Did Transmetropolitan come true?
Largely, yes. Transmetropolitan (1997) has a P(n) of 81% on Nearfi's P(n) Board, our estimate of the chance its future arrives within 20 years. Of its 4 tracked predictions, 3 have arrived and 0 are arriving. Its central premise, 'Reporting on the powerful is physically dangerous, and journalists are threatened and killed because of their work while press freedom and its finances weaken', has arrived. The next prediction is estimated to arrive around 2075.
Transmetropolitan is most prescient about attention: news delivered by individual personalities, reporters in danger, and cameras worn on the face are all here. Its household matter-recombining Maker is not, and the comic's future remains richer in gadgets than in anything the real 2026 has built.
Read the review · 8.2/10 →
How this P(n) was calculated
P(n) is the chance that this work's future arrives within 20 years, by 2046. For each prediction we turn our estimate into a probability: arrived is 100%, diverged is 0%, and otherwise the low end of our 80% range counts as a 10% chance, the median year 50% and the high end 90%. Each prediction is weighted 1–5 by how pivotal it is to the story, and P(n) is the weighted average. P50 does the same by 2076. P(n), explained.
| Claim | Prediction · why this weight | Weight | Status · estimate | By 2046 | By 2076 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TRANS-1 | A single columnist's personality is the product: his writing is streamed to a whole city, and individuals rather than institutions command much of the public's news attention. Major: Spider's column and its enormous audience are how he fights the powerful, and drive the plot. |
4 | ARRIVED arrived 2024 | 100% | 100% |
| TRANS-2 | Reporting on the powerful is physically dangerous, and journalists are threatened and killed because of their work while press freedom and its finances weaken. Core premise: the story is a reporter at war with power, and the threat to him is constant. |
5 | ARRIVED arrived 1997 | 100% | 100% |
| TRANS-3 | Reporters wear glasses with a built-in camera that capture what they see. Supporting: Spider's signature glasses shape how he reports, but the plot does not depend on them. |
3 | ARRIVED arrived 2023 | 100% | 100% |
| TRANS-4 | A household machine, the Maker, recombines raw matter or waste into food, clothing and other goods on demand. Supporting: the Maker is a recurring part of Spider's daily life and a source of gags, but no plot turns on it. |
3 | NEAR 2075 (2055–2130) | 7% | 51% |
| P(n) = P20 = Σ(weight × chance by 2046) ÷ Σ weight = 12.2 ÷ 15 = 81% | |||||
| P50 = 13.5 ÷ 15 = 90% | |||||
Already here today (arrived 1, arriving ½, weighted): 80%.
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TRANS-1
A single columnist's personality is the product: his writing is streamed to a whole city, and individuals rather than institutions command much of the public's news attention.
Weight 4/5 · Major: Spider's column and its enormous audience are how he fights the powerful, and drive the plot.
In the US, news influencers are individuals with large followings, often without a news-organisation background. About one in five adults used them regularly in 2024, and in 2025 social and video networks overtook TV as a weekly news source for the first time. The comic's columnist still works for a newspaper, and the real audience is split across many voices rather than one city-wide stream, so this is a match in kind rather than in form. 123
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TRANS-2
Reporting on the powerful is physically dangerous, and journalists are threatened and killed because of their work while press freedom and its finances weaken.
Weight 5/5 · Core premise: the story is a reporter at war with power, and the threat to him is constant.
This was true when the comic began and is now worse by the measures that exist. The Committee to Protect Journalists recorded at least 124 journalists and media workers killed in 2024, its highest total, and 24 deliberately murdered because of their work; many other deaths were in crossfire. RSF's 2025 index classed the global situation as difficult for the first time and recorded its lowest economic indicator. It is a continuity more than a forecast, and the press-freedom measures are not a measure of any single leader. 456
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TRANS-3
Reporters wear glasses with a built-in camera that capture what they see.
Weight 3/5 · Supporting: Spider's signature glasses shape how he reports, but the plot does not depend on them.
Camera eyewear was sold from 2013 in Google's Glass Explorer programme, which ended in 2015 after privacy complaints and weak uptake. Mass-market sales arrived with Ray-Ban Meta glasses in 2023 and EssilorLuxottica reported over seven million Meta-branded units sold in 2025. The real products capture photos and video and can go live to social platforms. They have not made a generation of journalists, and social acceptance remains the open question. 789
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TRANS-4
A household machine, the Maker, recombines raw matter or waste into food, clothing and other goods on demand.
Weight 3/5 · Supporting: the Maker is a recurring part of Spider's daily life and a source of gags, but no plot turns on it.
Additive manufacturing now makes things from a limited set of feedstocks, such as ICON's printed concrete walls at Wolf Ranch in Texas, where the roof is still fitted by people. A general-purpose appliance that rebuilds arbitrary matter into food and fabric would need control of material at molecular scale, which is far beyond present machines. The 2016 Nobel committee likened molecular motors to the electric motor of the 1830s. We set a wide, late range, and this may never happen. 1011
- FOR Americans' Experiences with Social Media News Influencers. Pew Research Center, 2024-11-18. 21% of US adults regularly get news from news influencers, rising to 37% of those aged 18 to 29, in a survey of more than 10,000 adults.
- FOR Digital News Report 2025: Executive Summary and Key Findings. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2025-06-17. 54% of US respondents used social and video for news weekly, ahead of TV (50%) and websites (48%) for the first time; 22% saw Joe Rogan on news in a week.
- AGAINST Digital News Report 2025: Executive Summary and Key Findings. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2025-06-17. Across markets 40% say they sometimes or often avoid the news and overall trust is 40%, so the audience is wary rather than captive.
- FOR 2024 is deadliest year for journalists in CPJ history; almost 70% killed by Israel. Committee to Protect Journalists, 2025-02-12. At least 124 journalists and media workers killed in 2024; at least 24 deliberately killed because of their work. A later correction lowers the Israel share to 60%.
- FOR RSF World Press Freedom Index 2025: economic fragility a leading threat to press freedom. Reporters Without Borders, 2025-05-02. The global situation is classed as difficult for the first time, and the economic indicator is at its lowest point in the index's history.
- CONTEXT 2024 is deadliest year for journalists in CPJ history; almost 70% killed by Israel. Committee to Protect Journalists, 2025-02-12. CPJ says many of the deaths were in crossfire or on dangerous assignments, not deliberate attacks, so the record is not all targeting of reporters.
- FOR Introducing the New Ray-Ban | Meta Smart Glasses Collection. Meta, 2023-09-27. A 12 MP camera, 1080p video, and live streaming to Facebook or Instagram from the glasses.
- FOR Meta Sold Over 7 Million Smart Glasses Last Year, Effectively Tripling Sales in 2025 Alone. Road to VR, 2026-02-12. EssilorLuxottica's fourth-quarter 2025 results reported over seven million Meta-branded smart glasses sold last year.
- AGAINST Glasshole daddy admits Google Glass was a bad idea. The Register, 2015-03-18. Google X's Astro Teller said Glass got too much attention; privacy concerns and the Glassholes label hurt its image and Explorer was suspended.
- FOR Lennar and ICON Begin 100-Home 3D-Printed Community in Texas. Pro Builder, 2022-11-10. ICON's Vulcan system prints the structural walls of 100 homes; a partial, single-material version of machine-made goods.
- CONTEXT The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016: Press Release. Nobel Prize Outreach / Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 2016-10-05. The molecular motor is described as at the stage of the electric motor in the 1830s, showing how early machine control of matter at that scale is.
Ledger updated 5 Nov 2026. All works on the P(n) Board · Method