Science fiction and the future

Yes, I know.... science fiction is about the time when it's written.

However, I still get a kick out of it when science fiction gets something thing right (as I recall, there were approximately half a dozen pretty good predictions in The Door into Summer-- I'm especially fond of the classified ads (oh, well) where the man from the past can't even guess what most of the jobs are), a little sad when science fiction misses something fairly big (I believe no one guessed that tattooing and piercing would go mainstream), and kind of amazed when science fiction gets something right (The Machine Stops (1909)-- people use something like the internet to chat with each other, and they get obsessed with keeping up), and then everyone forgets it until it happens in the real world. (Typical computer networks in sf were highly centralized rather than being used for communication between people.)

While it's impossible to predict the future accurately, it's plausible that science fiction gains some mental flexibility by trying. I haven't seen discussion anywhere about the effects of trying to predict.

How about trying to propaganda-proof kids?

There's persistent worry about people being recruited for islamist terrorism, and I admit that it seems to be unnervingly easy. There are efforts at counter-propaganda, and that's not a bad idea.

On the other hand, seeing this reminds me that people are pretty gullible in general. I think I believed a few of those false claims myself, like that GoLean might actually be healthy in some sense. I tried it and gave up on it because it had no flavor.

In any case, it would be a good idea to teach children to ask "what is this ad trying to get me to do?", "what evidence do they have for their claims?", and "what methods are they using to increase their emotional effect"?

I have heard of parents working to make their kids less vulnerable to ads, and I *think* I've heard of that sort of thing in schools. I didn't get it from either source, though I've ended up with a generalized disgust at advertising and I tend to think that anything which is heavily advertised is overpriced.