10 replies to this topic

[advancedatheist]

This video clip from 1967 looks wrong on so many levels. One, the kid, who doesn't sound especially bright, doesn't know what year he lives in. Two, he doesn't know anything more about computers than his mom. And three, the film suddenly transitions in tone from a banal day at the beach into something like the opening of a horror movie about "the future":

View on Dailymotion

BTW, the actress looks like Marj Dusay, who also appeared in "Spock's Brain," in the running for the worst episode in the original Trek series.

[Live Forever]

Lol. Good to keep in mind when you hear predictions of the "future" more than 10-15 years out. Historically, it is very hard to predict further out than that.

[advancedatheist]

Lol. Good to keep in mind when you hear predictions of the "future" more than 10-15 years out. Historically, it is very hard to predict further out than that.

If technological progress has fundamentally decelerated, as physicist Jonathan Huebner argues, then the technological aspects of "the future" will become significantly easier to foresee because not much will have changed from today.

[Harvey Newstrom]

This film isn't so bad. A later portion of it shows online shopping from a video screen, paying bills online, and sending printed mail electronically between households.

See http://paleo-future....99-ad-1967.html.

[Live Forever]

Lol. Good to keep in mind when you hear predictions of the "future" more than 10-15 years out. Historically, it is very hard to predict further out than that.

If technological progress has fundamentally decelerated, as physicist Jonathan Huebner argues, then the technological aspects of "the future" will become significantly easier to foresee because not much will have changed from today.

...and yet, even the prediction that technological progress is slowing is one that is fundamentally a hard one to make. (in the long term especially)

Edited by Live Forever, 01 June 2007 - 02:42 AM.

[Shannon Vyff]

very interesting!

I know well how hard it is to realistically project an accurate future--even though I tried, I know things will be vastly different

[maxwatt]

Some things are hard to predict -- especially the future.

Yogi Berra

[siberia]

John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years”.

[Live Forever]

John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years”.

Wow, those are really amazing. He couldn't envision airplanes or automobiles (at least in the way that they function for us today) or much of anything that resembles life today (or in 2000 more specifically)

Edited by Live Forever, 03 June 2007 - 10:52 PM.

[Mind]

If technological progress has fundamentally decelerated, as physicist Jonathan Huebner argues, then the technological aspects of "the future" will become significantly easier to foresee because not much will have changed from today.

The error in Huebner's argument lie in definitions of "progress" and "technology" . He admits his data and conclusions are controversial because of this. Basically, a person could argue that there has been no progress in medical technology since the first caveman tried to relieve his brother's headache by smashing his head open with a rock. The scalpels of today are just fancy sharp rocks.

I grew up in a house where we had one rotary phone. We didn't have a touchtone phone or more than one phone until the mid 1980s. Now I can talk for free with several people at one time anywhere in the world with just one click of my computer mouse. Huebner would argue that there has not been any fundemental innovation since the telegraph. I would argue the opposite, and I think most people would agree.

[knite]

John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years”.

In storm they will dive below the water and there await fair weather.

How great would THAT cruise be!