankind has a habit of making things worse, particularly environmentally, and we have to work with nature rather than try modify and control it."
Looking to our future and the year 2055, futurist Tracey Follows says that Tomorrow's World got a lot right but missed the unprecedented spread of big tech and social media. Follows eerily suggests we'll be 'cognitively connected' as a hive mind of humans and servers: "Brainstorming will literally be brainstorming, where you can share ideas by thinking them."
As Prof Hawking said all those years ago: "Some of these changes are very exciting, and some are alarming. The one thing that we can be sure of is that it will be very different, and probably not what we expect."