> If the failure by “A Canticle for Leibowitz” to predict the nuclear holocaust tells us anything, it’s that this is indeed possible.
The nuclear holocaust wasn't really a prediction of that book; it was a premise.
The nuclear holocaust wasn't really a prediction of that book; it was a premise.
Maybe last year, but we're back to nuclear sabre-rattling and great-power conflict now.
The book itself is literature. To see it as a prediction and especially as a failed prediction seems simpleminded (in the techie-futurist way).
(B) The type of literature in question is called an allegory. To see an allegory as a prediction is... aligned with why people write them. I wouldn't call picking the wrong definition to support an argument simpleminded; perhaps friction-seeking would be a good term.