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)

#61

Post by user3939382 » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #57

He got a lot of things right but, like everyone else, they didn't predict the internet and its consequences. Does anyone know of a proper prediction of the internet? And I don't mean predicting handheld devices or wireless networking. Predicting the decentralized communication part that makes distance irellevant and upgrades point to point communication to group. And its consequence that it's very easy now to find a…

Yep -- check out Marshall McLuhan & the Global Village, which he put out in the 60s. Very prescient.

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

#62

Post by KineticLensman » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:45 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…

> I know a lot of young professional people who technically never cook.

I think there is a distinction here between people who buy meals-and-snacks as opposed to people who buy ingredients. When my partner and I shop, apart from the fruit and similar, there are very few things that you would directly eat. When my niece and her partner shop, there are numerous packets of biscuits and other snacks as well as prepared ready meals that can be microwaved / oven heated with no other effort required. They generate a lot more plastic waste, as well.

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

#63

Post by nyuszika7h » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:46 PM UTC

wombatmobile wrote: post #59

Is there a text version of this? I’m having trouble navigating the pdf with one hand on my phone from this hospital bed.

There's a button called "Show Text". https://i.imgur.com/sf7ztjZ.png

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

#64

Post by Laforet » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:47 PM UTC

Damogran6 wrote: post #51

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…

In none of the hard Sci-Fi I read as a child did they say "I needn't worry for light, as I had my portable cellphone" Will you have AR displays that hide the information an make a room otherwise appear devoid of technology? Yes...because normal people don't fetishize technology and HGTV tells me it should be hidden from sight. Will it be a display projected on your contact lenses, a mist excreted from a rod with lase…

70s and 80s scifi media frequently depict floppy disks being used well into the 22nd century and beyond, despite the fact that optical and solid state storage did exist in some form back then.

Either is is done to make the scenes relatable to the contemporary audience, or human beings really lack the abiltiy to imagine things they have no empirical experience with.

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

#65

Post by Brendinooo » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:47 PM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #29

thejohnconway wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> but long-distance data transfer was normal - and the fax machine sending pictures was overseas was just two years away (1924). "Quantity has a quality all its own" -Joseph Stalin Saying the fax let us move information long distance is like saying global trade was around in the middle ages because Macro Polo. The quantity difference is so big it becomes a qualitative difference. I can arrange to have an arbitrary in…

I get what you're saying, but I think I disagree. Ordering on Amazon from your phone is a much faster experience that reaches more products, but it is an analogue to mailing in an order from the Sears catalog. I don't think there's an 1822 analogue to the Sears catalog.

And the quote was about "surprise". I don't think it'd be a complete shock to see that the world got more connected, ordering became easier, deliveries became faster. In 1822 the railroad was very much still in its early stages; the Erie Canal had just been completed, the Pony Express and the telegraph were still almost 40 years away.

Put differently, a lot of "0 to 1" stuff had happened by 1922.

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

#66

Post by mc32 » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:48 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.

If NASA[1] could have this, they would do this. They'd prefer it if they could give their *nauts pill-like nutrition delivery systems.

[1] Also armed forced with deployed troops would love this too as it makes food logistics much easier.

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

#67

Post by avnigo » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:49 PM UTC

What I understood from this article is that science and technology may be more accurately projected than society and politics; I would imagine because those seem to be more chaotic processes, but also more easily carry the bias of the writer.

The article also highlights some shortcomings of the 1922 zeitgeist as there does not seem to be much thought about the positive or negative environmental impacts of technology, other than on air quality, or any talk on climate change.

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

#68

Post by jkestner » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:49 PM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #57

He got a lot of things right but, like everyone else, they didn't predict the internet and its consequences. Does anyone know of a proper prediction of the internet? And I don't mean predicting handheld devices or wireless networking. Predicting the decentralized communication part that makes distance irellevant and upgrades point to point communication to group. And its consequence that it's very easy now to find a…

Not exactly a prediction, but The Victorian Internet is a good read: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/victorian-internet-97816355739...

That revolution was more about the speed that information travels than who has access to it.

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

#69

Post by bluGill » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:51 PM UTC

Damogran6 wrote: post #51

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…

In none of the hard Sci-Fi I read as a child did they say "I needn't worry for light, as I had my portable cellphone" Will you have AR displays that hide the information an make a room otherwise appear devoid of technology? Yes...because normal people don't fetishize technology and HGTV tells me it should be hidden from sight. Will it be a display projected on your contact lenses, a mist excreted from a rod with lase…

Maybe those hard SciFi were set in an age where people have advanced beyond the phone.

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

#70

Post by Guillaume86 » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 1:51 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #50

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…

Too many smart (or smart-sounding) people either here or on Reddit claim casually that some X will take hundreds of years to do. Where X may be artificial intelligence, conquest of longevity or whatever else. The reality is that we do not know. Some things may be out of our reach forever, but contemporary world has by far the highest count of scientists ever and the talent pool is widening as countries such as Bangla…

> Too many smart (or smart-sounding) people either here or on Reddit claim casually that some X will take hundreds of years to do. Where X may be artificial intelligence, conquest of longevity or whatever else.

> The reality is that we do not know

Yeah, but it works both ways, I see a lot of people on reddit claiming aging will be solved in X years (usually in their lifetime) and it does not sound any smarter.