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

Post by Jedi72 » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 7:13 AM UTC

daanlo wrote: post #18

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.

How about a "robot" beating the world's best chess player after 1/2 days worth of training or the ability to virtually cure HIV/AIDS (that certainly seemed impossible in the eighties) or music without instruments or singers and only wildly flashing lights (the value of EDM is debatable, but it would certainly feel futuristic to someone from the 60ies) or the ability to speak in real time video to someone on the other…

Post by north_east_dev » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 8:18 AM UTC

anthony_romeo wrote: post #37

fumonko wrote: post #6

Does anyone know of a recently written book that tries to predict the world fifty years from now?

Well if you believe Kurzweil, we'll have achieved a technological singularity by that point.

Post by nine_k » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:48 PM UTC

varjag wrote: post #92

nine_k wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I walk down the streets of NYC, I keep seeing private helicopters flying to and fro, along with police helicopters. I don't think it was the case in 1968 yet. Also, small personal radio-controlled helicopters with cameras, often seen in SF from 1960-70s, are a thing for many years now, known as "drones".

In 1968, the USA used helicopters in lieu of light trucks all over Vietnam, thousands upon thousands. Getting an heli ride was a mundane experience for a conscripted grunt. If anything the practice scaled down a lot since due to proliferation of MANPADs. But point is, a helicopter was not something mind blowing or novel on the scale of a flying car. Nor would an RC model shatter anyone's imagination then, another com…