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It’s exactly 30 years since the TV series of Hitch Hikers guide to the Galaxy popularized the book to millions of people, and the genius of Douglas Adams was writ large on the nations consciousness.
30 years is a long time, and many things can happen, many developments can occur, and while it is true that the Earth has NOT been bull-dozered to make way for an intergalactic superhighway, it is striking how many of the things Douglas Adams wrote about in his futuristic fiction have come to life!
For a start, there’s the Internet, that in 1981 that was barely a twinkle in Bill Gates’ eye. But when Adams described the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (the magical book with the answer to everything...) it sounds almost exactly like the internet
“It has the answer to everything known, compiled by people all round the galaxy beaming in their copy and it being instantly available to anybody to read – over something called the subethernet.”
Or then there’s the Ipad/ Smart phone technology he describes:
“It's sort of like an electronic book, you press the screen, and it lights up and gives you an index and characters appear upon the surface.”
Visionary! There’s even predictions that came true about Artificial Intelligence, Genetically Modified Animals, Biological Computers, and satellite technology!
It’s almost to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if the earth ended up being a giant super computer run by mice! Well, I would be surprised, just not as much as I could be.
Pick up the books again if you get the chance – they’re a staple at second hand shops – and have a laugh, they are truly as brilliant and as funny as you remember them! And you might even get a clue as to what the future holds for the 2020’s!
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