How Star Trek: Deep Space Nine accidentally predicted the 2020s with a pair of 1995 episodes

Vox

"Science fiction has been pointing toward a dystopian America, ruled by prejudice and often outright fascism, for decades now," says Emily VanDerWerff. "But that trend hasn’t always made its way to television — especially not to the Star Trek franchise, which boasts a utopian worldview of a humanity that settled its many conflicts and united to explore the furthest reaches of space. Star Trek is not completely devoid of dystopias, but they typically pop up only in the form of one-off planets of the week. And yet one of the pieces of science fiction that has best seemed to herald the 2020s is a two-parter from the third season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The episodes are set in 2024, but they were filmed in 1994 and aired in early 1995. They depict an America where inequality has spun out of control, where homelessness is a problem that no one is particularly interested in tackling compassionately, and where divisions centered on race and income spiral into violence. The 'Past Tense' pair of episodes isn’t just remarkable for how uncannily it reflects the world we live in now. It’s remarkable for how it’s been sitting there for nearly 30 years, in plain sight, within one of the most popular TV franchises of all time."