"Future Shock" by Alvin Toffler. Toffler was a sociologist. He studied what happened in the past when there were radical changes in society. The first great wave was the switch from hunter/gatherer tribes to farming towns. 5,000 years later there was a leap from farming to industry. Both times there were people who couldn't or wouldn't adapt themselves to the new order.

'Future shock' was his name for the madness of people who would do anything to hold on to a past that was already dead.

[–] MysteriousSophon21@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Toffler was spot on with his theory, and his follow-up "The Third Wave" is equally relevent to what we're seeing with digital acceleration causing massive societal upheval.

[–] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 1 points 4 days ago

His book "War And Anti-War" came out around 1996.

He predicted that the next American war would be against a non-state, maybe the cartels or a terrorist group.

[–] liverbe@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Interesting article on the subject: https://mgorbis.medium.com/the-future-as-a-way-of-life-4bc314ec97de

[–] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 10 points 1 week ago

You want a major mind fuck?

"Stand On Zanzibar" by John Brunner. Brunner's novel won the 1969 Hugo for Best Science Fiction Novel. It is set in the early 21st Century. The author based his predictions on Toffler's work. He imagined things like Detroit being a ghost town; legalized pot; the internet; AI ; well paid adults needing roommates and a lot of other things. He got enough right to be very scary indeed.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/stand-on-zanzibar-john-brunner/7252770?ean=9781250781222&next=t