In the year 1910, here's what people thought 2000 would be like:

[MineralMan]

http://paleo-future.blogspot.com/search/label/1910s

Interesting blog. More interesting info. Here are a couple of images, but you really need to see the site, which lets you look at future predictions from all decades, beginning in 1880. It goes to show you how dim we are about predicting the future.




Voice Mail



Video Mail (Not quite YouTube, I guess)



Long Range Air Travel



Automated Tailor Shop

[FSogol]

1. A world full of Steampunks!

Thanks for the link.

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. Steampunk; our retrospective take on the future predicted by victorians.

What will 2110's "steampunk" be? I suspect Star Trek techno-gibberish will figure prominently.

[MineralMan]

5. The acceleration is even more intense now.

It's so foolish to try to predict 100 years off in the future. We fail every time.

[zipplewrath]

9. Not exactly

We're lousy at what it will look like, or how it will be made. But they do okay in what it will do. It's of little use that far off, because the interveining techologies that are needed are not known nor envisioned. But the way you respond when you first "see" the internet, is by knowing the possibilities of such an information sharing system.

We "know" for example that in the next 100 years, energy capture, storage, and creation issues will be paramount. We just don't know what it will look like. We "know" that genetic treatments for diseases will be the future of medicine. We just don't know what equipment will be needed to do it. We "know" that weather/environmental manipulation on a regional and global level will be needed. We just have no idea how it will be done, who will be doing it, or what it will be used to do.

Kinda makes it hard to "invest" this far out.

[starroute]

14. They knew the biggest changes would be in transportation and communication

Just as we know now that the biggest changes will be in information storage and retrieval.

But they didn't know the implications of those changes -- which is why they thought in terms of rich men chatting with their girl friends rather than entire economies being revolutionized.

And we'd don't know the implications of being able to access and correlate all of human knowledge, or of being able to talk seamlessly with anyone in the world no matter what languages both parties are using.

People always think of new technologies as a way of doing what they're already doing, only more and better. It takes a while for the possibility of doing radically different things to hit home.

[Crystal Clarity]

3. Cool and (funny) site

Thanks!

[Richardo]

4. I want one of these tomorrow, if not sooner.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. Dirigibles were ruined by the Hindenberg explosion, but

actually, they were an environmentally friendly way to travel. They were slower than planes, but we may have to go back to them. I recall seeing film footage of a dirigible that made a trip around the world.

Nowadays, vessels like the Goodyear blimp are filled with non-flammable helium instead of with highly flammable hydrogen, so they're much safer.

[struggle4progress]

16. Helium may be a limited resource

The major terrestrial source is alpha decay of heavy radioactive elements, with the gas collecting in sealed deep geological domes and tapped by wells

Since it's not a major component of the atmosphere, and condenses only at very low temperature, producing it by liquifying air is probably prohibitively expensive

[DavidDvorkin]

6. Cool blog!

Thanks for that link.

The blog itself has moved to a new URL, which is on the blog's main page.

[brooklynite]

7. Since fashions clearly haven't changed in 90 years, why would you need a tailor machine?

[Desertrose]

8. My Mom was born in 1910.....

Loved to hear her stories....

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. That 1911 "We'll all be happy then" was rather prescient.

Television, stereo sound, air conditioning - got all that. But where's my robot servant?

[XemaSab]

11. Fascinating

I was just checking out this blog and musing that someone from 100 years ago would probably be able to recognize most everyday items as familiar, or at least understandable (unlike most of these pictures of the future).

The only things that are in or around the house that someone from 1910 wouldn't immediately recognize are the TV, the phones, the CDs and DVDs and their players, and the computers. The other big lifestyle-changing technology is airplanes.

Everything else technological (cars, stoves, fridges, lamps, washing machines, and so forth) I think would be immediately recognizable, and I don't know whether that's really cool or sort of sad.

The thing that's providing the most fascination for me are the fashions. They had no way of knowing that in 100 years everyone would be wearing jeans and t-shirts. :P

On edit: Microwave ovens and air conditioning are two things that someone from the past might not recognize or understand.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. In 1950s and 1960s visions of the future, all the women are

walking around in what look like skating costumes.

[renko]

15. Fans, Radios, Snowboards, Body Piercing, Lasers, Space Station...

I'd love to see their reaction to halogen lights. Or modern Fridge/freezers and Washer/Dryers. And to see their faces boarding a Jumbo Jet, Nuke Submarine, or Aircraft Carrier. VTOL jets and the Osprey would be entertaining, too. Microwaves and inductive stoves would be mind blowers, along with photosensitive controls, Nuke plants, a film of Hydrogen bombs and Hiroshima.


Maybe best of all, watching their reactions after sitting them down to watch the Matrix and Lord of the Ring Series (with The Wire for dessert).

[RaleighNCDUer]

17. You mention washer/dryers.

Why has nobody invented a single machine which both washes and dries, with drying being the final cycle of the wash? It doesn't seem to me to be out of the question technologically and would be a great boon for apartment/trailer housing.

[hugo_from_TN]

18. Ummm. Here you go:

http://www.lgwasherdryer.com/combos/wm3431hw.htm

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. Yes, but does it do dishes?

[RaleighNCDUer]

20. Well, there I go again. A day late and a dollar short. nt

[Ezlivin]

21. And in 100 years it'll probably look more like 1910

than 2010.

At the rate we're consuming our resources I doubt it'll look very "futuristic" in 100 years.

[Uncle Joe]

22. Well "Flying Tennis" sure looks like fun, I don't know why that one wasn't invented?

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sGYULzoQCgA/SCklV2judWI/AAAAAAAABhQ/6jZlbbZ6Kqk/s400/1900Tennis+paleofuture.JPG

That's a cool website, thanks for the thread, MineralMan.

[pokerfan]

23. The Amazing World of the Future

What will life be like in the future?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JenFjM9ncG0