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Cell phones were still futuristic in the 80s, and they were science fiction in the 60s.
No one is that progress hasn’t been made. We expect progress. Moore’s Law. What is being said is that the world is not wildly futuristic.
In 1968 you looked back 50 years to 1918 and realized how much incredible change took place. Extrapolate out 50 years and the future probably looked close to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, released in 1968 Any chance we can get that future?
Granted these dates are a little different. I would consider the 100 years more from 1900 to 1950 to 2000. In the earlier half century the got the widespread use to electricity, radio, TV, automobiles, airplanes, and in the healthcare we got antibiotics and vaccines. I'm sure someone else could make a much more impressive list than that. Someone from 1900 transported to 1950 would not recognize the world.
We didn't have nearly the same advances from 1950 to 2000. Cell phones and the internet are huge, but that didn't come until the very tail end. Those areas would look like science fiction. Other than that, when you place someone from 1950 in 2000, it just looks like everything got a little better.
Maybe starting with the computers and the internet we will start another big change, particularly with artificial intelligence and automation. But for a big part of those 50 years, a lot less happened than in the previous 50 years.
Does anyone know of a recently written book that tries to predict the world fifty years from now?
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You're an example of not orienting your perspective properly.. ;) The internet, a global communications network that everyone carries with them in their pocket on a mini touchscreen PC, is fucking incredible. Even prisoners who go away for 10-15 years have been blown away by the advancements in cell phone technology and adoption when they get out.
It is incredible, and most people didn't see it coming, but compared to the scifi stuff I read and watched as a kid, the future doesn't feel all that mind-blowing, at least so far. Part of it is living through it and adjusting to the changes, but I was also born into a world that had TVs, telephones, microwaves, VCRs, satellites, space programs, and personal computers. Computer networks and games existed back then. M…
How do you feel about the chance of living twice as long as your current life expectancy?
Sounds great right?
Does it also feel just as great that you already have twice the life expectancy of 140 years ago?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/die-ano...
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The world feels wildly futuristic? Can you explain? I was born in 1966. Computer games and the special effects in movies look better, but to claim the world looks wildly futuristic is an exaggeration.
When was the last time you used a paper map? When was the last time you used the yellow pages? How much money have you spent buying encyclopedias in the last 20 years? How much time searching for someone who has a mediocre copy-of-a-copy of bootleg tapes of that one amazing concert by the band you liked? How many hours have you spent on the phone with a company because you lost the user's manual to their product? How…
I was born in 1963. Where's the 30 hour work week I was promised? Why am I still driving a gas vehicle by myself to work? Geopolitics? Same shit, different day. Sure, we got an unlimited flow of information, and that has most certainly revolutionized many things. But I argue that the day-to-day lives of most people doesn't look a whole lot different than when I was born, it's just better accessorized.
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Many future predictions from the 1950s were based on the promise of unlimited electricity. Once this comes to pass, we can have hovercars and whatnot. Instead, we got "unlimited" information. Although this doesn't translate as well into physical products, the world still looks/feels wildly futuristic if you orient your perspective correctly.
The world feels wildly futuristic? Can you explain? I was born in 1966. Computer games and the special effects in movies look better, but to claim the world looks wildly futuristic is an exaggeration.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many future predictions from the 1950s were based on the promise of unlimited electricity. Once this comes to pass, we can have hovercars and whatnot. Instead, we got "unlimited" information. Although this doesn't translate as well into physical products, the world still looks/feels wildly futuristic if you orient your perspective correctly.
The world feels wildly futuristic? Can you explain? I was born in 1966. Computer games and the special effects in movies look better, but to claim the world looks wildly futuristic is an exaggeration.
One could argue our experience is primarily dictated by the physical objects surrounding us. This viewpoint wouldn't see a vast difference between 1966 and today.
Another viewpoint is that our experience is construed mostly _socially_, i.e. that we build our world based on our interactions with others. From this perspective, the world today would feel vastly different.
I'm 24. Many of my "meatspace" friends I first met online, often as a result of being in similar online communities, and then we progressed to a real-life friendship. Much of my social experience is based around circles of people living thousands of miles away from me, who I likely will never spend an extended period of physical time with.
Although our physical reality still seems similar, social reality has shifted dramatically beneath our feet.
Venkatesh Rao, a writer of one of my favorite blogs, Ribbonfarm, has a (rather complex) essay[1] explaining this idea of "feeling like the future" -- he argues that technologists, in fact, work very hard to make new technologies feeling _normal_, and that we don't _want_ to feel like we're living in the future, as it's, well, uncomfortable:
> we live in a continuous state of manufactured normalcy. There are mechanisms that operate — a mix of natural, emergent and designed — that work to prevent us from realizing that the future is actually happening as we speak. To really understand the world and how it is evolving, you need to break through this manufactured normalcy field. Unfortunately, that leads, as we will see, to a kind of existential nausea.
Rao, in another essay[2], also argues more specifically for my idea posed above: that the internet as a social technology has had novel, futuristic implications for our experience of life.
> When you first explore the online world, with your feet firmly planted offline, it can seem ephemeral and insubstantial. But once you tentatively and gingerly plant your feet online, it is the offline world that starts to seem ephemeral and insubstantial. The world of offline-first people (or worse, offline-only) seems like a world of people living lives without real views. Lives full of unacknowledged and unprocessed yearnings.
I don't know how much sense this'll make to you, given my parents are around the same age and they still struggle to understand how Twitter, chatroom technology, online dating, Yelp, etc. has changed the feeling/experience of reality.
At times, I resent the technological changes, as they seem fundamentally dehumanizing. But sitting from our present-day vantage point, these technologies seem like inevitable results of the Internet as it continues to change how we interact with our fellow human beings. The current political moment in the USA is already the sort of futuristic Thing driven by these technological changes, and I expect that, at the very least, politics will continue feeling more Weird (i.e. futuristic?) before it feels Normal again.
1: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2012/05/09/welcome-to-the-future-...
2: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/04/16/a-life-with-a-view/
Hey neat, I've had a copy of this book on my shelf for a few years now, but I'd forgotten all about it. Very interesting to read about the background behind the text. Maybe I should print out the article and store it with the book for future readers.
Hey, nerds in 2068! Today, we think mobile devices, IoT creep, the cloud, and machine learning are the future of computing while lamenting an erosion of privacy and security; were we silly geese, or is that your guys' reality? Also, have you contacted aliens or become digital consciousnesses yet?
Yours, someone who's hopefully still alive (as a digital consciousness aware of how weird aliens are)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When was the last time you used a paper map? When was the last time you used the yellow pages? How much money have you spent buying encyclopedias in the last 20 years? How much time searching for someone who has a mediocre copy-of-a-copy of bootleg tapes of that one amazing concert by the band you liked? How many hours have you spent on the phone with a company because you lost the user's manual to their product? How…
"When was the last time you used a paper map?" "When was the last time you had to spend 15 minutes planning out where and when you would meet when because your group is splitting up when on a trip?" I do these things all the time as many of my hobbies are outdoor activities. For example, at Arapahoe Basin, a ski area in Colorado near Denver, cell reception is non-existent. So you need to have a plan for people to mee…
Obviously, it doesn't hurt to bring a paper map, but you'll find that you're not going to use them at all. We live in the future.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many future predictions from the 1950s were based on the promise of unlimited electricity. Once this comes to pass, we can have hovercars and whatnot. Instead, we got "unlimited" information. Although this doesn't translate as well into physical products, the world still looks/feels wildly futuristic if you orient your perspective correctly.
The world feels wildly futuristic? Can you explain? I was born in 1966. Computer games and the special effects in movies look better, but to claim the world looks wildly futuristic is an exaggeration.