What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922) • Hacker News Board

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#31

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:05 PM UTC

haunter wrote: post #15

>Similar reforms apply to cooking, a great deal of which will survive among old fashioned people, but a great deal more of which will probably be avoided by the use of synthetic foods. This is very interesting especially if you think "synthetic foods" not just literally but as take out, processed products and such. I know a lot of young professional people who technically never cook. Like almost never and whatever th…

The “lunch will be a pill” stuff is always funny to me. There’s a major volume issue unless you’re gonna have me eat chunks of uranium or neutron star or something.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#32

Post by datavirtue » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:06 PM UTC

He landed everything except the peeling furniture (kudos for the Ikea prediction) and labor conditions. Interesting how labor hasn't advanced much except for women in the workplace (he nailed that perfectly).

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#33

Post by tomxor » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:06 PM UTC

This is surprisingly accurate, reserved and balanced through the lens of society as well as science. I was expecting something more fanciful like flying horses or whatnot.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#34

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:06 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #16

bramgn wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but also how outlandish certain ideas were about peeling your house clean and replacing meals with pills...

> how outlandish certain ideas were about peeling your house clean Not that outlandish. My shower glass is covered in high tech hydrophobic substance which keeps it clean, but I have to replace it every couple of years. My kid's high chair is covered in easily washable rubber surface that I can literally peel off after a meal, rinse, and replace. So overall, practical idea that is partially applied.

Hell, my house has vinyl siding. No repainting every 5-10 years and you can pressure wash it in an hour or two. Close enough!

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#35

Post by overthemoon » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:07 PM UTC

It's interesting to compare this to the WEF future projections: https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/s...

Especially with regards to this passage::

"In 2022 [economic development] will be as finished as it is to-day in England. American wealth will then be either developed or known, and all of it will belong to somebody. There will be no more opportunity in America than there is in England to-day. Those Americans will know that it is practically certain that they will die much in the same position as the ones in which they were born. Those Americans will therefore be less enterprising and much more pleasure loving. They will have rebelled against long hours; the chances are that in 2022 few people will work more than seven hours a day, if as much.

The effects of this, which I am sure sounds regrettable to many of my readers, will, in my opinion, be good. It was essential that the American race should be capable of intense labor and intense ambition if it was to develop its vast country. But one result has been haste, overwork, noise, all of which is bad for the nerves. In 2022 America will have made her fortune and will be enjoying it as well as she can."

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#36

Post by datavirtue » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:10 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #31

haunter wrote: post #15

>Similar reforms apply to cooking, a great deal of which will survive among old fashioned people, but a great deal more of which will probably be avoided by the use of synthetic foods. This is very interesting especially if you think "synthetic foods" not just literally but as take out, processed products and such. I know a lot of young professional people who technically never cook. Like almost never and whatever th…

The “lunch will be a pill” stuff is always funny to me. There’s a major volume issue unless you’re gonna have me eat chunks of uranium or neutron star or something.

I thought it was goofy until I remembered that some people eat pills for lunch.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#37

Post by datavirtue » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #9

The "less cleaning due to less coal" part is not something we really think much about these days, but the older limestone buildings can really show the difference. Here's a view with the old and either pressure-washed or redone wall: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Wso9gae4JPsN6NaG6 and that's on a residential side street... Imagine getting your clothes slowly covered with it every time you go out.

Now it's just an invisible polluter/killer.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#38

Post by evancoop » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:14 PM UTC

The reality is that no such projection is plausible. Could a human being living in 1903, before the Wright Brothers have predicted a moon landing only 66 years later? Could anyone in 1990 have predicted the smartphone, let alone 1922? Only one prediction is worthy of confidence - the world of technology will increase at an exponential rate...and the world will improve.

We lament progress, but few of us would choose 1922 over 2022 (I mean, the sanitation and medical care alone makes the decision trivial on my end). Even fewer would choose 2022 in 2122.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#39

Post by amelius » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:17 PM UTC

evancoop wrote: post #38

The reality is that no such projection is plausible. Could a human being living in 1903, before the Wright Brothers have predicted a moon landing only 66 years later? Could anyone in 1990 have predicted the smartphone, let alone 1922? Only one prediction is worthy of confidence - the world of technology will increase at an exponential rate...and the world will improve. We lament progress, but few of us would choose 1…

Stallman could have.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#40

Post by Aardwolf » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:19 PM UTC

thejohnconway wrote: post #17

krapp wrote: post #6

I am convinced that in 2022 the advancement of science will be amazing, but it will be nothing like so amazing as is the present day in relation to a hundred years ago. A sight of the world today would surprise President Jefferson much more, I suspect, than the world of 2022 would surprise the little girl who sells candies at Grand Central Station. Hubris... hubris never changes.

Hubris? I think he was right, and that the world of 1822 was more different from 1922 than 1922 is to now. Computers seem to be the primary novel invention in the last hundred years, but long-distance data transfer was normal - and the fax machine sending pictures was overseas was just two years away (1924). 1822 was a horse-drawn, gas-lit world that was in many ways the same as it had been for millennia. 1922 was a…

Of all the science fiction things that I knew when I was a kid in the 90s, only one actually happened, and that's handheld devices with touchscreens with all the world's information accessible through them.

Many others, like humanoid robots (that can do actual stuff like independently clean a home), general AI, actual real space travel (where people live on different planets or giant space wheels), flying cars, replicators, fusion energy, self driving cars (those are near though), brain uploads, nanobots, curing many diseases, etc... didn't happen and won't any time soon, and of course some are physically impossible like FTL travel, teleportation, time travel, ...

It's at least nice to have seen one science fiction fantasy come true so far :)