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Well I was born in 1990 but I'm not sure I would have thought 2014 would be THAT futuristic.
Actually as a kid 2014 might as well have been as far out as 2100 to me, but I'm not really sure what I thought would be around then. Probably the stuff you see in Back to the Future Part II some of which did come to pass in a limited way, like telecommuting. Which actually already existed in the 90s.
Well my dad was alive but with terminal illness - I savored spending weekends with him whenever I could. I was 40ish, had a great girlfriend for 3 years and was debating (myself) about marriage. But I was on the financial treadmill.
I had a lot of trust in government those days. Tons more than after 2001.
There was no myspace. No facebook. Social networking was not coined yet. There was more human interaction. People would look you in the eye far more and now are so self absorbed looking down at devices.
The early 90s were even better. I would not be typing this. Internet has mixed blessings. Lots of free knowledge to make better decisions. However Privacy is losing now because people are suckered into giving their whole life history to strangers on social networks. But back then you saw blue skies more often. Or hung out under the stars with friends at outdoor cafes.
My dad was born in 1900, but didn't live to see 2000. He died in l997. I've wished he could have made it to 9/11, since he'd always said it wasn't the Chinese who would do us more harm, it would be some of the followers of Islam.
I must of been about 12 or 13 back in 2000. I remember sitting in front of a bulky desktop PC and cathode monitor to browse internet on a slow dial up modem. I never did envision being able to have a device in my pocket that could connect to the internet 24/7 at blazing speeds.
In 1974 I worked for a fairly large company when they installed a computer and hired a programmer. That thing took up an entire wall, had to be climate controlled, etc. and looked like something out of a science fiction movie, to me. About that time I heard someone on TV say that someday every home would have a computer and I wondered why anyone would want anything like that in their home! lol Who would've thought we could someday carry a computer in our purse/pocket?
I honestly never gave it much thought. If given the option of guessing whether we would have jet packs or that the Chinese would own 17 trillion dollars of US debt, I would have gone with the jet packs idea.
No one worth listening to took the Y2K hysteria seriously.
When you were on call, you carried a pager, not a phone/computer that fits in the palm of your hand.
I certainly didn't expect computers to change as fast as they did.
I watched computer mainframes evolve from room-sized beasts to small machines that can fit on a desk. The microchip was a game-changer.
I witnessed the Internet evolve from a private club for scientists, military engineers, curious students, and geek wanna-bes to the commercial, open-to-all entity it is today. That's significant because it took at least a modicum of programming skill to access the internet prior to 1990 or so. Today, sometimes it's just a matter of turning on the machine and letting it connect automatically.
The Y2K scare was nothing but hype -- directed at the shallow and sensationalistic mindset that takes the stuff at supermarket checkouts seriously. For the rest of us it was business as usual, because with the occasional exception like 9/11/01, directed by a hostile foe rather than happenstance or misguided intentions, life very seldom changes that quickly.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 05-27-2014 at 01:09 PM..
I figured we would have an abundance of resources and that technology would help us live healthier lives and be more productive. Technology continues to let us have ample resources but GMO's and processed foods are killing us, so I was half right.
I certainly didn't expect computers to change as fast as they did.
I watched computer mainframes evolve from room-sized beasts to small machines that can fit on a desk. The microchip was a game-changer.
I witnessed the Internet evolve from a private club for scientists, military engineers, curious students, and geek wanna-bes to the commercial, open-to-all entity it is today. That's significant because it took at least a modicum of programming skill to access the internet prior to 1990 or so. Today, sometimes it's just a matter of turning on the machine and letting it connect automatically.
I think that the biggest developments since 2000 were the spread of microprocessors into almost every aspect of our lives, the expansion of the internet, and the explosion of wireless technology (ie, cell phones, wifi, etc) on unimaginable scales. While some people recognized that these would impact the future, all of the "futurists" totally missed on the rapidity, scale, and volume of the change.
I think that one of the next big impacts will come from advanced solar and battery technology that will expand alternative energy sources on the same scale as wireless technology. It's already starting to gather momentum with the development of economical solar panels and re-chargeable batteries that hold their charges far longer and re-charge far quicker than similar batteries just a few years ago.
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Probably the stuff you see in Back to the Future Part II some of which did come to pass in a limited way, like telecommuting. Which actually already existed in the 90s.
