[Ads-l] Predicting traffic jams, drive-in theaters, and the sexual revolution

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

In 2014 science fiction (SF) author and commentator Cory Doctorow
published an essay on the "Locus" magazine website which referred to a
remark by a famous SF editor:

[Begin excerpt]
Legendary science fiction editor Gardner Dozois once said that the job
of a science fiction writer was to notice the car and the movie
theater and anticipate the drive-in – and then go on to predict the
sexual revolution. I love that quote, because it highlights the key
role of SF in examining the social consequences of technology – and
because it shows how limited our social imaginations are.
[End excerpt]

I was asked to investigate. In 1972 Dozois edited the short story
anthology "A Day in the Life". The remark about the difficulty of
making predictions was contained in the introduction to one of the
tales:

[Begin excerpt]
It is a jump from predicting the atomic bomb to predicting atomic
submarines or breeder reactors, and it is another jump from there to
predicting SAC and the AEC. Few authors have accurately predicted the
way the cultural changes will seep inside our everyday lives and alter
the experience and quality of it: from SAC to the McCarthy trials.

Most SF can predict the car, some SF can predict the drive-in theater,
but SF that can predict the changes in teen-age sexual behavior as a
result of the drive-in is vanishingly rare.
[End excerpt]

SAC referred to the Strategic Air Command of the U.S. which was
responsible for operating strategic bombers and intercontinental
ballistic missiles. AEC referred to the Atomic Energy Commission of
the U.S. which was responsible for overseeing nuclear energy.

Here is a link to the Quote Investigator article:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2025/07/19/sf-drive-in/

Dozois's comment was thematically similar to previous remarks by SF
luminaries Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein which are discussed in
this previous QI article:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/10/23/traffic/

In a 1953 essay Asimov wrote:

[Begin excerpt]
It is easy to predict an automobile in 1880; it is very hard to
predict a traffic problem.
[End excerpt]

In 1966 "The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein" included an essay by the SF
grandmaster titled "Pandora’s Box". Heinlein stated that many people
correctly predicted the success of the horseless carriage, but the
prognostications were incomplete:

[Begin excerpt]
But I know of no writer, fiction or non-fiction, who saw ahead of time
the vast change in the courting and mating habits of Americans which
would result primarily from the automobile—a change which the
diaphragm and the oral contraceptive merely confirmed. So far as I
know, no one even dreamed of the change in sex habits the automobile
would set off.
[End excerpt]

Feedback and illuminating citations would be welcome.
Garson O'Toole
QuoteInvestigator.com

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