The great science fiction writer Stanislav Lem argued that it is impossible to predict the future. It seems to us that he is right, because often we are faced with erroneous predictions, receiving something completely different, even the opposite, in return for the expected. And yet, you should not throw futurological calculations in the trash can, because many of them are drawn up taking into account projects, the practical return of which is expected only in decades.
FUTUROLOGICAL PARADOX
When someone criticizes futurology, he usually cites as an example that its adherents failed to predict the appearance of mobile phones. This is actually a misconception. For example, in 1894 the popular French futurist Albert Robida described a "telephonoscope" - a device that will allow you to communicate in video mode and receive any video and audio information. He even managed to come up with an entire industry that would emerge with the massive proliferation of "telephonoscopes", and miniature mobile models of these devices, which would be used by citizens, the army and the police. However, it took a century for the "telephonoscope" to become a reality, and in a completely different form than Robida expected.
Since the idea was really good and appealed for implementation, there were several attempts to create a mobile telephone device. The first prototypes appeared in 1921: they were quite cumbersome and installed on Detroit police cars to transmit operational information. In the future, portable and transportable radio stations became widespread, especially since the active development of VHF frequencies began, which made it possible to reduce the size of the radio transmitter. However, the technical concept of a portable mobile device, with the help of which it would be possible to call other similar devices and landline telephones, was first proposed by the Soviet inventor Georgy Babat in 1943. His "monophone" had an alphabetic keyboard, an answering machine and a voice recorder. After the war, similar projects were repeatedly discussed,and in 1948, Bell employees came up with the idea of hexagonal "honeycomb" to receive and transmit radio signals from a moving object. In the 1960s, short-range portable radio transmitters of the Walkie-Talkie type became widespread. The birthday of mobile communications itself is considered April 3, 1973, when Martin Cooper, head of the Motorola division, made the first call through a compact phone created by his subordinates. And it took another twenty years and huge investments for cellular communication to become a standard, involving millions of users, because it required a powerful and high-tech infrastructure for its development. And the video, which Albert Robida dreamed of, appeared in "mobile phones" only at the beginning of the XXI century, after they turned into full-fledged miniature computers.
It turns out that futurologists are not able to predict specific technical details, therefore they cannot give a sufficiently accurate forecast of when this or that "gadget" will enter our life, changing it for the better or worse. However, they are quite capable of formulating a convincing "social order" that will push engineering thought in the right direction.
SLOWLY BUT SURELY
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Using the example of a “telephonoscope” embodied in a “mobile phone”, we can assess how close this or that forecast is to implementation. In this sense, the easiest way is to analyze large projects, the development of which is planned for decades ahead.
Take, for example, thermonuclear energy. They began to actively write about its excellent prospects in the 1950s, but to this day there is not a single thermonuclear reactor that would generate more energy than it consumes. At present, a prototype of such a reactor, called ITER, is under construction in France. The project was launched back in 1985, but the first launch of the reactor will take place no earlier than 2020. Then for seven years it will work “idle” as an object of study, without producing energy, and only after scientists are convinced that they control the process and understand all its nuances, fuel will be loaded into ITER. In 2033, the construction of the first commercial thermonuclear reactor DEMO will begin, the design of which will take into account the operating experience of the prototype, and it will not begin to supply electricity to the grid until 2040. That is, between the emergence of an idea and its implementation, almost a hundred years will pass again.
What is the reason for this delay? It turns out that futurologists, predicting the heyday of thermonuclear energy, were wrong again? Not if we recall the "social order" they formulated back in the 1950s. The DEMO reactor will generate 2 gigawatts of energy, but, say, the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station generates 6.4 gigawatts, and practically for nothing. They expected the appearance of cheap, compact and environmentally friendly installations from thermonuclear energy, which could supply not a multimillion city, but, for example, a small village or even a separate house. But physicists took a different path, which seemed more reliable to them. At the same time, specialists from the Lockheed Martin company announced that in five years they will launch a megawatt fusion reactor that can be placed in the back of a truck. And it may well turn out that when such a reactor appears,then the need for both ITER and DEMO will disappear.
We can subject the grandiose space plans being developed, for example, in the USA to the same test. Although since the early 1960s, the public has been convinced that the expedition to Mars is a settled issue, it has been repeatedly postponed for an increasingly distant period. Now the leadership of the American agency NASA promises that it will take place in the mid-2030s, that is, fifty years later than futurologists predicted. Why? The simplest explanation is that there is not enough funds: technical and financial, so plans have to be “shifted to the right”. But if you remember what exactly was promised in the 60s, then the conclusion is not so straightforward. The nuance is that at that time Mars was considered an inhabited planet: although by the middle of the twentieth century, scientists abandoned the idea of finding "brothers in mind" there, they remained confident that there is a developed biosphere on the red planet. Therefore, its colonization seemed to be something akin to the development of the New World by Europeans. Today we know that Mars is empty and lifeless, the natural conditions there are unfavorable for survival, and this radically changes the matter. Of course, someday the earthlings will fly there anyway, but it is hardly worth rushing, because there is a lot of hard work ahead. Most likely, such an expedition will take place only by the end of the XXI century.
JUMPING AS A FEELING
So, we come to the conclusion that futurology, forming a "social order" and showing us what to expect from the future, is never wrong. However, her predictions cannot be taken literally, because she is not able to foresee which paths the technology will take: will it be able to immediately make a breakthrough or will it move by roundabout paths. That is, it is possible to plan for the future, but taking into account the fact that the desired, most likely, will be achieved only in a hundred years.
Is it possible to speed up the process of achieving the goal? Yes, it happened in history that scientists made a significant discovery in the knowledge of the laws of the Universe, and then technology began to develop in leaps and bounds, very quickly changing the face of civilization. So it was in the era of the "steam" scientific and technological revolution, then - "electromagnetic", then - "atomic", then - "space", then - "information". Now we are on the verge of two revolutions at once, comparable in importance to the previous ones: quantum and biotechnological. But what the world will become after these revolutions become a fait accompli, alas, no futurologist can say.
Anton Pervushin