Can writers predict future events?

[Rubber Soul]

The reason I ask this is because, when I was reading Dostoevsky, I saw a pattern between Marxism and the plight of the poor in Russia in his writings. There are similar tales in some of the works of Tolstoy for example.

So, did these writers foresee what would be the Russian Revolution? And if so, are there other examples where writers at least subconsciously predicted the future?

[robhr]

An interesting topic of conversation.

I know personally when I write it feels more like it's coming through me than coming from me so I could see it if people called it channeling of some sort. I generally don't, unless somebody else brings it up, 'cause it sounds all high and mighty.

I hear the Simpsons has predicted the future a number of times but I also heard that got debunked so I'unnow.

[Toy Revolver]

i can't remember which book it was but was pre-internet sci-fi and they predicted the internet and even called it the web

both 1984 and Brave New World have come to fruition

[Toy Revolver]

An interesting topic of conversation.

I know personally when I write it feels more like it's coming through me than coming from me so I could see it if people called it channeling of some sort. I generally don't, unless somebody else brings it up, 'cause it sounds all high and mighty.

I hear the Simpsons has predicted the future a number of times but I also heard that got debunked so I'unnow.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_to_the_Future

[Trollheart]

Lots of things in H.G. Wells' The  Time Machine came to pass, not to mention The Shape of Things to Come.

[Guybrush]

I think writers make so many predictions about the future, some of them are bound to be passably correct.

Maybe, in some special cases, a work of art is so impactful and influential that it informs us as to what the future should contain (even if dystopian) so that we might end up working towards fulfilling those predictions. I'm sure some find 1984 inspiring or the replicants from Blade Runner or Skynet.

If I was superstitious, I might say maybe the universe is deterministic and we sometimes vaguely remember the future and how it should be. I don't actually believe that, but sometimes it feels like that. I had that feeling the first time I met one of my coworkers f.ex. and when we went to the showing of the house we bought. It's like a weird sense of familiarity with something you've never encountered before.