Borders and migration
Walls, camps, remote labour and who gets to move: the near future of the border.
4 pieces on Nearfi: 4 reviews. Across their 16 tracked predictions, 6 have arrived, 6 are arriving, 2 are near, 1 are far off and 1 went another way. The average P(n) is 71%. Closest to now: The Water Knife at 81%. Furthest: Children of Men at 57%.
- ARRIVING Workers in one place remotely operate or guide robots that do physical work somewhere else. Sleep Dealer
- ARRIVING Senior tribal water rights become the decisive asset in the fight over Arizona's water, and governments pay to control how they are used. The Water Knife
- ARRIVED As Lake Mead falls to record lows, the federal government imposes mandatory cuts on Colorado River deliveries to Arizona and the other lower-basin states. The Water Knife · 2022
- ARRIVED Russian aggression against Ukraine drives large numbers of Ukrainian refugees into Western Europe and Britain. Years and Years · 2022
- ARRIVING Britain detains asylum seekers en masse in camps, barracks or barges and tries to remove them overseas. Children of Men
- ARRIVING The state supplies a lethal means of suicide to citizens who choose to die. Children of Men · est. 2032
- ARRIVING A fortified wall effectively closes the US–Mexico border to unauthorised crossing. Sleep Dealer · est. 2032
- ARRIVING Office professionals such as accountants lose their jobs to AI in large numbers by the mid-2020s. Years and Years · est. 2032
- NEAR Workers plug their nervous systems into a network through implanted nodes, to work and to sell recorded memories. Sleep Dealer · est. 2055
- NEAR Western states close their borders to one another and use armed guards to turn back climate refugees from Texas. The Water Knife · est. 2070
The guide: Sci-Fi About Borders and Migration: 4 Stories About Who Gets Let In →
Next Year in Bexhill
Alfonso Cuarón's film is set in 2027, which is now next year. It got the babies wrong and almost everything else right, and it's still the best-made film in our archive.
Everything Happened, Nobody Decided
Russell T Davies's six-hour family saga got the headlines of the 2020s uncomfortably right, because it was never really about the headlines.
The Labour Crosses, the Body Stays
Alex Rivera's low-budget Sundance film is clumsy as drama and almost frighteningly sharp as economics, and its central idea, labour that crosses the border without the worker, is starting to come true.
First in Time, First to Drink
Paolo Bacigalupi's Colorado River thriller reads more like reporting every summer, which is a shame, because the thriller is the weakest thing in it.
More themes: AI and machine minds · Surveillance and scoring · Space · Climate and scarcity · Pandemics and collapse · Clones and genetics · Grief and technology · Memory · Work