Why did people in the mid 20th century think the future was going to be super advanced? (90s, colonies)
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I wonder, as suggested in a story by I think Asimov, if there would be the legal question of after you'd transported, which would lead to the death of your physical body, and it be recreated, would you still be you? Would a contract you signed still be legally binding? Would you still own the propety you'd purchased, since in reality you died and the you now is a copy?
Your consciousness shouldn't transfer through teleportation. The product of the device would be an exact copy of you, but not you.
@The OP: As some other people here have already said, the century before 1945 produced enormous progress in regards to technological development, inventions, et cetera. Thus, some/many people expected this trend to continue in the decades after 1945 as well.
@The OP: As some other people here have already said, the century before 1945 produced enormous progress in regards to technological development, inventions, et cetera. Thus, some/many people expected this trend to continue in the decades after 1945 as well.
Having spent my teen years in the 1950s, I rember the high hopes, dreams and idealism that existed. We of that era were the progeny of the generation that had survived the great Depression, defeated Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito. We were entering into the era of great advance, we were the generation born into the greatest scientific discoveries of all time. The Sci-Fi dreams seemed to be child's play to bring to fulfillment. Science fiction was not fiction to us, it was challenges we knew we would face and conquer.
Your consciousness shouldn't transfer through teleportation. The product of the device would be an exact copy of you, but not you.
That was the interesting part of the story. The ones who claimed to be the inheritors won. Part of his point was how culture and perception can waylay technology. Asamov was a true seer.
It's rooted I think in the pre-WW2 optimism inherent in modernism, and you actually started seeing this in the late 19th century: " ... affirms the power of human beings to create, improve and reshape their environment with the aid of practical experimentation, scientific knowledge, or technology." Quote from the following article:
Sometimes the visions were eerily accurate ... I saw a picture from a magazine like Popular Mechanics in the 1950s showing a sports bar of the future, with large monitors on the walls. However, everyone in the drawing was wearing a coat and tie.
The world had been decimated in many places because of the war. Things could be rebuilt in a new way. There was suddenly a new form of energy at our disposal: atomic energy. Penicillin and the Polio Vaccine looked to be precursors of wiping out bacterial and viral illnesses, among other things.
But really, the predictors IMO were too conservative. Maybe we don't all have jetpacks on our backs, but The Internet? Cellphones? Computers you can carry? They didn't even have transistor radios in 1950.
Women who had male jobs and didn't wear dresses all the time? The ability to stop contraception with a pill? DNA for fighting crime? Harnessing solar energy? These commonplace things were not imagined.
Internet and cell phones are really just upgrades of radio and telegraph technology. I mean they had car phones in the 50s even, I don't think they'd be all that impressed by them compared to flying cars or space colonies.
I wonder, as suggested in a story by I think Asimov, if there would be the legal question of after you'd transported, which would lead to the death of your physical body, and it be recreated, would you still be you? Would a contract you signed still be legally binding? Would you still own the propety you'd purchased, since in reality you died and the you now is a copy?
Shoot, as soon as this becomes possible, I'm getting a law degree! LOL
Most of the predictions from back in the 50's-80's HAVE come true, except for flying cars. In fact, there are flying cars, but they are too expensive for anyone to use and we do not have the infrastructure for them. But many of the other inventions commonly seen on sci fi movies have come true.
Cell phones for instance are similar in function to what Star Trek used in the 60's for their officers to communicate back and forth from anywhere. GPS and navigation devices are now in most cars and on cell phones. These were pipe dreams only seen on Star Trek 40 years ago. TV's where you could see and talk with someone was virtually inconceivable before the 1990's, yet now it is commonplace. Most couldn't have envisioned the internet though. I suppose because its not shaped like a robot. Many movies from the 70's-80's envisioned us having personal robots that do chores for us and act as servants so we can laze out on couches. They didn't think about how impracticle having a large robot in your house was. They also didn't see video games coming before the late 70's.
Many of the entreprenurs, technologists, scientists and engineers who helped create our modern information age where impressionable young people growing up in the late 1960s and got hooked on TV shows like Star Trek, The Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.Outer Limits, Fireball XL5, UFO (I still remember Lt. Joy and the Moonbase Girls) or even Rod Serlings T-Zone.
So things were planted in our minds and and one figured out how to do it and who wouldn't want something way too cool just like Admiral Nelson's USS Seaview.
If economic growth continued at the same rates as it did in the mid 20th century without slowing down, thenwe might be super advanced today.
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