Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Sandman on August 24, 2008, 08:36:46 PM
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Forty years ago, this was the prediction of how we would live in 2008.
They missed the mark by quite a bit I think.
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/03/24/what-will-life-be-like-in-the-year-2008/
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The one thing that has proven itself time and time again is that humans are completely unable to tell very far into the future.
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I wouldn't say they were entirely wrong. They nailed these:
Computers also handle travel reservations, relay telephone messages, keep track of birthdays and anniversaries, compute taxes and even figure the monthly bills for electricity, water, telephone and other utilities. Not every family has its private computer. Many families reserve time on a city or regional computer to serve their needs. The machine tallies up its own services and submits a bill, just as it does with other utilities.
Money has all but disappeared. Employers deposit salary checks directly into their employees’ accounts. Credit cards are used for paying all bills. Each time you buy something, the card’s number is fed into the store’s computer station. A master computer then deducts the charge from your bank balance.
Computers not only keep track of money, they make spending it easier. TV-telephone shopping is common. To shop, you simply press the numbered code of a giant shopping center. You press another combination to zero in on the department and the merchandise in which you are interested. When you see what you want, you press a number that signifies “buy,” and the household computer takes over, places the order, notifies the store of the home address and subtracts the purchase price from your bank balance. Much of the family shopping is done this way. Instead of being jostled by crowds, shoppers electronically browse through the merchandise of any number of stores."
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Even Arthur C. Clarke was way off the mark.
We still have yet to go back to the moon, much less Jupiter.
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ed harris vs. matthew mcconaughey
who wins sig rights this week, diablo?
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Send me enough money and I'll put RPM's quote back in.
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TBH, the article was "dated" Nov. 18, 2008.
Maybe we'll get the 250 MPH air cushion cars, underwater holiday resorts and passengers rocket transportation in the next 3 months...<crossing fingers>
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Whether they "nailed it" or not, I don't care... I love these old predictions of the future (retro-futurism).
Thanks for the post!
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I am very thankful their predictions did not come true. Can anyone say "Brave New World?"
Or maybe they did. :noid
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I am very thankful their predictions did not come true. Can anyone say "Brave New World?"
Or maybe they did. :noid
Community, Identity, Stability
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interesting how 'cheap oil' screwed the transportation pooch. A big chunk of the rest of the technology speculated on seems to be available... service robots, modular homes, flat screen TV's, tablet laptops, etc.
Dux: For an real 'smile' and a 'look back, forward' read some old Heinlein SF.. 'The Door Into Summer' is a good one.
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"With the U.S. population having soared to 350 million"
Unless they were overestimating the increase in Central/South American immigration, I wonder why this number was far too large?
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"With the U.S. population having soared to 350 million"
Unless they were overestimating the increase in Central/South American immigration, I wonder why this number was far too large?
Families were larger 'back in the day', especially after the Baby Boomers.
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I don't think that they were too far off. While we may not have some of these things at the moment, just look at how close we have come.
Richard Branson is close to recreational space flight.
There are actually "resorts" where you can stay underwater, though not on the scale implied in the article.
We do have TVs that take up an entire wall.
Sadly i feel that our desire to achieve these things has left us. There was a time where people were fascinated with the future and what it could bring. We tended to look at the fantastic. Let's go to the Moon! WTF? Thats insane! Yet in a short period of time we did the unthinkable. Now we are content to see who gets kicked off the island next or, gossip about which celebrity is in rehab. We've become lazy. We take technology for granted. The only unknowns that we seem to want to explore these days are the manuals for our IPhones. Why would a manufacturer put hard money into R&D for a 150mph air car when people are content driving a 75mph POS from Korea?
Where has the fantasy gone? When did we become so serious?
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Actually it's kinda cool how much he got right. Computers, money, off-shore farming, pre-fab modular homes, home studying, not far from 3d TVs, space tourism, medical advances... all are either already here, or rapidly growing.
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Seems as though the author's view of 40 in the future is as rosy as our recollections of 40 years past.
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Sensors in kitchen appliances, climatizing units, communicators, power supply and other household utilities warn the computer when the item is likely to fail. A repairman will show up even before any obvious breakdown occurs.
This is actually starting to become more common with IP enabled commercial and industrial equipment.
People have more time for leisure activities in the year 2008. The average work day is about four hours. But the extra time isn’t totally free. The pace of technological advance is such that a certain amount of a jobholder’s spare time is used in keeping up with the new developments—on the average, about two hours of home study a day.
LOL. We are probably even more productive than the article suggested, only instead of the 4-hour work day we have the downstaffed workforce doing 2x the work for the price of 1 :)
Charon
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Other conveniences ease kitchenwork. The housewife simply determines in advance her menus for the week, then slips prepackaged meals into the freezer and lets the automatic food utility do the rest.
Ah the good old days... :D