Fascinating video shows how the year 2440 was imagined in 1771 and some viewers are calling it '100% accurate'
Predicting modern social media is a wild one
Predicting what the world of tomorrow might look like is a lot harder than it sounds.
People have been looking to the far-flung future for centuries, and while Tomorrow's World got pretty close when it tried to predict 2025 in 1995, major innovations like the social media boom were missed.
Heading even further back, did a French writer predict our own future back in 1771?
You might not have heard of Louis-Sébastien Mercier's L'An 2440, rêve s'il en fut jamais (translated as The Year 2440: A Dream If Ever There Was One), but as the name suggests, it shows what the year 2440 could look like.
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As it's some 415 years from where we are now, it's fascinating that Mercier made these predictions 254 years ago.
The story revolves around an unnamed Parisian man falling asleep and waking up in the year 2440.
In this version of Paris, the industrial revolution never happened and this futuristic utopia isn't concerned with technology.
Still, there are some technological advancements like the invention of holograms and what seems to be a prediction of film.
In a video shared by Kings and Things, they break down what happens in the novel, with an eerie prediction of what feels like modern social media. The narrator explains:
"Public opinion authors, in theory, enjoy freedom of the press and can write anything they want.
"If enough readers find that someone's work is immoral or contains dangerous principles, then he's forced to wear a mask of shame and is visited daily by two re-educators until it takes back what he's written."
Practitioners of the other arts are granted freedom but have to get approval from the general public, which feels a lot like us clamoring for likes on our latest Instagram post.
Some of The Year 2440's predictions are pretty out-there, with some of the more outlandish being the idea that drinking coffee is illegal, Pennsylvania is ruled by an Aztec emperor, and you're reincarnated on different planets when you die.
Being released just 18 years before the French Revolution, L'An 2440, rêve s'il en fut jamais was eventually banned in France and was reportedly burned by Spain's king after becoming one of the most controversial novels of the 18th century.
Many remain unconvinced by Mercier's predictions, with one comment pointing out: "It's actually impossible to think how the world will be different 1000 years from now. As 1000 years ago we would never even be able to think of such a concept as a phone or laptop."
Another said: "I like how the idea of a car or modern transportation was so foreign to people in the past that it wasn’t even something they thought of in fiction.
“Like the idea wasn’t even conceivable and was beyond imagination. makes you think unimaginable things will take over the world in the next 500 + years that we now can’t even think of."
Others think Mercier has given us a window into the future, with someone else saying: "That's about 420 years from now. Pretty sure it's 100% accurate."
Another chimed in: "At this point, I honestly believe that the movie Idiocracy is the best projection for how future will look like.
Someone concluded: "Using forbidden religious texts instead of conventional weaponry? The author was definitely onto something there. The pen is far mightier than the sword in this day and age."
It makes you wonder whether the likes of Star Trek, Wall-E, and Total Recall are really that far off the mark when it comes to predicting our future.