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The 8 Most Common Sci-Fi Visions of the Future (And Why They'll Never Happen)

By Michael Swaim September 11, 2007 281,282 views
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The future promises to be so wonderous and terrifying that it will exceed even the furthest reaches of the human imagination. Though this is not saying much, as the human imagination has really only been able to think up eight possible futures:

#8.
An Oppressive Totalitarian State

Defining Features:
Forcibly proscribed social roles and classes; a creepy, overbearing "beloved leader" and equally creepy propaganda posters on every wall; an ultra-brutal police force; the repression of all written communication and creativity; a huge underclass of drone-like proles paralyzed with paranoid anxiety; a moratorium on rainbows, strawberry ice cream and butterfly kisses. Basically, it's the Cold War-era Soviet Union.

Origins:
George Orwell's 1984 laid the macabre groundwork for the Totalitarian State future vision, and while the actual year 1984 didn't pan out quite as he thought it would, you have to admit that Michael Jackson's hair catching on fire was pretty terrifying. Orwell also gets credit for creating newspeak, thereby giving nerds everywhere a new way to express their distaste for this week's double-plus, ungood episode of Heroes.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World helped cement the Totalitarian State in the public's imagination. He added genetic modification and sanctioned drug use to the mix, at least one of which is a clear improvement over the present. Sylvester Stallone's 1995 brilliant masterwork Judge Dredd should also be mentioned, if only because it took the novel stance of making a member of the ultra-brutal police force its hero, while simultaneously stripping out the ironic undertones of the British comic on which it was based. Way to go, America!

See Also:
V for Vendetta, Brazil, Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid's Tale, The Giver, Gattaca, Soylent Green.

Why It Will Never Happen:
Governments have been evolved and advanced to achieve stunning levels of incompetence that Orwell could hardly have imagined. Sure, we did wind up with wall monitors in our homes, but they display mostly porn and advertisements.

Besides, the entire reason the Orwellian future genre survives is because it scares the crap out of people. It's what gets the ACLU and Libertarians out of bed in the morning. Sure, the president would probably like to make himself Lord Protectorate and live in a giant crystal tower, but these days he would have to ask permission of several multinational corporations first.

#7.
A Retro-Futuristic Utopia

Defining Features:
A complete obliteration of all littering and public nudity; food-mo-trons, laser showers and other assorted impossibly useful machines; miracle trains that require only one rail; happily hetero- and socio-normative nuclear family units; an all-powerful but inexplicably benevolent government; spandex clothing with no pockets whatsoever; robots that do all the work now performed by illegal immigrants; a dearth of illegal immigrants; a statistically perfect assortment of pure-bred ethnicities to distract from how staggeringly white everyone has become; flying cars.

Origins:
With its robot maid, its four-hour workdays and its unseen, but surely starving surface-world population, The Jetsons perfectly sums up the naïve, unbridled optimism we once showed for technology. It's hard to out optimism, a future vision that has us all living on mile-long poles, flying to disco dance clubs, taking field trips to the moon, and siring sons who routinely invent devices Stephen Hawking would lunge out of his chair to get his hands on. If only Mr. Spacely wasn't such a flaming asshole.

See Also:
Disneyland's House of the Future, Metropolis, Back to the Future II, Star Trek: The Next Generation (when they go to Earth), Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Demolition Man.

Why It Will Never Happen:
Utopian writers always seem to be working with a completely different species of humanity than exists now. Bug-free technology? Streets free of filth? It's less like a possible future and more like an alternate universe, a place where somehow 100 percent of both the politicians and citizens actually give a shit (a 97 percent increase over the rate).

Sure, we'd like a flying car. Until, that is, we imagine our drunken uncle, passed out behind the stick, hurtling toward some high-tension power lines at 300 miles an hour.

#6.
A Sprawling Urban Hell-Slum

Defining Features:
A crime rate so high that if you're not currently being robbed, it's only because you're robbing someone else; a beseiged police force desperate to keep the scum under control; rampant drug use to escape the harsh reality of living in a genre stereotype; corrupt businessmen feeding off the suffering of the poor; living spaces that make New York studio apartments look like the Louvre; subtle signs of globalization's aftermath (i.e., lots of Asian food and possibly gigantic advertisements featuring Asian women).

Origins:
At the center of this particular vision of the future is the gruff, tough, futuristic-cigarette-equivalent-smoking badass. We're talking Kurt Russel, Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford, Sean Connery and Clive Owen. With movies like Blade Runner and Children of Men, the optimism of earlier eras had been replaced with a gruff cynicism and a genetic predisposition to cleft chins, a world where electric razor technology has devolved to the point that every shave leaves one-eigth inch of stubble behind.

See Also:
Twelve Monkeys, A Clockwork Orange, The Fifth Element, Robocop, Escape From New York, Total Recall, Outland, Snow Crash, Land of the Dead, Shadowrun.

Why it Will Never Happen:
The Gillette Fusion, through its innovative five-blade technology and aloe strip, guarantees a close, smooth, sexy shave every time. Gillette: the best a man can get! (Gillette executives: Please make all checks payable to Michael "The Danger Zone" Swaim).

#5.
An Invasion by Hostile Aliens

Defining Features:
Aliens that look like reptiles or insects; aliens that look exactly like humans, but turn out to be reptiles or insects in disguise; slime, goo and/or sludge; an unstoppable powerful extraterrestrial force whose scientific knowledge and military strength surpasses ours thousands of times over; the human race succeeding through sheer pluck, moxie, or dumb luck; the aliens either having a single glaring weakness, soft spot or incredibly imbecilic understanding of their own fundamental biology; an important lesson about the resilience of the human spirit.

Origins:
H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds first brought violent alien invasion into the minds and nightmares of children around the world, along with the guarantee that any such aliens would have some incredibly stupid weakness. Despite crashing down on Earth with super-robo octopi that shot heat lasers and just generally wrecked all our shit, the poor bastards were eventually done in by the common cold.

Wells set the stage for future lame alien weaknesses like water in Signs and the screaming vacuum of space in Alien.

See Also:
Battlefield Earth, V, The Arrival, Ender's Game.

Why it Will Never Happen:
Because so far the only aliens technologically advanced enough to visit Earth seem primarily interested in abducting hicks and probing anuses. These poor creatures cross the vast emptiness of space only to crash their saucers in New Mexico and have no technology to avoid detection by farm folk with disposable cameras. The chances for a successful full-scale invasion do not appear to be strong.

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152 Comments

"Plus, it's scientifically impossible for there to ever be a real human being with the grace, good looks and balls of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard."

Well said.

10/1/2009 10:31:56 AM
FMchymist

Just a bit of a correction to #4...Stranger in a Strange Land isn't about friendly aliens invading Earth, it's about a human raised by Martians (who are, admittedly, way more awesome than Earthlings) who returns to Earth as an adult. The Martians who gather information telepathically through him without his knowledge actually analyze humans and decide that we aren't dangerous enough to be destroyed. Funny how the humans aren't actually at the center of their attention, unlike pretty much any other sci fi species.

8/31/2009 5:14:10 PM
oceanwavesarb

For the one about the oppressive totalitarian state... just speaks for Americans because here in Ecuador & Venezuela we have a couple of sadistic motherfuckers with the plan of making us all here their bitches... they are going 1984 on our "third world" asses, yeah with the signs with their scrotum-shaped faces on cities buildings and all also making disappear all the ones who have enough brains to realize that everything is getting really fucked up and going with a one-way ticket straight to hell... You know what??? In North Korea & Cuba 1984 & Vendetta could look like a documentary more than a "entertaining" movie with a bare skulled Natalie Portman.

8/24/2009 2:53:50 AM
franciscojavier

For the one about the oppressive totalitarian state... just speaks for Americans because here in Ecuador & Venezuela we have a couple of sadistic motherfuckers with the plan of making us all here their bitches... they are going 1984 on our "third world" asses, yeah with the signs with their scrotum-shaped faces on cities buildings and all also making disappear all the ones who have enough brains to realize that everything is getting really fucked up and going with a one-way ticket straight to hell... You know what??? In North Korea & Cuba 1984 & Vendetta could look like a documentary more than a "entertaining" movie with a bare skulled Natalie Portman.

8/24/2009 2:53:01 AM
franciscojavier

"Sure, the president would probably like to make himself Lord Protectorate and live in a giant crystal tower, but these days he would have to ask permission of several multinational corporations first."

Never has that phrase been more true than right now...

8/22/2009 7:30:03 PM
AlanABQ

This was a list of things he didn't think would happen, 4udball, so there is still hope for zombies. So keep your shotgun handy and hopefully we can explode some heads together.

8/13/2009 3:52:22 AM
Jestyr_Zyn

I liked the article but I'd like to point out that Metropolis was far from utopian.

8/10/2009 4:10:18 PM
STINKbone

@ Dax:

Commenting on another's writing prowess when you yourself write 'not well thought out article' to describe the lack of planning that went into said article, only serves to show how terribly untalented you are yourself at conveying an idea through the written form. In your first line you've managed to epitomise that with which you are most irritated in this article. The criticism you attempt to make is pointless and baseless. Take this as less of an insult, and more of a lesson.

8/9/2009 7:24:50 AM
DaveGee

Picard FTW!!

8/6/2009 5:13:20 PM
iamthesara

This was a crappy and not well thought out article. Swaim once again proves to be a giant tool and shows his lack of effort in any of his "can never happen" scenarios. I desperately want to say whats wrong with it (ie friendly aliens being impossible because once they developed space faring capabilities, it'd only be because they were still basically animals, killing and eating other things from their homeworld and made the ships purely by instinct, just like how man created the car by instinct and if it came across aliens on another planet close by would quickly eat them, rather then use REASON and LOGIC, something that pretty much has to be developed to aquire sentience and build a society capable of developing technology high enough to travel buttfucking space.) and apparently have, but I'll just leave it at that, because I know swaim will continue to suck at writing and will continue to be payed to do so.

Love, Dax

8/6/2009 7:46:32 AM
Dax

...What about zombies? Or some other kind of biological warfare/accidental earth-wide concentration? A meteor? Earthquakes, perhaps? Any kind of massive natural disaster?

8/4/2009 7:13:22 PM
4udball

What happens in 'The Stand' isnt the result of nuclear warfare, it's the result of a rampant virus that kills something like 98% of Earth's population.

8/1/2009 2:15:17 PM
To3_J4m

Is it just me, or did the article cover every sci-fi future scenario ever?

8/1/2009 9:28:13 AM
cornflakes

Brave New World came before 1984.

7/28/2009 11:56:27 AM
Cukaloris

I didn't get a chance to read all of the comments (one page actually) because I am incredibly lazy and my computer is incredibly slow (This perhaps helps to reinforce claim # 3). But I did notice one film which was left suspiciously off the list (it's kind of a mixture of both #6 and #8). 'Idiocracy'. Maybe because 'Idiocracy' actually does stand a good chance of happening. I for one can't wait to see the movie 'A$$'!

- "Carls Jr., F@*$ YOU! I'm, Hungry!"

7/27/2009 2:21:44 PM
catdfraser

"ever since a fateful summer in 1980, post-apocalypse has meant Mel Gibson tearing through the outback pursued by homicidal and vaguely homoerotic biker gangs."

Vaguely?

Are you implying there is subtlety in a name like "SMEGMA CRAZIES"?

God dammit, I almost threw up in my mouth just remembering that!

7/27/2009 1:55:04 AM
Datura

They should mention Mass Effect there. That is an awesome game that sends another "sci-fi vision" with the discovery of an ancient inter-galactic race that speeds up our tech and makes it on par w/ aliens. I don't know if other games/movies/books show that but it deserves a mention too! Well, maybe a mention in the "sci-fi visions that COULD happen" :D

7/27/2009 12:52:37 AM
kazi_saki

"Basically, it's the Cold War-era Soviet Union."

Yet the title's subtext claims that these will never happen. Way to start off a list about impossible futures with something that's happened mere decades ago already, SWAIM.

7/26/2009 6:51:27 PM
Kindahuge

"Plus, it's scientifically impossible for there to ever be a real human being with the grace, good looks and balls of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard. "

Such truth has never before been spoken

7/26/2009 4:17:46 PM
DragorithRath

I gotta nitpick. There were no "thousands of races, worlds and cultures all fighting for their existence in the bustling frontier-town of the Milky Way" in Dune. There were only people who had learned to use various parts of their minds--for example, poison can release someone's genetic memories. The only reason Paul, and later Leto II, could "take over" the universe is because they had the most precious substance in the universe, and they weren't afraid to destroy it. Without the spice, the Guild couldn't have seen ways to guide the ships, and people would be forced to use the safer, slower method of planetary travel. In no time, the planets would be completely independent of each other, and the Bene Gesserit and the Guild would have dissolved. Also, if you read the appendices, Dune is set roughly 20,000 years in the future (the year is 10,191 AG--After Guild), which is plenty of time for evolution to give us some awesome powers.

7/26/2009 3:22:35 PM
AshsWorkshed

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