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Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014

nytimes.com

31–40 of 175 posts

Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014

#31

Round-up: ✗ EL panels (not yet) ✗ Smart glass (unless you own a ferrari) ✓ Frozen meals + programmable microwave ✓ Lame robots ✓ 3D movies ✗ Fusion power plants ✗ Radioactive batteries ✓ Solar power ✓ Self-driving cars (in progress) ✗ Moving sidewalks (do airport conveyors count?) ✓ Video calls ✓ Mobile data, sharing, e-books ✓ Global mobile phone network ✗ Moon colonies (double fail since he just takes them for gran…

On some of the missing ones:

1. We have at least one fusion plant I know of, the UK Joint Torus, which I know have been operating for decades. It just consumes more power than it generates. But Asimov suggests one or two, which is strikingly accurate.

2. We could probably make radio-decay batteries (maybe not AA size, but car batteries running on Thorium or some such, albeit an extremely expensive containment for something running so hot). We probably just don't do it because the radiation risks are too high.

And I'd count airport conveyors as moving sidewalks. Or just the complexity of baggage carrying systemes in those airports, lend that we easily have the technoloy to create weather resistant rotary motor systems as sidewalks, but like Asimovs suggestions of underground housing, cost is the bigger prohibitor than technology.

Also, I don't think the degree of boredom he touches on has occured. Consumerism and the wealth concentration in the US has kept people needing to maintain 40 hour work weeks where productivity is magnitudes higher. We produce vastly more, but work as much as ever. Back in the 60s the sentiment was that 21st century Americans might have 10 hour work weeks.

Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014

#32

"Even so, mankind 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." It is a striking finding of cross-cultural studies of suicide that many of the places with especially high suicide r…

Very similar comments on this story:

"The Problem with Delhi's Rich Kids (wsj.com)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6237893

Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014

#33

Round-up: ✗ EL panels (not yet) ✗ Smart glass (unless you own a ferrari) ✓ Frozen meals + programmable microwave ✓ Lame robots ✓ 3D movies ✗ Fusion power plants ✗ Radioactive batteries ✓ Solar power ✓ Self-driving cars (in progress) ✗ Moving sidewalks (do airport conveyors count?) ✓ Video calls ✓ Mobile data, sharing, e-books ✓ Global mobile phone network ✗ Moon colonies (double fail since he just takes them for gran…

The 3D movies we have now are not the type Asimov is talking about. He's describing holograms.

Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014

#34
post #31

Round-up: ✗ EL panels (not yet) ✗ Smart glass (unless you own a ferrari) ✓ Frozen meals + programmable microwave ✓ Lame robots ✓ 3D movies ✗ Fusion power plants ✗ Radioactive batteries ✓ Solar power ✓ Self-driving cars (in progress) ✗ Moving sidewalks (do airport conveyors count?) ✓ Video calls ✓ Mobile data, sharing, e-books ✓ Global mobile phone network ✗ Moon colonies (double fail since he just takes them for gran…

On some of the missing ones: 1. We have at least one fusion plant I know of, the UK Joint Torus, which I know have been operating for decades. It just consumes more power than it generates. But Asimov suggests one or two, which is strikingly accurate. 2. We could probably make radio-decay batteries (maybe not AA size, but car batteries running on Thorium or some such, albeit an extremely expensive containment for som…

1. The National Ignition Facility [1] recently reported record amounts of energy produced by laser-based fusion, but it is more of a research facility than a power plant.

2. Do the betavoltaics [2] in some early pacemakers and the small reactor on spacecraft and the Mars Science Laboratory count as radioactive batteries? But I am assuming that, since betavoltaic pacemakers and nuclear spacecraft have been around since Asimov's time, they probably don't count.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaics

Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014

#35
post #31

Round-up: ✗ EL panels (not yet) ✗ Smart glass (unless you own a ferrari) ✓ Frozen meals + programmable microwave ✓ Lame robots ✓ 3D movies ✗ Fusion power plants ✗ Radioactive batteries ✓ Solar power ✓ Self-driving cars (in progress) ✗ Moving sidewalks (do airport conveyors count?) ✓ Video calls ✓ Mobile data, sharing, e-books ✓ Global mobile phone network ✗ Moon colonies (double fail since he just takes them for gran…

On some of the missing ones: 1. We have at least one fusion plant I know of, the UK Joint Torus, which I know have been operating for decades. It just consumes more power than it generates. But Asimov suggests one or two, which is strikingly accurate. 2. We could probably make radio-decay batteries (maybe not AA size, but car batteries running on Thorium or some such, albeit an extremely expensive containment for som…

On 2, NASA does use radioactive decay batteries on the rovers, but it's still 'space tech' :)

> where productivity is magnitudes higher

Overall, yes. Per worker? Hell no. Half or more of current jobs are pushing paper and doing meaningless bureaucratic work. Related article from last week: www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014

#36
post #28

> And experimental fusion-power plant or two will already exist in 2014. (Even today, a small but genuine fusion explosion is demonstrated at frequent intervals in the G.E. exhibit at the 1964 fair.) Anybody knows what happened to that G.E fusion thing he mentions?

It was probably a Fusor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor). You can put one on your desk at home, if you care.

Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014

#37

Round-up: ✗ EL panels (not yet) ✗ Smart glass (unless you own a ferrari) ✓ Frozen meals + programmable microwave ✓ Lame robots ✓ 3D movies ✗ Fusion power plants ✗ Radioactive batteries ✓ Solar power ✓ Self-driving cars (in progress) ✗ Moving sidewalks (do airport conveyors count?) ✓ Video calls ✓ Mobile data, sharing, e-books ✓ Global mobile phone network ✗ Moon colonies (double fail since he just takes them for gran…

The 3D movies we have now are not the type Asimov is talking about. He's describing holograms.

He mentions both kinds: 3D movies (Robot of the Future) as a given, and a 3D rotating cube hologram as a tech demo.

Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014

#38

Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence. They're good but not common.

They're common, but not good. Almost every factory has a robotic system, but they're not the sci-fi bipedal humanoid AI that people imagine we would have.

Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014

#39
post #27

> At the New York World's Fair of 2014, General Motors' "Futurama" may well display vistas of underground cities complete with light- forced vegetable gardens. Amazing prediction! Well, he got the GM part wrong, but indeed, there was a series called "Futurama" and it DID display "vistas of underground cities" (New New York)!

The series Futurama was named for such displays at the world fairs.

The name Futurama comes from a pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Designed by Norman Bel Geddes, the Futurama pavilion depicted how he imagined the world would look in 1959.

I presume the New York World's Fair of 1964 had a display with a similar name which is what he is talking about.

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