Knowing what will happen next

If you go back over the years in terms of science fiction and fantasy you find many very brilliant simulations of futures that have occurred. The top method is simply to stay keenly attuned to trends in the laboratories and research centres around the world, taking note of even things that seem impractical or useless. You then ask yourself what if they found a way to do that thing ten thousand times as quickly/powerfully/well? What if someone weaponised it? Monopolised it? Or commercialised it, enabling millions of people to do this new thing, routinely? What would society look like, if everybody took this new thing for granted? Predictions, failed or successful, tell us as much about the time they were made as they do about the future. In the nuclear community in the years after World War II, they were pretty clear if we didn't eliminate nuclear weapons, if they didn't get it under control, there would inevitably be a nuclear war.