Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

loc.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 659 posts

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

#381

Post by rbanffy »

RedBeetDeadpool wrote: post #346
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> paper mache furniture Wait till you find out what that Ikea crap is made of. :)

I once put a stool on a coffee table to put up a few curtains and the leg of the stool went through the surface of the coffee table. That surface is more or less paper mache by my book. Maybe the "paper" in the "mache" is not as finely ground and instead made of more granular wood chips, but its definitely made of a thin lamination of wood grounds held together by some adhesive. Its light as a feather though, so that…

I find IKEA's materials work remarkable - their materials are finely engineered to be light and pretty enough, and, at the same time, being sufficiently strong to bear the loads it's designed to. I'm writing this on an IKEA desk with 4 big monitors and 2 laptops, plus an assortment of external drives and docking stations.

It's certainly not designed to bear my weight on 4 small spots, however, so I wouldn't even try that. It's not made of solid wood, but the furniture-equivalent of an F-22 wing.

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

#382

Post by pbourke »

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…

> Could anyone in 1990 have predicted the smartphone, let alone 1922?

Yes

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton

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

#383

Post by rbanffy »

ghc wrote: post #198
Aperocky wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that: > I'm sure that technological advancement in 2022 will be amazing, but they will be nothing as amazing as the present day than it is over 100 years ago (i.e. 1822). I don't know about that statement.

If you think about what they didn't have in 1822 that they did have in 1922: - Radio - Movies - Motorized Rail Transit - Airplanes - Blimps - Recorded Audio - Electrification (esp. lighting) - Telephony - Cars - Subways - Fax - Early Television - Telegraph - Skyscapers - Underwater tunnels - Air Conditioning - Elevators - Modern Hospitals - Machine Guns, Tanks, Dreadnoughts and other tools of modern war - Stock Ticke…

> I would bet that the people of the 1920s would find the world of the 2020s much more recognizable than the people of the 1820s would find the world of the 1920s.

Let's start by explaining smartphones, then Twitter and Facebook and then on how companies used them to hijack elections and destabilize democracies in multiple countries.

Or, for an amusing time, try to explain how a cryptocurrency works.

My mom, born in 1935, doesn't understand what I do beyond that I write computer programs (which isn't even that much true anymore).

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

#384

Post by ajmurmann »

easytiger wrote: post #267
ajmurmann wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trading that article, I wonder if you are conflating prediction and desire for something to happen.

Use of the idea that now is an opportunity to be seized I think dictates that it's a desire

So, if I predict something catastrophical will happen and I make efforts to prepare for it, I'm part of the problem?

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

#385

Post by cm2012 »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #313
cm2012 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the wrongest comments I've ever seen on HN, hah.

This comment adds nothing to the discussion, and hackernews isn't the place for comments such as these. If you disagree with the ideas, elaborate and disect those you take issue with. Additionally, please keep the tone civil, disagreeing and adding nothing more that saying "hah" is not really the maturity level expected in debates on HN.

Fair point, I've now elaborated in a child comment.

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

#386

Post by thegrimmest »

joshuamorton wrote: post #362
thegrimmest wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A homeless person can be more free than a person confined in a mansion, can they not? > By ultimately using force or the threat thereof to prevent people from using force in disallowed ways Yes, since using force to compel action is basically the definition of slavery and decidedly un-free.

> A homeless person can be more free than a person confined in a mansion, can they not? Sure. But a rich homeless person is no longer homeless, and a poor person confined in their home is less free than a rich person confined on their home. You haven't addressed my point. > Yes, since using force to compel action is basically the definition of slavery and decidedly un-free. Right, so when I said > You sort of admit a…

> a poor person confined in their home is less free than a rich person confined on their home

I disagree. The rich person may be more comfortable, but they are no more free. Confinement is confinement.

> Or is fraud prevention unrelated to liberty

Fraud is related to securing of property rights, which are a part of liberty. How free are you if people can remove the food from your pantry? Fraud as a criminal offense has been derived from "theft by false pretense". But I'm pretty sure we'd be fine if we decriminalized it and relegated it to a tort.

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

#387

Post by dukeofdoom »

mistrial9 wrote: post #237
dukeofdoom wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many non renewable resources are past peak production, and declining fast. Austerity will be next. But it will be disguised as saving the environment. So that not only do you do not blame your politicians for being poorer. You will be blamed for over consuming and destroying the environment. Energy crisis, like running out of heating gas is already hitting Europe. And shortages of fertilizer will be here this spring.…

this is horribly misguided to say "disguised as saving the environment" .. it is conflating real environmental crisis with political posturing.. It is intellectually lazy to blur two big topics like this..

I'm not conflating anything that hasn't been done. Political posturing around saving thr environment is exactly how politician convinced a vast section of the professional class that solar is a solution to our energy needs. Despite it being much less reliable, producing minuscule amounts of energy in large parts of the country and requiring a much more complicated supply chain. Even solar's claimed environmental benefits are vastly over stated.

For poorer people, stuck in older homes with baseboard heaters. The rising price of electricity meant they couldn't heat their home as much. So they're already suffering. While also being told by politicians its better for the environment this way.

A better, vastly more reliable, and powerful alternative of building new nuclear plants lost out due to political posturing around the environment. My province of Ontario, killed two nuclear projects, and our electrical prices nearly doubled. The professional class deference to "feel good" saving the environment experts they see on TV is a bummer to see. But they will not be isolated from these feel good, but poor decisions into the future. So I don't need to convince anyone. The bill will come due.

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

#388

Post by toomanydoubts »

slg wrote: post #375
toomanydoubts wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Financial elite finances all candidates, some of them win, the winners appoint the financial elite to be board members of the organization that is capable of printing money and giving bailouts/buying poisoned assets from said financial institutions. The money is not made from FED profits, the money is made by the financial institutions owned by the board members. What's so hard to understand about that? It's clearly…

>Financial elite finances all candidates, some of them win Your entire point rests on this premise and once we accept this premise we acknowledge the entire government is already compromised. Once that happens why does the central bank matter when everything that follows could be accomplished some other way through that already compromised government? That is my fundamental point. It isn't that the central banks don'…

>Your entire point rests on this premise and once we accept this premise we acknowledge the entire government is already compromised.

I agree.

>Once that happens why does the central bank matter

I guess it matters because public awareness is necessary for us not to allow history to repeat itself. As Ford once said: "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."

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

#389

Post by deeg »

lettergram wrote: post #99
overthemoon wrote: post #35

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-da…

> Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better Let me translate “you are slaves and you rent everything. We base your ability to purchase on a social credit score. But we let you rent houses in our artificially limited VR world.” I don’t make much of predictions like these. It’s ALWAYS a safe bet to assume people will lose liberty. To the point the FED was created in 1913, research w…

I couldn't disagree more. Today's American society has way more liberty than it did in 1912. Blacks, women, Native Americans, LBGTQ+, other minorities: all live better today than whatever period you want to choose. Native American children were forced from their homes into institutionalize schools. In NYC tenements the police conducted midnight raids to force people to be vaccinated for smallpox (a worthy end but a terrible means). Women didn't have the right to vote. As others mentioned, Jim Crow ruled the South. There really is no comparison.

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

#390

Post by pzo »

Aunche wrote: post #180
didericis wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why the freedoms you mention are the result primarily of central banking and not social and technological change? The key freedom lost via central banking (at least irresponsible central banking) is the freedom of those in the future to do anything other than meet debt obligations. Debt and credit is obviously necessary, and making money easily accessible and keeping markets liquid is a good thing, bu…

> irresponsible central banking Would you also consider triple bypass surgery done on morbidly obese patient as irresponsible? It enables bad behavior and arguably the patient may be better off dead than living in a life of pain, but it's undeniable that emergency heart surgery is a good thing.

Current situation looks for me more like a surgeon doing this triple bypass, and also keep selling junk food and cigarettes to this patient on another shift.
Post reply on HN