Back when I was doing my Abitur (basically College here in germany), I read the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, which he wrote in 1953 (or at least it was published that year). Its a very good book, that depicts a very dystopian future, in which books are outlawed and burned and society has become numb and meaningless to what is going on around it.

Its not your typical dystopia, in that people live under an iron grip of a dictator, or are malnourished and worked to death like in the novel Nineteen-Eightyfour by Orwell, quite the contrary. Its shown that standards of "living" are actually very high and personal liberties (aside from owning books) are high, too high perhaps, as there are barely any laws present, which results in certain acts of anarchy and societal endangerment.

"Now Buster, how does that encapsulate our modern society, doesn't sound at all like what we're living in."

Well, let me get to that.

Theres many ways to interprete the book, and you can find a fuckton online. Everything from societal decay to censorship. Bradbury's own interpretation (Word of God) says the book is about how unrestrained technological advance and use thereoff can and will destroy society. He may have been on to something.

Let me just list a few example of future predictions made by this man:
-People watch meaningless and utterly vapid TV shows all day and surround themselves at home in luxury goods in a hedonistic fashion, disregarding concerns like debt. One of these goods are Wallscreens, basically Wallsized TV Screens that allow participants to indulge even more into their pointless TV shows. "But Buster, we don't have Wallsized TV screens." Well, not entirely wallsized, but TV screens keep getting bigger and bigger and flatter and flatter. And ultimately pointless technologies like 3D, that dont really add to the value of the movies and shows its applied to also serve as a point to that.
-When people leave their houses, they do so wearing ear conches, aka tiny plug in headphones. Again, this was in 1953. Headphones then were bulky-ass things that made you look like a martian. These ear conches are connected to tiny, walkman like machines that allow the people to drown out the reality they may be subject themselves too by going outside. Apple products come to mind.
-Personal communication and socializing looses more and more of its value and ceases almost to exist. When not "forced" into communication, like say at work or in school, people communicate almost exclusively via telephone, and mostly talk about nothing really. And when people come over, its pretty much the same, much talk over nothing. Again, this is really creepy when you behold people in places that used to be about social interaction stick their faces to their Smartphones, because its just so damn similiar.
-Education has become a joke. For one thing, the education plan ditches any kind of education that would require thinking and debate, like say politics, history etc. Instead kids are put in mass in front of lifeless big monitor-blackboards at school that teach them how to perform practical things, like disassemble a motorblock or build a toaster, again, eerily similiar to how overcrowded and understaffed schools nowaday have become, and how in many countries, a lot of "risque" subjects are touched upon anymore to not offend someone when it comes to debate.

"Okay, but what about that bookburning. Thats a central thing of this book, isn't it?"

Well, I was about to come to that. Now, the reason why books are burned isn't touched upon until much later in the book. The main characters superior tells him that the reason books are burned is because they not only made people think, but also debate. A book always contains a message or opinion or POV. Something that can make people think deeper about life or spark a debate about whether said opinion is true or not.

"So?"

Well, the superior goes on to say that with society growing and growing, and multiculturalism taking place, people began to get offended over everything. Every person belonged to a minority, and everyone had reason to be upset over something, whether said something was worth said upheaval or not. It turned into a small conflict of minorities which was sure to rip apart society, so an effort was made to counteract that. Thats why people are constantly surrounded by loud music and meaningless TV shows and luxury items, to drown out the reality, to make them numb. People have all these liberties to act as they want, drive fast and dangerous, numb themselves even more. Anything that could spark more debate and thought, like books or "dangerous" classes at school are forbidden and replaced.

And thats probably, to me, the most striking prediction that came true. Don't get me wrong, I am not against multiculturalism. However, after taking a trip and doing a crosssection of tumblr (and the internet at large) today, it has become clear that we entered that point the book predicted. If you look at the net these days, you can see a lot of people identifying themselves with some sort of oppressed minority, whether said minority or perceived oppression is actually a thing, and adopting an "us vs them" mentality. People being offended at anything and anyone over vague and subjectionally-perceived controversies. And its just fucking appalling, especially when actual groups trying to better society get undermined by said easily offended groups, turning it into a twisted perversion of what it was before (theres now an actual civil war/schism between feminists. I shit you not.)

And no one is immune from it. Jontron was one of the most popular guys on the internet. One slip later, and now tumblr and twitter are on their righteous crusade to take him down for being an "ableist, homophobic, whiney mens right activist", and several other e-famous people joined in on that, even people he used to work with and whom he admired.

GamerGate (which is still a thing apparantly) also got sidedragged into the debate. At the beginning it was about nepotism in games media and how it should be fought. And it still kind of is. But the constant crossfire bet Anti-SJW's and SJW's has turned it into a murky swamp of unclear fronts and goals, thats such a clusterfuck I don't dare touching it with a 100 feet pole.

Bottomline: Ray Bradbury saw a lot of bad societal trends happen 60 years in advance. Maybe we should've listened to it.