1968's predictions for 2008
"What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?" first published in the November, 1968 issue Mechanix Illustrated, contains many exciting predictions for that far-off, futuristic date.
Link
The car accelerates to 150 mph in the city’s suburbs, then hits 250 mph in less built-up areas, gliding over the smooth plastic road. You whizz past a string of cities, many of them covered by the new domes that keep them evenly climatized year round. Traffic is heavy, typically, but there’s no need to worry. The traffic computer, which feeds and receives signals to and from all cars in transit between cities, keeps vehicles at least 50 yds. apart. There hasn’t been an accident since the system was inaugurated. Suddenly your TV phone buzzes. A business associate wants a sketch of a new kind of impeller your firm is putting out for sports boats. You reach for your attache case and draw the diagram with a pencil-thin infrared flashlight on what looks like a TV screen lining the back of the case. The diagram is relayed to a similar screen in your associate’s office, 200 mi. away. He jabs a button and a fixed copy of the sketch rolls out of the device. He wishes you good luck at the coming meeting and signs off.
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Hey, it's supposed to take place in November 2008... we still have time to get our dome cities on.
Oh yeah, we were gonna get those domes, plastic streets, and supercars, but we spent the money on a war. Sorry, guys...
Wow, the predictions regarding computers are actually accurate.
"Computers also handle travel reservations, relay telephone messages, keep track of birthdays and anniversaries, compute taxes and even figure the monthly bills for electricity, water, telephone and other utilities." Yup, got that right.
with the population having soared to 350 million
sorry, dude. higher.
Meeting? Like face to face? That's so 1980!
uhm, speaking of the war....from the NYTimes.
""The improvement is real but fragile and limited. Here’s what it amounts to: We’ve cut our casualty rates to the unacceptable levels that plagued us back in 2005, and we still don’t have any exit plan for years to come — all for a bill that is accumulating at the rate of almost $5,000 every second!""
I think the auto-driving cars on the highway was completely reachable with 70's technology. Look elsewhere for blame!
where's my jetpack? where's my kitchen of the future? Damnit, I grew up in the 70's when this stuff was PROMISED to us as the future.
Now? we have stupid kids, idiotic television, war that generates no profit, and? NO JETPACK!
I want my jetpack!
Ah, "Life in the So-Called Space Age," indeed.
@ #4 - Actually dude, lower. The U.S. population is just peeking over 300 mil right now. If you think they were talking about *world* population, then they were off by about 1000 years.
I love retro-futuristic illustrations like those in the post, i also love the linked blog attached. So, thank you for sharing it. The master of painting the future with this kind of a optimistic view to a promising tomorrow, in my opinion is a designer from the 60`s named Syd Mead. I found a great collection of his work on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mstoll/sets/72157603779992640/
I think that article may actually contain prior-art for the Amazon One-Click patent. ;-)
I thought some of the tele-shopping and cashless society parts were surprisingly prescient, but then they got off track with all the "undersea vacations" and "heart disease eliminated by diet" and "computer-guided hover-cars".
I would *love* a car that drives itself, but I'd think this would really jack up the amount of driving people do, which isn't necessarily a good thing. Wouldn't it be tempting just to roll the seat back and snooze out while your car drives through the night? As much driving as we do, I think the effort and discomfort involved in long trips deters us to some extent from driving as much as we might.
Except for the 250mph cars and city domes, just about everything else from the snippet above is possible (video conferencing + tablet PC - even cars communicating with each other has already been tried). Haven't read the rest of the piece yet, though.