“Toward the Year 2018”, a speculative book from 1968 • Hacker News Board

Re: “Toward the Year 2018”, a speculative book from 1968

#81

Post by coldtea » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 12:44 AM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #9

melling wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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?
When was the last time you had a conversation to the effect of "what was the name of that actor in that movie" and you were unable to get the answer?

How big is your rolodex?

How many of those were our real problems and main concerns all these decades back? Who even thought those were actually problems worth fixing?

Meanwhile stuff like homelessness, unemployment, stupid media with fake news, clowns for presidents, war-mongering, pollution, daily grind, costly medical bills, and so on, are all here.

No rolodex? Don't need one, tons of people can say, I don't have a job, or just have the shitty, no prospect jobs people (including college kids) can get today that doesn't require one.

The main thing we have, that's actually futuristic, is instant global communication and/or the internet. And it's not like that's doing us many favors lately either. We had totally other dreams for it in the 90s.

Internet connected fridges, yeah, they can keep those.

Re: “Toward the Year 2018”, a speculative book from 1968

#82

Post by arca_vorago » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 12:59 AM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #9

melling wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This list made me realize just how much cognitive dissonance I live with being a bit of a paranoid person who likes to use old school methods for some things. I'll respond in order.

I use a paper map all the time. All gps/location features are disabled on my phone, so if I am headed somewhere I usually scout the route on my pc. Most of the time time I just write down the exits, but sometimes I'll print the map and directions out. I always have a paper atlas in my vehicles though (along with forest service topo maps, a habit from my days living in the mountains). If I am in a bind (eg lost), I use openstreetmaps or gmaps if I have to, not to look at where I am but where I am going. (remember no gps/loc features).

I use the yellow pages for kindling and coupons still quite frequently.

My family used to have a huge collection of encyclopedias, and when I have more bookshelf space I really want to get an updated one if any exist. Right now I have a passed down partial collection of the 1971 Funk & Wagnalls, and a complete 1986 Funk & Wagnalls. Pre-internet much of family time was spent arguing and using encyclopedias to support the argument.

As for bootleg recordings, for me private ftp and warez was the end of physically buying bootlegs in the 90's.

I have spent plenty of time on the phone with a company because their user manual was out of date, does that count?

Ok you got me on the rolodex.

All the time because I have a hard time remembering movie names and actor names for some reason. If you remember the movie it's easy to check imdb, but if you don't you have to spend time trying to remember one actors name and then sift through their filmography.

Also all the time, because I am a stickler for having plans in place in public. For example when I take the family to an amusement park, everyone is briefed by me on objective rally point(s), exits, comms, and time sync, among other things before being "let loose". Some military habits die hard.

Re: “Toward the Year 2018”, a speculative book from 1968

#83

Post by gpsx » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 1:12 AM UTC

brabel wrote: post #58

gpsx wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to back this up and I am going to use a really bad example - the movie "Back to the Future". When they went from the present back to 1955, the world looked a little different. When the went back to 1885 in "Back to the Future 3", it was a different world. People were running around in dirt streets shooting each other. Granted these dates are a little different. I would consider the 100 years more from 1900 t…

> We didn't have nearly the same advances from 1950 to 2000. You couldn't be more wrong! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_change https://www.yaabot.com/12800/how-far-are-we-from-the-singula...

I understand the singularity and I am not arguing against it. It is reasonable to expect exponential development as a rule, but that doesn't mean development happens smoothly. The intended point was about how foreign the world would look to an average person transplanted 50 years in the future. The original comment asserted the first half of the century had a more dramatic change than the second half, and there is a good argument for this.

The links you provided are very good but they deal more with theory than actual observations by a normal person.

There is one specific concrete example given in those articles - Moore's law. This is a very good example of exponential development, but only to a point. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but Moore's law was helped because its very existence affected the result. To some extent industry even scheduled their advances. If someone lied to Intel and said a competitor was getting much better speeds, I bet you we would have seen some faster improvements.

Re: “Toward the Year 2018”, a speculative book from 1968

#84

Post by 13of40 » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 1:44 AM UTC

timcederman wrote: post #61

Interesting that the article lists global warming from carbon dioxide as one "unnervingly close to the mark". The first public written record we have of that possibility dates to 1912: https://qz.com/817354/scientists-have-been-forecasting-that-...

"It has been proved that the temperature at the earth's surface is dependent upon conditions of the atmosphere, and that the universal tropical climate that produced the Coal Age was not due to the earth's internal heat. If we briefly examine the Coal Age we may be enlightened and assisted in our investigations. Enormous quantities of carbon dioxide mingled with the air of that period... Man has consumed the forests. Each year he mines, in the United States alone, two hundred million tons of coal. He has tapped the tanks of petroleum and the founts of gas, and is oxidizing it all - all that vast quantity of carbon - converting it into carbon dioxide...and now we find that the product has accumulated over the surface of the earth and is wielding an influence that is assimilating our climatic conditions more and more to those of the age of coal. ... I advance the theory, that the increased amounts of carbon dioxide that have gathered from all sources into our atmosphere produce, as I have described, the change in the weather and climate of recent years..." - G.W. Furey, M.D., Medical and Surgical Reporter, Volume 63, published in 1890

https://books.google.com/books?id=kUSgAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA504&lpg=...

Re: “Toward the Year 2018”, a speculative book from 1968

#85

Post by newman8r » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:17 AM UTC

chromaton wrote: post #32

"Life X years in the future" has been a popular topic for books and other media for some time now. The predictors are usually quite wrong. However, in a few cases, they seem to hit the nail right on the head (cell phones). What I'd like to do is reverse engineer the insights or mindset the people who made accurate predictions so that they could be emulated. At the same time, I want to identify the prejudices or logic…

I recently had a very similar thought. I feel like you could use NLP to analyze the type of language associated with predictions that turned out to be correct vs those that were wrong.

Re: “Toward the Year 2018”, a speculative book from 1968

#86

Post by jostmey » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 4:09 AM UTC

chromaton wrote: post #32

"Life X years in the future" has been a popular topic for books and other media for some time now. The predictors are usually quite wrong. However, in a few cases, they seem to hit the nail right on the head (cell phones). What I'd like to do is reverse engineer the insights or mindset the people who made accurate predictions so that they could be emulated. At the same time, I want to identify the prejudices or logic…

Perhaps when multiple routes present themselves toward a new technology, its emergence becomes imminent. By this reasoning I would predict space travel becoming more routine (with multiple companies like Space X and Blue Origin working toward this goal), quantum computing is realized (lots of ideas on how to make it happen with lots of companies working on it), and self driving cars (lots of companies working on it, it may take a decade).

Re: “Toward the Year 2018”, a speculative book from 1968

#87

Post by transcranial » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 4:50 AM UTC

WaxProlix wrote: post #47

chromaton wrote: post #32

"Life X years in the future" has been a popular topic for books and other media for some time now. The predictors are usually quite wrong. However, in a few cases, they seem to hit the nail right on the head (cell phones). What I'd like to do is reverse engineer the insights or mindset the people who made accurate predictions so that they could be emulated. At the same time, I want to identify the prejudices or logic…

I think a lot of what people get wrong in these predictions is the social element. Dad's telecommuting to work in the study and smoking Lucky Strikes while Mom - aproned and barefoot - cooks in the kitchen, that sort of thing. What this misses - aside from the basic incorrectness itself - is that shifts in social perception and overall conscientiousness are major drivers of innovation. So, look at the intersection of…

Here's an old Nautilus article talking about exactly your point about the social element: http://nautil.us/issue/28/2050/why-futurism-has-a-cultural-b...

Re: “Toward the Year 2018”, a speculative book from 1968

#88

Post by ianai » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 4:55 AM UTC

chromaton wrote: post #32

"Life X years in the future" has been a popular topic for books and other media for some time now. The predictors are usually quite wrong. However, in a few cases, they seem to hit the nail right on the head (cell phones). What I'd like to do is reverse engineer the insights or mindset the people who made accurate predictions so that they could be emulated. At the same time, I want to identify the prejudices or logic…

Of course, the near hits benefit from the plethora of predictions. “Theories” that essentially produce ranges of predictions across many/most possible outcomes contain no information. Not to discredit you. I look for similar trends, but it’s best to be humble about predictions.

Re: “Toward the Year 2018”, a speculative book from 1968

#89

Post by aidenn0 » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 6:20 AM UTC

goatlover wrote: post #40

dtech wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But now you're just placing an arbitrary bar on how much progress can be made without it being futuristic.

But it's not _wildley_ futuristic. I'm not taking a flying car to a space elevator to visit my relatives on Mars while my house and pets are left in the care of my android maid. Wasn't it Buzz Aldrin who said he was promised Mars colonies but got Facebook instead? For some of us, that tradeoff doesn't seem terribly futuristic.

We carry supercomputers in our pockets for the primary purpose of broadcasting pictures of food we are about to eat. If that's not wildy futuristic (and perhaps a bit dystopian), I'm not sure what is.

Re: “Toward the Year 2018”, a speculative book from 1968

#90

Post by Fnoord » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 6:50 AM UTC

chromaton wrote: post #32

"Life X years in the future" has been a popular topic for books and other media for some time now. The predictors are usually quite wrong. However, in a few cases, they seem to hit the nail right on the head (cell phones). What I'd like to do is reverse engineer the insights or mindset the people who made accurate predictions so that they could be emulated. At the same time, I want to identify the prejudices or logic…

> However, in a few cases, they seem to hit the nail right on the head

> Does anyone have any insight as to why some predictions turn out right? Is it just luck, or is there some greater principle that can help us find out what's ahead?

Individuals don't make a lot of forecasts/predictions, but society at a whole does. People who read into these forecasts get "informed" about the potential future, and perhaps even inspired (ie. a self full-filling prophecy; I'm not arguing that's the default though).

The default is as follows: if "one" (see above) makes a lot of forecasts, the likelihood one of them hits the nail on the head increases.

Luck is when a beginner with a crossbow hits the bullseye with one shot. Its just that if you shoot with a shotgun, you're gonna hit something, somewhere. But we're ignoring all the fails here, the misses. They're not relevant so they get ignored. History does essentially the same. The winners write history, and this is an example of that.

We should also not forget that a detailed, technical prediction by say a scientist is something different than say a suit who's trying to just sell their book with a bunch of rough predictions. Ie. not all forecasts/predictions are equal.