Someone found a 1925 booklet predicting life in 2025 — and the accuracy is unsettling

A person (u/armouredfightingdog) found a booklet produced by an English brewery for Christmas 1925. The write-up had predicted how Wolverhampton, a city in Central London, would look in 2025. Surprisingly, the 101-year-old booklet had accurately predicted some of the events of the past year, particularly the technological advancements not only in Wolverhampton but worldwide. In short, it had painted a futuristic, progressive, and tech-driven picture of the world, specifically the town. The person posted a picture of the report on Reddit on January 1.

The brewhouse, in their forecast, had thought of Wolverhampton as a "fine old town" with a population of 500,000 people. In fact, they had compared its prosperity to that of neighboring cities like Birmingham, Stourbridge, and Stafford, where boundaries would unite. The town was imagined to be free of pollution and poverty, and people were predicted to be happy, living a healthy and successful life. "Poverty and slumdon are things of the past," it read. Ironic to what the booklet had predicted, Wolverhampton was ranked as the least prosperous town in the UK by the Legatum Institute in 2015. They reached the conclusion based on two main factors: average income and happiness levels. And Wolverhampton scored the lowest among the 170 different areas across the UK. The air quality, however, has significantly increased, with weather reports showing little to no risk.

While people's habits and customs would have changed, they predicted that the brewing method would still be the same even after 100 years. The company predicted that the town would be so advanced that people would travel via airways and that radio would allow people to see and talk to each other over very long distances. "Transportation is entirely carried on air," it mentioned. It's weirdly fascinating how people in 1925 thought of air transportation when "air taxis" or eVTOLs are only now nearing reality. In fact, Dubai is going to be the first city in the world to offer a fully integrated, premium air taxi network in 2026. Companies like California-based Joby Aviation and Archer in the United States are currently working on prototypes. Moreover, it is believed that the first launches will be in Los Angeles and Miami. Notably, China has also conducted test flights and may very soon join Dubai in the future.

On  April 8, 1927 — merely two years after this pamphlet was released — then–Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover delivered the first-ever video call, sitting before a camera at a Bell Labs facility in Washington, DC. It would be several more decades before video calls became popular, tying in with the advent of cellphones in the late 90s, but the feature only gained mass usage after 2010.

Some praised the accuracy of the booklet, while others pinpointed how it was far from the real picture of 2025; for instance, u/cassanderer commented, "Peaceful, healthy, and prosperous! This guy was a real optimist. Coming after the 1st WW, he really should not have such a rosy view. Meanwhile, in 2026, we are being systematically poisoned in a thousand ways and told it's fine, like frogs in a pot on the stove. The ones stirring it tell you it is fine; never mind the cost of living, establishment-curated numbers show buying power has never been higher!" Similarly, u/cats7204 said, "They did predict TVs and phones very precisely; in fact, it was pessimistic, as in the early 2000s video calls were already possible."

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