Author C. Clark is famous for saying "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." By pushing the envelope so far ahead of current engineering, the author actually lowers the threshold for suspension of belief.
Verne took much more risk. He was writing in Victorian times. The pact of technological advancement was just approaching a level where it could be noticed in the course of a working lifetime. His vision was clearly anchored in Victorian engineering, and he was extrapolating that into a near-term future. It was fantastic, but at the same time, it was not presented as magic. It was presented as "we will be able to do this some day, and in that day people will be pretty much the same as they are now." All in all, I'd say he got more right than wrong.
So, a nod to Jules Verne on his 183rd birthday.
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