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French artists in 1899 envisioned what life would look like in the year 2000

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Re: French artists in 1899 envisioned what life would look like in the year 2000

#101

Post by vasco »

drewcoo wrote: post #53
unsupp0rted wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be the benefit of large scale underwater transportation and living? I suppose if the surface became uninhabitable, or if we wanted to hide from space-based surveillance.

Most of our planet is underwater and barely explored. And most of the region isn't really claimed. By countries or individuals in those countries. The long-term benefits of exploration are often in the tools to solve the problems with the exploring. Tang and Velcro and microwave ovens are minor examples - I bet you can think of better things the space program gave us! Overall, it's s greater good for society and it s…

NASA did not invent velcro. A Swiss guy did in the 1940/1950s.

Re: French artists in 1899 envisioned what life would look like in the year 2000

#102

Post by dredmorbius »

throwup238 wrote: post #82
GuB-42 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't realize that the underwater thing was so important back then. We are all thinking about flying cars, and these drawings don't disappoint, but there is as much happening underwater as it is happening in the sky. Now, we are still fascinated with flying, machines, etc... but going underwater is boring by comparison. We have submarines, mostly for the military, a bit of scientific exploration, etc... but beside…

> We have submarines, mostly for the military, a bit of scientific exploration, etc... but besides a few passionate people, people usually don't think that much about the underseas. BIG submarines are for the military but by far the biggest consumer of submarine technology is the oil and gas industry so people do think about it a whole lot. The underwater world is largely inaccessible to the average person because of…

The underwarter world is highly accessible, at least for a few tens of metres, using SCUBA apparatus.

Which was also invented by a Frenchman: Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

Re: French artists in 1899 envisioned what life would look like in the year 2000

#103

Post by tsimionescu »

southernplaces7 wrote: post #43
eastbound wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which science fiction media? Is there any dream that is physically possible while unrealized? - Going to other galaxies: As opposed to flying, those are physically impossible, - 2100 utopia would be about ecology and people consuming less, not more, - When I was a kid, I used to dream about flying blades (drones) or minicomputer in our hands where would could read stuff of program. Today I don’t see a single thing th…

If anyone thinks anything about the future of humanity will involve us consuming less instead of more, they're forgetting the entire history of most human endeavors and tendencies up to the present day, completely. We may find cleaner, better, less invasive ways of consuming and creating things from what we consume (I would hope), but I would bet any amount of money that across all metrics of practical use, humans wi…

Perhaps what we need are some decades of social advancement, not just technological. Our last significant social experiments and discoveries date from the 1850s or so (nationalism, socialism, slightly later fascism). While that period led to some of the worse massacres in history, it also led to some positive changes in attitude that persist today - mainly respect for the rights of each people, an end to the colonial mindset.

Perhaps just like a mostly peaceful independence of India, Australia, Canada etc would have seemed unthinkable at the height of the British Empire, perhaps a non-consumerist society which seems unthinkable today is still in the cards.

Either way, we will obviously see less consumption in the coming century - either voluntarily, as I hope, in order to stop the worse forms of global warming; or else global warming will continue in its current path to 3, 4, 5 degrees of warming, and the ensuing catastrophes will force it on us.

Re: French artists in 1899 envisioned what life would look like in the year 2000

#104

Post by krisoft »

type0 wrote: post #40

Should we wait until 2099 to get a usable brain computer interface that school systems will adopt?!

I’m reading your thoughts through a very usable brain-computer interface. It consists of a high resolution display which optically couples your thoughts into my visual processing system.

This is probably not what you meant, but instead you are looking for a direct brain-computer interface? Why do you think that would be a good thing?

Re: French artists in 1899 envisioned what life would look like in the year 2000

#105

Post by tsimionescu »

eastbound wrote: post #15
SunlitCat wrote: post #7

Which makes me wonder what people in future will think about our science fiction media.

Which science fiction media? Is there any dream that is physically possible while unrealized? - Going to other galaxies: As opposed to flying, those are physically impossible, - 2100 utopia would be about ecology and people consuming less, not more, - When I was a kid, I used to dream about flying blades (drones) or minicomputer in our hands where would could read stuff of program. Today I don’t see a single thing th…

Maybe the new surge of interest in Dune is a sign in this direction. It's the only major sci-fi that mainly focuses on futuristic advances in social and self-development "technologies" rather than engineering (the Bene Gesserit being the most representative group - both in how they practice social engineering, and in how they train themselves to control their own bodies).

Re: French artists in 1899 envisioned what life would look like in the year 2000

#106

Post by forgotusername6 »

dado3212 wrote: post #4

This might be a better source, with all of the images. https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-19th-century-vis...

One of these shows an electric train. That's interesting because the first electric train was demonstrated in 1879.

Re: French artists in 1899 envisioned what life would look like in the year 2000

#107

Post by hef19898 »

mncharity wrote: post #58
type0 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They envisioned robotic tailors and even today we are far away from that it's last one this slide https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-19th-century-vis...

> They envisioned robotic tailors and even today we are far away from that There was a startup 3 decades ago, where you ordered custom khakis on the web. As a first step towards broader custom clothes. Entering assorted measurements, or modifying the dimensions of a previous purchase, a custom pattern was quickly laser cut, manually stitched in one of the last garment factories in the US, and overnighted. Patented, s…

That is basically the B2C version of Zara. The start-up doesn't exist anymore, the Zara founder is one of the richest people on earth now.

This particular problem is bot about production of clothing, it is about everything else: design, sourcing of rae materials, distribution. The standard start-up approach of applying "tech" to that doesn't work.

Re: French artists in 1899 envisioned what life would look like in the year 2000

#108

Post by ein0p »

And we still aren’t quite there where it comes to freeing people from hard manual labor. A bit depressing if you ask me. Nobody can even make a decent house cleaning robot which knows how to clean around cables and won’t paint your entire apartment in dog diarrhea if your dog poops where it shouldn’t have.

Re: French artists in 1899 envisioned what life would look like in the year 2000

#109

Post by teddyh »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #49
samatman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1899, the Eiffel Tower was 10 years old. Not only did it have lifts, it famously, notoriously had lifts. French futurist artists could hardly be more aware of the concept.

I remember reading about an early hotel or some such. Passenger elevators weren't a thing but they knew they were coming so they designed in round elevator shafts. Which later they needed to make a custom elevator for. Because round. Google comes through for once. https://www.amusingplanet.com/2020/04/the-elevator-shaft-tha... tl;dr: Cooper Union's Foundation Building built 1853. Otis demonstrated his invention at th…

Tom Scott did a video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL4xc5bsSUU>

Re: French artists in 1899 envisioned what life would look like in the year 2000

#110

Post by nottorp »

dredmorbius wrote: post #102
throwup238 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have submarines, mostly for the military, a bit of scientific exploration, etc... but besides a few passionate people, people usually don't think that much about the underseas. BIG submarines are for the military but by far the biggest consumer of submarine technology is the oil and gas industry so people do think about it a whole lot. The underwater world is largely inaccessible to the average person because of…

The underwarter world is highly accessible, at least for a few tens of metres, using SCUBA apparatus. Which was also invented by a Frenchman: Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

Tens of metres needs training, but I recommend to everyone to take a discover diving PADI tour if you're holidaying in a place where it's available.

You'll go to at most 10 meters with their gear and a bunch of professional minders. Great fun.

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