The Diamond Age (Neal Stephenson, 1995) had many eerily prescient visions but I've always liked some of the more subtle ones: the "Neo-Victorians" who put extra value on handmade goods in a world where anything can be printed foreshadowed Etsy and the modern "artisanal" everything, the use of pictogram based language foreshadowed rising use of emojis, the Primer as a source of education accessible to anyone foreshado…
Another of his books Snow Crash, which is kind of precursor to Diamond Age had some pretty interesting predictions. I read somewhere stuff like Second Life, Google Earth etc were directly inspired by Snow Crash. There's some other themes in Snow Crash we are just starting to see as well: -Government difficulties with taxation of digital goods and currency -Companies competing to attract drivers/messengers etc (basica…
Re: Ask HN: Favorite technology predictions in science fiction?
#61Snowcrash is probably the best example of a near future anarcho-capitalist society. Particulary showing it in a light which is far from utopian, perhaps more of a realistic devolution.