Readers reply: what have been the most prescient or accurate predictions of the future?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions considers the art of soothsaying, prognostication and futurism This week’s question: What would be the most useful superpower? ‘Fingertip shopping will be one of the many homemakers’ conveniences. This video console will be channelled into the store of her choice …

” I’ve always been fascinated by this 1967 video (not 1969, as the label says) which accurately foresaw the advent of online shopping, CCTV, fax/email and electronic banking. (It was a little less prescient in its assumption of gender roles – wife shops, husband pays – but we’ll let that slide. ) The video, entitled 1999AD, was made by the Philco-Ford company, an American…