15 Things Sci-Fi Promised (And How They Worked Out)

Turns out sci-fi should have been taken as a cautionary tale.
15 Things Sci-Fi Promised (And How They Worked Out)

Science fiction is one of the most imaginative yet applicable genres within movies, television, books, and games. A creator uses whatever they learned about the current world around them then applies a little bit of imagination and logical acceleration of certain technology or theories to create new inventions, concepts, and other scientific wonders within their stories. Some are too fantastical to ever become real. Others turned out to be predictions of what actually got invented… sort of.

We took a look at some of the biggest promises science fiction has made and compared them to our actual reality. As it turns out, a lot of sci-fi predictions were fairly on the nose -- but they didn't think through the full repercussions of the super-shiny tech they were teasing us with.

So, while we do have a lot of the stuff sci-fi teased us with, it's more of a monkey's paw type of situation. For example:

'9Os Sci-Fi movies promised us worlds of untold horror awaiting us in virtual reality... But none of them prepared us for our actual reality: parents
When The Truman Show came out, it was ridiculous to think anyone would watch a show about one normal guy doing normal guy things. But one look at Twit
We only have a couple more years till we start turning each other into food, or at least that's what Soylent Green tells us. But what if we got our pr
Back in Bucl Rogers day, rensable rockets were obviousiy the only way to travel through space. And now, thanks to Spacex, we have commercially viable
DICK TRASY WRIA MADE EVERY 200 KID WANT THEIR VERY OWN SUPER NEATO ICOMMUNICATOR WATCH!! ONLY $10.95 P/S+H While not as stylish, our smartwatches can
IN 1986, A MYSTERIOUS TIME TRAVELER REVEALED THE POSSIBLITY OF TRANSPARENT ALUMINUM. 30 YEARS LATER IT BECAME A REALITY. IT's BULLETPROOF, -RESISTANT
THE TERMINATOR IS A RELENTLESS KILLING MACHINE THAT FEELS NO REMORSE. IT CAN'T BE BARGAINED WITH. IT CAN'T BE REASONED WITH. IT DOESN'T FEEL PITY, OR
Disney's Smart House featured a built-in smart assistant that could control the lights, temperature, entertainment, cleaning, and other household task
Aldous Huxley imagined a Brave New World where mood-stabilizing drugs are not only free, their use is encouraged! Instead, all we have now are overpri

No thanks. That's enough.

Sci-fi has always been obsessed with long-distance face-to-face communication. FUNsU Ito Oocupation: SurerAtor Now that we have it on almost every dev
Ever since Knight Rider first hit the scene, everyone wanted a cool car that could talk to you and drive itself. While Teslas don't talk to you (yet),
Who hasn't dreamed of soaring through the sky with their own personal jetpack like Boba Fett or The Rocketeer? We now have the OR technology to rent o
Rosie the Robot gave us hope for a clean, automated future. While we do havt dozens of different cleaning robots, none of them have built-in sass... y
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fans have long known about the babel fish, a small, yellow and leech-like creature that lets you instantly understand
IF THERE IS ONE SCI-FI STAPLE, IT IS BEING ABLE TO SPEAK TO A MACHINE AND HAVE IT DO WHAT YOU WANT. EWVEI PRLEM Now it's hard to imagine a time when y

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