听力原文：Today in the techno-society there is an almost ironclad consensus about the futur

e of freedom. Maximum individual choice is regarded as the democratic ideal. Yet most writers predict that we shall move further and further from this ideal. They conjured up a dark vision of the future, in which people appear as mindless consumer creatures, surrounded by standardized goods, educated in standardized schools, fed a diet of standardized mass culture, and forced to adopt standardized styles of life. Such predictions have spawned a generation of future haters and technophobes, as one might expect.

The predictions about the future made by many writers, in the speaker's opinion, are ______.

A．pessimistic

B．optimistic

C．pleasing

D．reasonable.