"Heinlein, Robert A - The Worlds Of Robert A Heinlein" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

15. We will not achieve a "world state" in the predictable future.
Nevertheless, Communism will vanish from this planet. (k)

16. Increasing mobility will disenfranchise a majority of the population.
About 1990 a constitutional amendment will do away with state lines while
retaining the semblance.

17. All aircraft will be controlled by a giant radar net run on a
continent-wide basis by a multiple electronic "brain."

18. Fish and yeast will become our principal sources of proteins. Beef will
be a luxury; lamb and mutton will disappear. ( 1 )

19. Mankind will not destroy itself, nor will "civilization" be destroyed.
(m)

Here are things we won t get soon, if ever:

Travel through time.

Travel faster than the speed of light

"Radio" transmission of matter.

Manlike robots with manlike reactions.

Laboratory creation of life.

Real understanding of what "thought" is and how it is related to matter.

Scientific proof of personal survival after death.

Nor a permanent end to war. (I don't like that prediction any better than
you do.)



Prediction of gadgets is a parlor trick anyone can learn; but only a fool
would attempt to predict details of future history (except as fiction, so
labeled); there are too many unknowns and no techniques for integrating
them even if they were known.

Even to make predictions about overall trends in technology is now most
difficult. In fields where before World War II there was one man working in
public, there are now ten, or a hundred, working in secret. There may be
six men in the country who have a clear picture of what is going on in
science today. There may not be even one.

This is in itself a trend. Many leading scientists consider it a factor as