From the Ladies Home Journal December 1900, Shaun Saunders sends us a a fascinating look into the future past, which prognosticates what life will be like in the next century (for them) . Shaun Says
This is fascinating, both for where it is wrong (but shouldn't be) and where it is right....especially the section on coal burning, and walking 10 miles a day....and food animsls bred exsclusively for consumption - battery farming, in essence. And a free university education for every person...what a world, I wish it were here (except for battery farming)
Article link
This is fascinating, both for where it is wrong (but shouldn't be) and where it is right....especially the section on coal burning, and walking 10 miles a day....and food animsls bred exsclusively for consumption - battery farming, in essence. And a free university education for every person...what a world, I wish it were here (except for battery farming)
Article link
3 comments:
Reminds me of the lost Verne manuscript 'Paris in the 21st Century', that was only found in an old safe a few yearsago.
Cool! I love articles like this one. It is always fascinating noticing what they get right and what they get very wrong.
There is one school of thought that articles like this should serve as warning to SF writers against making bold predictions, that the genre should be more "mundane."
I see a warning, but one that is exactly the opposite. This article misses more often than not, because it is too cautious. (i.e. where are radio/television, assembly lines, trans-continental flight, no computers, etc.) Everything is merely an extension of the technology of the day (even air travel, Clément Ader had already flown unmanned aircraft by then).
And on another note, I would put "There will be no wild animals except in menageries" at the top of my list of things I wouldn't want to see.
I really think there are some technologies that just can not be imagined because the support tech just has not been realized. Even right at the beginning of TV it was viewed as a fad, but with the advent of communication sats it became possible to view something on the other side of the globe in real time. No jet engines so no way air travel could compete with the locomotive. But still, I love this article for what it got right and what it got so very wrong
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