Why is the future always just a catalog of cool shit you might be able to buy one day if they figure out how to make it?
It's time to build: a New World's Fair
91–100 of 237 posts
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#92The last really prophetic world's fair was New York, 1939. That's famous for GM's vision of the future of 1960, the original "Futurerama" . Freeways everywhere. RCA had television. AT&T let you make free long distance calls. All that stuff happened. The 1964 World's Fair had another GM exhibit. Colonization of the Moon. Underwater cities. None of that happened. What could we have in a World's Fair now that looks ahea…
My mom went to the ‘64 worlds fair almost every day (according to her, she had an uncle that worked there.) She told us stories about various exhibits when we were kids, but the thing she remembered the most was the video phone- that she should see as well here someone across the planet.
Fast forward to 2020 and she is spending hours every day on video calls with her grandchildren.
We might have missed on some of our dreams from 1964, but not all of them. We’ll miss more in the future if we don’t articulate them.
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#93The 1963-64 world's fair shaped my entire life. My earliest clear memories were from that fair, and ever since I've been fascinated by "futurism", technology, computers, space, architecture, etc. Every school and career choice I've made was based on some inspirational spark that hit me there.
Thank you for sharing this. Giving people hope and a belief in the future is what the Fair is all about — especially in the face of extreme pessimism.
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find this perplexing because the Olympic Games is notorious for draining an urban centers resources for years and the result being a bunch of infrastructure that the majority of the time just slowly decays due to the local community not having the same volume of population to fully utilize the utility. The handling of the 2016 games was an especially bad case. It's overall a nationalistic country level flex at the…
Speak for yourself. Los Angeles ran a profitable Olympics in 1984 and we look forward to doing so again in 2028. And nationalism is at a low ebb here, given our last four years fighting His Nibs on everything. It’s all about competition and entertainment for us. And infrastructure that can be reused for more entertainment.
> profitable
> we look forward to doing so again in 2028
Oligarchs and capitalists benefit, the masses lose though. Especially those most vulnerable socioeconomically.
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#95I admire the optimism and motivational tone of the article, but fairs and expos are a thing of the past. We don't need to build elaborate, carefully constructed single-use cities to showcase the scientific advances of the world. Those showcases happen day by day on the internet and mass media.
Who remembers the Millenium Dome? It was a self-conscious emulation of the 1951s Festival of Britain, that ended up being characteristically Blairite bland.
The Millennium Dome (notably the Millennium Experience inside) was terrific. I don't know why nobody showed up, but it was really uncrowded and enjoyable to visit!
One futuristic thing that has stuck with me from the Millennium expo was a demonstration of structural/mechanical and electrochemical simulation of the human body with computers, for example the skeletal, muscular, and circulatory systems. Which of course can be augmented with models of various organs and micro-level models of cellular interaction and cell internals. The brilliant bit seemed to be the idea of using a finite element and/or modular decomposition, potentially at multiple levels of resolution and abstraction. It seemed like the sort of thing that could yield huge benefits in medicine, health/fitness, education, and video games/animation. ;-)
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find this perplexing because the Olympic Games is notorious for draining an urban centers resources for years and the result being a bunch of infrastructure that the majority of the time just slowly decays due to the local community not having the same volume of population to fully utilize the utility. The handling of the 2016 games was an especially bad case. It's overall a nationalistic country level flex at the…
That always confused me about the Olympic Games. I guess it makes sense if you think about it as an opportunity for pork stuffed building contracts. It would make more sense for each country to have 1 or maybe 2 locations that are reused whenever they host the games. They could also host national level sporting events in the interim. That way they can be maintained and upgraded over the years without saddling municip…
I came to say this. Well put. Take my vote.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/abandon...
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#97I admire the optimism and motivational tone of the article, but fairs and expos are a thing of the past. We don't need to build elaborate, carefully constructed single-use cities to showcase the scientific advances of the world. Those showcases happen day by day on the internet and mass media.
Nobody lives in the internet or in mass media.
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find this perplexing because the Olympic Games is notorious for draining an urban centers resources for years and the result being a bunch of infrastructure that the majority of the time just slowly decays due to the local community not having the same volume of population to fully utilize the utility. The handling of the 2016 games was an especially bad case. It's overall a nationalistic country level flex at the…
That always confused me about the Olympic Games. I guess it makes sense if you think about it as an opportunity for pork stuffed building contracts. It would make more sense for each country to have 1 or maybe 2 locations that are reused whenever they host the games. They could also host national level sporting events in the interim. That way they can be maintained and upgraded over the years without saddling municip…
The problem for most countries is that it can be decades between hosting two Olympics, meaning that facilities are either worn out not fulfilling the current Olympic technical requirements.
Also; very few countries has a need for facilities with the capacity the Olympics require, so this would be a huge burden for most of them.
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#99A World’s Fair now would be like The Olympics, a ridiculously expensive, corruption-laden affair that would cost many countries more than they could ever recoup, benefiting only a few rich 1st-world countries and/or multi-national companies. While the average person would see “marvels”, they’d be the corporate-approved, mass-market-acceptable marvels that were cleared through legal before being shown to the public.
You can see more innovation in an afternoon spent on blogs than you would ever see in a 6-month long, static display of corporate bullshit.
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#100Was Walt Disney's EPCOT vision ever part of the world fair?