There are many other fictional incidents from various books, movies, and TV shows that almost seem to predict what later happened in real life, and many of them involve science and technology. Consider the early depictions of futuristic tech like AI, robots, and virtual reality, for example.
Predictive Programming In Movies
Predictive programming is a theory devised by conspiracy theorists, it claims that the government or groups of elites are using fictional movies or books as a mass mind control tool to make the population more accepting of planned future events. So, how plausible is this theory? Does the media we consume make us more likely to calmly tolerate any changes that those in charge wish to make, or to accept things that appear bizarre?
The conspiracists also often argue that, although governments already have the solution to the problem they created in the first place, they deliberately wait for the right time to implement the solution in order to cause the most damage to people's ability to think for themselves. Some believers even claim that predictive programming is actually a highly advanced form of AI used for the psychological conditioning of the masses. Needless to say, these types of arguments are filled with logical fallacies, doctored footage and documents, outright lies, and a complete lack of proper scientific research or rigor. So, why do some people still believe them?
Psychologists and researchers consider incidents of predictive programming as either coincidences or likely scenarios based on real research. For example, it is not that difficult to imagine a scenario where an airplane is used as a weapon and write a book or movie with this as a plot, so when a similar event occurs in real life, conspiracists claim the earlier book or movie was actually a prediction. This tendency to view events as more predictable than they really are is called hindsight bias and is a common psychological response to a traumatic event.
A belief in predictive programming may also result from framing bias. This is when someone makes a decision or forms a belief because of the specific way information is presented to them, rather than on the objective facts. Many people come to a belief in conspiracy theories through listening, reading, or watching influencers or media personalities that they have come to trust because they seem familiar, rather than because they have been demonstrated to be truthful. Whereas, if such ideas are presented in a different way or by someone they do not trust, the believer may be more likely to come to a different conclusion about the information.
Some reports also suggest that people may believe in predictive programming due to pareidolia, a generalized term for seeing patterns in random data. Face pareidolia, where people see faces in random objects or patterns of light and shadow is a common phenomenon. Some common examples are seeing a likeness of Jesus in a piece of toast or an image of a bird in a cloud. Once considered a symptom of psychosis, it actually arises from an error in visual perception.
People who believe in this theory are mostly conspiracy theorists who think there will be a totalitarian government takeover, or on the more mild side, theorists who believe tragic events are an inside job or completely fake. David Icke proposed that the Sandy Hook shooting was predicted in the Dark Night Rises because Sandy Hook is shown on the map in one of the scenes. (Wood) While I was looking for more information on the motives behind the government participating in predictive programming I found that most commonly people believe the government creates a problem so the population will look to the government for a solution. However, because the government planned for the crisis the government will offer a solution that has been planned long before the crisis ever happened. Alan Watt, along with many others, believe a desired outcome is created through the power of suggestion in media. (Wood) This theory is still very popular today because any huge event can be seemingly traced back to cartoon or movie that was fortunate enough to predict it.
Predictive programming at its core is a tactic to reduce resistance by introducing concepts that seem far fetched and continuously reintroducing them to make these concepts appear more likely or at the very least acceptable. As always there is a reason why movies and television are used as the common vessel. When watching something a person typically perceives it as entertainment and their theoretical guard will be lowered and the subliminal messages will be directly go to the subconscious. It also is used as a sort of self fulfilling prophecy because once an expectation is created then when these events start to happen the population may seem more likely to accept the fate. There is also a control of imagination because the most commonly used tool in predictive programming is science fiction, by creating these stories the author can create boundaries of imagination and slowly show what may happen. (The Coincidence Theorist) As mentioned before one example of this is Futility. This is a book from 1898 that shared the story of a fictional ship named Titan that was deemed unsinkable and ended up crashing into an iceberg. With a similar description and fate this novel is seen as outlining the fate of the Titanic to create an acceptance among people for when the Titanic truly sank.
There are several cognitive contributions that can be attributed to predictive programming. A lot of the evidence presented by theorists are highly likely to be coincidences. Some are eerie and seem to be a sure thing but they could be resulting from Pareidolia. Pareidolia is seeing patterns in random stimuli and as theorists are looking through evidence for their belief they may begin to use a confirmation bias and see a patten that does not actually exist. Interestingly enough pseudoscience may play a role in the appeal of this theory. A lot of the basis of predictive programming can be attributed to the idea of neurolinguistic programming but after empirical testing there is no evidence that neurolinguistic programming even works. More importantly there is no link between the two. As mentioned before, predictive programming is meant to soften the blow of a traumatic event and create less of a reaction and a tendency to accept. However, there are studies that show how stimulus is presented is very important to the outcome. A study in 2009 showed that portraying something in a negative or positive way will impact how it is perceived. (Wood) This eliminates the idea of predictive programming being completely subliminal but it does introduce the idea of the mere exposure effect. By showing a positive or neutral stimulus repeatedly there is a tendency for a person to like that stimulus more and more overtime. These finding are both a problem for predictive programming because through the mere exposure effect people would have an even worse reaction to any negatives being presented. (Wood)
The mass majority of believers in this theory are conspiracy theorists. Alan Watt is a researcher who first described the phenomena but it was made popular by David Icke and Alex Jones. What they proposed as evidence seems very believable, and with a lot of exposure and good explanations, predictive programming seems to convincing not to be real. Conspiracy theorists mainly latch on to this idea because as theorists they already have a sense of disdain towards the government and beliefs of long held deceit within the higher ups. These two factors play into why many believe predictive programing is real, because most times when a person believes in one conspiracy theory they believe in others.
This was very informative and something I had not heard of before. This is a very interesting belief. All I could think about while reading this was movies such as The Hunger Games or really any movie that shows a futuristic society. Do these believers think that this is also a sign of our future? Are we going to be sending off kids to fight each other to the death like in The Hunger Games?
Let's start by saying that predictive programming is not a scientific theory, even remotely. It is a complex of ideas developed by groups of people who believe, among other things, that the world is run by a totalitarian government of "lizardmen".
As it turns out, there's a whole theory about the power of media to predict and prepare us for the future. It's called predictive programming, and it encompasses not just terrorist attacks but new technologies and the existence of aliens.
Coined by conspiracist Alan Watt, predictive programming is the theory that ideas, situations and new technologies are carefully written into movies, TV shows and books to groom the general population into accepting societal changes. Examples include the pilot episode of "The Lone Gunmen," where a hijacked plane was flown into the World Trade Center as a false flag attack; "The Dark Knight Rises," which features a map of Gotham where one of the marked locations is Sandy Hook; and an episode of "Family Guy" in which Peter Griffin drives through the Boston Marathon, released only a few months before the bombing at the 2013 Boston Marathon.
Predictive programming, the thinking goes, also can be a way to disclose something scary to people like say, the existence of aliens, without panicking the population. Give people a few years of alien encounter movies, and then when you tell them it's all real, they're ready to believe and accept it.
On Phil's first day of work in Hollywood, Steven Spielberg asked him for a donut. Not bad for a kid from Erie, PA who went on to have over 10 years experience managing and writing for high-profile entertainment sites like The Hollywood Reporter, Collider, Moviefone, Fandango and IGN. Prior to that, Phil worked for Paramount Pictures' Marketing group on such films as MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III, CLOVERFIELD, TRANSFORMERS, and STAR TREK. When he's not writing about or watching movies, he's obsessed with his dog - as you can see from his tweets.
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