- This topic has 2 voices and 3 replies.
-
Posts
-
Here's a site which contains predictions from 1900 of what life would be like in the year 2000. For example:
There Will Be No Street Cars in Our Large Cities. All hurry traffic will be below or high above ground when brought within city limits. In most cities it will be confined to broad subways or tunnels, well lighted and well ventilated, or to high trestles with ?moving-sidewalk? stairways leading to the top.
If only! But perhaps not a bad try; even only a few years ago it was predicted that the Segway would revolutionize cities. Perhaps this quote was based on the direction things were trending back in the day.
Remember Buck Rodgers? I beleieve they started each week with: “In 1987 America launches the last of it's deep space probes…..” ::)
I recall watching a Star Trek The Old Series rerun (the one where Khan/Ricardo Montelban takes over the ship) where they I think discuss a little history of the creation of “superhumans” or a war that takes place in 1997. To their credit I don't know how many TV shows are remembered some 30 years after their original airing date, so they probably weren't too concerned about being proven wrong as reality played out differently.
Well, some of the predictions on the site that I linked to were curiously fairly accurate. For example, this:
Prediction #9: Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later.
(the internet made this true by 2000)Or this:
Prediction #18: Telephones Around the World. Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world.
And I think this may be true, or almost true:
Prediction #2: The American will be taller by from one to two inches.
Really, some of the predictions were not far off.
