Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014
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Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014
#2Some of these are actually pretty prescient. Particularly this one
"Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence."
Rest is pretty hilarious. E.g.
"Any number of simultaneous conversations between earth and moon can be handled by modulated laser beams, which are easy to manipulate in space. On earth, however, laser beams will have to be led through plastic pipes, to avoid material and atmospheric interference. Engineers will still be playing with that problem in 2014."
Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014
#3Some of these are actually pretty prescient. Particularly this one "Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence." Rest is pretty hilarious. E.g. "Any number of simultaneous conversations between earth and moon can be handled by modulated laser beams, which are easy to manipulate in space. On earth, however, laser beams will have to be led through plastic pipes, to avoid material…
Hilarious? Sad, rather.
Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014
#4I like this one: “The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course, for they will be powered by long- lived batteries running on radioisotopes.”
Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014
#5The one that stands out for me:
[M]ankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom,
a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in
intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and
sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry
will be far and away the most important medical specialty
in 2014.
Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014
#6A lot of it is really good, but the part about boredom is interesting:
“[M]ankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014.”
One thing we haven't had any trouble with in terms of advancement is how to entertain people. Facebook, Twitter, World of Warcraft, (ahem) Star Sonata, traveling, sports, German board games, ... The entertainment possibilities are endless. I think too many entertainment options is the problem, if anything.
Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014
#7Note that this article is a lightweight edit of Asimov's original piece: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v-fair.h...
In particular, the article is edited to only show you reasonable predictions, rather than all his predictions. I thought his mistakes were just as interesting, because they give us a window into what life was like in 1964. Asimov predicted that moon colonies would be common by now, for example. The overoptimism may have been due to the rate of technological growth leading up to 1964. On the other hand, perhaps it was due to the times. People were abuzz with the possibilities of the future partly because Kennedy had recently (1961) set a national goal of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth by the end of the 1960s." So it's pretty interesting to try to see the world through the eyes of someone 50 years ago and try to diff societal trends to the modern day.
(It's also fun to imagine someone 50 years from now looking back on us. I wonder which of our societal trends will survive 50 years? It's an interesting game to try to figure out which of our current beliefs are crazy even though no one presently thinks so.)
There are many interesting aspects of Asimov's piece, so it's well worth the read. For example, does this point about future societies sound familiar?
"The situation will have been made the more serious by the advances of automation. The world of A.D. 2014 will have few routine jobs that cannot be done better by some machine than by any human being. Mankind will therefore have become largely a race of machine tenders."
He's mistaken about 2014, but only time will tell whether this is temporary.
I was also surprised that there were fewer than half as many people in 1964 than 2014. Asimov mentioned that the population is predicted to double every 40 years. I wonder it that's still the case, or if growth has slowed?
Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014
#8A lot of it is really good, but the part about boredom is interesting: “[M]ankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014.” One thing we haven't had any trouble with in terms o…
One can argue that too much entertainment is no entertainment really. I feel that we are yet to witness the effects of boredom on humanity.
Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014
#9Some of these are actually pretty prescient. Particularly this one "Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence." Rest is pretty hilarious. E.g. "Any number of simultaneous conversations between earth and moon can be handled by modulated laser beams, which are easy to manipulate in space. On earth, however, laser beams will have to be led through plastic pipes, to avoid material…
Funny because fiber optic cable have been in use for more than a decade?
Re: Isaac Asimov Predicts in 1964 What the World Will Look Like in 2014
#10The one that stands out for me: [M]ankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014. Whilst psychiatry isn't yet the most important specialty in medicine, we are beginning to fal…
Psychiatry is coming.