Last and First Men

[General Mung Beans]

The novel Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon is surprisingly accurate in describing the course of (near) future events and the passages relating to Americans in the book sound like they were written in the Bush years. http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601101h.html

[jamsy42]

Yeah but the far future events are pretty out there

[speaker-to-trolls]

The novel Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon is surprisingly accurate in describing the course of (near) future events and the passages relating to Americans in the book sound like they were written in the Bush years. http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601101h.html

Lolwhut? Are we thinking of the same book? Where America gases the whole of Europe, goes to war with China for three hundred years then takes over the world and starts worshipping thermal energy?
America adopting a unilateral and invasive (ha) foreign policy kind of relates to recent events, but let's be honest here, America has had a unilateral and invasive (haha) foreign policy for centuries.
EDIT: As did most powerful 'Western' nations in the 1800s and early 1900's, of course, America has, however, overtaken its peers more recently.

Yeah but the far future events are pretty out there

The far future events can be as far out as they want, they're in the far future. Plus the scientific knowledge of the time was very different and in most ways inferior to what we have now.

[General Mung Beans]

The novel Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon is surprisingly accurate in describing the course of (near) future events and the passages relating to Americans in the book sound like they were written in the Bush years. http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601101h.html

Lolwhut? Are we thinking of the same book? Where America gases the whole of Europe, goes to war with China for three hundred years then takes over the world and starts worshipping thermal energy?

America doesn't take over the world actually-its an alliance of Chinese and American financial interests that launch a coup and topple their respective governments and form a world state.

America adopting a unilateral and invasive (ha) foreign policy kind of relates to recent events, but let's be honest here, America has had a unilateral and invasive (haha) foreign policy for centuries.
EDIT: As did most powerful 'Western' nations in the 1800s and early 1900's, of course, America has, however, overtaken its peers more recently.

Well that's gunboat diplomacy for you.

Yeah but the far future events are pretty out there

The far future events can be as far out as they want, they're in the far future. Plus the scientific knowledge of the time was very different and in most ways inferior to what we have now.

My main problem with the far future events is that despite civilizations lasting for hundreds of thousands of years only the fifth human species develops space travel of any sort (and only because Earth is threatened with destruction) and after two billion years nobody has developed interstellar travel!

[speaker-to-trolls]

America doesn't take over the world actually-its an alliance of Chinese and American financial interests that launch a coup and topple their respective governments and form a world state.

Ah, I remembered that it was an alliance of China and America but I thought that it was all an agreement at the end of the war and that the Americans ended up getting the upper hand, the worship of thermal energy (which ends up destroying civilisation by using up all the coal, of all things) was their thing, if memory serves.
It's been a while since I've read it, apologies.

Well that's gunboat diplomacy for you.

Quite, but I was just saying it's hardly new and doesn't need prescience to predict.

My main problem with the far future events is that despite civilizations lasting for hundreds of thousands of years only the fifth human species develops space travel of any sort (and only because Earth is threatened with destruction) and after two billion years nobody has developed interstellar travel!

I put that down to Stapledon thinking space travel was more difficult than it is (and overestimating the Earths resources while he was at it). The 5th and 9th men always struck me as almost lazy once they'd set themselves up, though. The 5th men just build spaceships to avoid annihilation, then once they've exterminated the Venusian ecosystem they turn into flying primitives! Then the 9th men, despite knowing they are the most advanced species in the galaxy and that they could head out and colonise the whole place, decide to stay and quietly wait for death because.... Hey, didn't the 5th men wipe out the Venusians because they had a duty to preserve their advanced civilisation or something?

Uh, our superadvanced psychic descendants suck.

[Simon_Jester]

My main problem with the far future events is that despite civilizations lasting for hundreds of thousands of years only the fifth human species develops space travel of any sort (and only because Earth is threatened with destruction) and after two billion years nobody has developed interstellar travel!

Mung, you may not be probably aren't aware of this, but Stapledon published Last and First Men only two years after the first story of interstellar travel, Skylark of Space, was published as a magazine serial.

At the time, no remotely viable concept for an interstellar drive existed (a couple that have at least a credible chance do now). So yeah, no interstellar travel in Stapledon's story.

[Lord of the Abyss]

I put that down to Stapledon thinking space travel was more difficult than it is (and overestimating the Earths resources while he was at it).

As seen in Star Maker - set in the same universe I believe - Stapledonian interstellar travel consists of mobile planets...a feat that understandably takes quite a while to advance to. Also; one thing about his work, he didn't have the modern assumption of exponential scientific progress; he assumed a far slower rate of advance than a typical modern writer would.

[General Mung Beans]

America doesn't take over the world actually-its an alliance of Chinese and American financial interests that launch a coup and topple their respective governments and form a world state.

Ah, I remembered that it was an alliance of China and America but I thought that it was all an agreement at the end of the war and that the Americans ended up getting the upper hand, the worship of thermal energy (which ends up destroying civilisation by using up all the coal, of all things) was their thing, if memory serves.
It's been a while since I've read it, apologies

.

Now that you're saying that it was an agreement at the end of the war and the new world government's official religion was effectively worship of energy-so maybe you're right and I should be apologising. While America didn't really defeat the enemy they managed to impose their worldview.