In 1922, a Novelist Predicts What the World Will Look Like in 2022: Wireless Telephones, 8‑Hour Flights to Europe & More (2024)

A cen­tu­ry ago, the pop­u­lar Eng­lish nov­el­ist W.L. George sat down and put his mind to envi­sion­ing the world we live in today. That world has not, alas, turned out to be one in which his books are much read, but in his day a great many read­ers were moved by his social cause-dri­ven fic­tion and reportage. One might com­pare him to Upton Sin­clair, his con­tem­po­rary on the oth­er side of the Atlantic. In the Paris-born-and-raised George’s ances­tral home­land, George Orwell described him as an author of what G.K. Chester­ton called “good bad books,” sin­gling out for praise his 1920 nov­elCal­ibanamid the “shod­dy rub­bish” of his wider oeu­vre.

Still even authors of rub­bish — and per­haps espe­cial­ly authors of rub­bish — can sense the shape of things to come. For its edi­tion of May 7, 1922, theNew York Her­aldcom­mis­sioned George to share that sense with their read­ers. In response he described a world in which “com­mer­cial fly­ing will have become entire­ly com­mon­place,” reduc­ing the sep­a­ra­tion of Amer­i­ca and Europe to eight hours,and whose pas­sen­ger steam­ers and rail­roads will have con­se­quent­ly fall­en into obso­les­cence. “Wire­less teleg­ra­phy and wire­less tele­phones will have crushed the cable sys­tem,” result­ing in gen­er­a­tions who’ll nev­er have seen “a wire out­lined against the sky.”

That goes for the trans­mis­sion of elec­tric­i­ty as well, since George cred­its (a bit hasti­ly, it seems) the pos­si­bil­i­ty of wire­less pow­er sys­tems of the kind researched by Niko­la Tes­la. In 2022, coal will take a dis­tant back­seat to the tides, the sun, and radi­um, and “it may also be that atom­ic ener­gy will be har­nessed.” As for the cin­e­ma, “the fig­ures on the screen will not only move, but they will have their nat­ur­al col­ors and speak with ordi­nary voic­es. Thus, the stage as we know it to-day may entire­ly dis­ap­pear, which does not mean the doom of art, since the movie actress of 2022 will not only need to know how to smile but also how to talk.”

Oth­er women, how­ev­er, have proven just as capa­ble as George had imag­ined: “All posi­tions will be open to them and a great many women will have risen high. The year 2022 will prob­a­bly see a large num­ber of women in Con­gress, a great many on the judi­cial bench, many in civ­il ser­vice posts, and per­haps some in the Pres­i­den­t’s Cab­i­net.” Georges fore­sees the birth-con­trol pill, but also the “pill lunch.” Unlike some reform­ers, he hes­i­tates to declare the abo­li­tion of the fam­i­ly, but he does imag­ine the “major­i­ty of mankind” occu­py­ing mod­u­lar homes in high-rise com­mu­nal dwellings (“I have a vision of walls, fur­ni­ture, and hang­ings made of more or less com­pressed papi­er-mâché”),all gath­ered in cli­mate-con­trolled cities set under glass.

On the whole, in 2022, “the advance­ment of sci­ence will be amaz­ing, but it will be noth­ing like so amaz­ing as is the present day in rela­tion to a hun­dred years ago.” Indeed, he sus­pects that a glimpse of our real­i­ty would­n’t much sur­prise “the lit­tle girl who sells can­dies at Grand Cen­tral Sta­tion.” It could even be dull, what with com­plete set­tle­ment and devel­op­ment leav­ing “no more oppor­tu­ni­ty in Amer­i­ca than there is in Eng­land to-day.” In 1922, George could write that “in fic­tion, Amer­i­ca leads the world by sin­cer­i­ty, faith and fear­less­ness,” and believe that “in 2022 Amer­i­can lit­er­a­ture will be a lit­er­a­ture of cul­ture. The bat­tle will be over and the muz­zle off. There will be no more things one can’t say, and things one can’t think.” What­ev­er the inspi­ra­tions of his prophe­cy, they must not have told him about social media.

You can find a copy of George’s orig­i­nal arti­cle over at the Library of Con­gress.

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via Messy Nessy

Relat­ed Con­tent:

In 1953, a Tele­phone-Com­pa­ny Exec­u­tive Pre­dicts the Rise of Mod­ern Smart­phones and Video Calls

Jules Verne Accu­rate­ly Pre­dicts What the 20th Cen­tu­ry Will Look Like in His Lost Nov­el, Paris in the Twen­ti­eth Cen­tu­ry (1863)

In 1900, Ladies’ Home Jour­nal Pub­lish­es 28 Pre­dic­tions for the Year 2000

In 1911, Thomas Edi­son Pre­dicts What the World Will Look Like in 2011: Smart Phones, No Pover­ty, Libraries That Fit in One Book

In 1926, Niko­la Tes­la Pre­dicts the World of 2026

Based in Seoul,Col­in Mar­shallwrites and broad­castson cities and cul­ture.His projects include the bookThe State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­lesand the video seriesThe City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at@colinmarshallor onFace­book.