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Old 05-17-2014, 11:37 AM
 
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As a avid reader of science fiction I have often looked at a lot of old predictions about what the future is going to be like. Most of these old predictions were from the 1950s about what the world of the 21st century would be like but many of them were way to optimistic about the 21st century. I would like to know why were people so optimistic back then about what the future was going to look like?
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Old 05-17-2014, 12:11 PM
 
Location: TOVCCA
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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.
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Old 05-17-2014, 12:24 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by STB93 View Post
As a avid reader of science fiction I have often looked at a lot of old predictions about what the future is going to be like. Most of these old predictions were from the 1950s about what the world of the 21st century would be like but many of them were way to optimistic about the 21st century. I would like to know why were people so optimistic back then about what the future was going to look like?
I would imagine that because science and technology made such leaps in that period that extrapolating a development curve would have indicated that those advancements would continue to grow on an accelerated pace.

Frankly, they may have been right and keep in mind we have just cracked the 21st century.
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Old 05-17-2014, 03:14 PM
 
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Old fashioned control and greed have quelled the release of paradigm-shifting
technologies to the public. So they stay suppressed, or black altogether.
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Old 05-17-2014, 03:39 PM
 
Location: London
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Originally Posted by Snowball7 View Post
Old fashioned control and greed have quelled the release of paradigm-shifting
technologies to the public. So they stay suppressed, or black altogether.
The technologies made little difference to the quality of life of people. New technologies did not eradicate poverty. We still pay rent to landlords who have no role whatsoever in the invention and implementation of new technologies. When new technology creates economic growth, growth that should benefit all, the landlords just put up the rent, or land prices, and take the surplus. Nothing has changed. .
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Old 05-17-2014, 03:43 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by STB93 View Post
As a avid reader of science fiction I have often looked at a lot of old predictions about what the future is going to be like. Most of these old predictions were from the 1950s about what the world of the 21st century would be like but many of them were way to optimistic about the 21st century. I would like to know why were people so optimistic back then about what the future was going to look like?
It is very hard to predict what technologies will be developed. What will be practical or not. And how those changes will effect lives. Some things change very rapidly. Something change more slowly. If you ever get an chance watch the PBS series 1900 house where in 1999 an family was chosen to live like it was 1900. It is pretty eye opening about the advance of technology over time.

Here are some post cards of what the 19th century thought might happen in the 20th or by the year 2000.

http://singularityhub.com/2012/10/15...-of-postcards/

Some hit the mark, others are a huge miss.
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Old 05-17-2014, 05:30 PM
 
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If you notice, the majority of the predictions revolve around transportation in some shape or form. Be it personal airplanes becoming as ubiquitous as cars, or interplanetary travel. This was predicated on the rate of advancements in the previous half century. Which had gone from horse and buggies to jet airliners. On the communications side, I would say many of the predictions have come to pass.
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Old 05-17-2014, 07:45 PM
 
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Depends on the predictions. No we're not flying to Mars, but a lot of the others advances are pretty much science fiction come true when you think about it.

For example, it is now possible to tap a few characters into your phone and have access to more information in seconds than you would have found in the biggest libraries of the 1950s. You would have a portable map that even talks to you. You could give voice commands dictating memos, e-mails, and whatever else.

What's more, it's interesting how naive some of the science fiction of the period was. I remember a book, Starman Jones, written by Robert Heinlein, where you had to look up a logarithm in a book and put it in the coordinates before being able to travel faster than light. And the crew of a starship was doomed because -- wait for it -- they lost the book with all the logarithms in it! Until Starman Jones with his freakish memory stepped in, gave them the number they needed, and saved the day.
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Old 05-17-2014, 08:14 PM
 
Location: Sinkholeville
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I still want my flying car.

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Old 05-17-2014, 08:18 PM
 
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During the '50s Detroit was booming and production in the US was great. The US debt was low and so was unemployment. You know how sometimes you feel like the situation you're in feels as though it could last forever? The US's booming period seemed to be steady and the middle class was rising. Things were being invented and man was not far away from landing on the moon.

Now, however, we're in a recession (IMO depression), involved in many wars and skirmishes, and the US debt is skyrocketing. There just seems to be very little hope for the future. So people imagine the future as bleak and destroyed and apocalypse-like.

But not all people viewed the future as so positive back then. Just remember George Orwell's 1984.
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