24 Sep 2012, 12:58 pm
japan wrote:
There is a book by George Friedman called "the next 100 years". I haven't read it. I'm curious though. It looks entertaining, but I find that most bold predictions about the future end up looking silly in hindsight...
I love reading such books and articles. Speculations about the future are fascinating, although they are limited by whatever knowledge is current at the time of the prediction. Some bold predictions end up looking silly in hindsight. But other bold predictions are so accurate it is eerie to see how correct somebody could be.
Here is a list of predictions made in 1900. Many are wrong. But some are entirely accurate. These aren't vague Nostradamus style predictions either. They are bold pronouncements of very specific things that really did happen just as somebody in 1900 imagined they would. Read it and be amazed (and also amused at the things they got wrong).
http://www.yorktownhistory.org/homepage ... ctions.htm
Some excerpts that came true as predicted:
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Prediction #3: Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. Exercise will be compulsory in the schools. Every school, college and community will have a complete gymnasium. All cities will have public gymnasiums. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling.
They were absolutely right about the rise of fitness culture. There are baby gymnastics classes, gym classes in school, and you can join a gym in pretty much any town. What they didn't foresee was that this fitness culture would rise in tandem to rising obesity, creating a weird dichotomy where people are either fit (and considering anyone who can't do that 10 mile Walk For Cause-du-Jour a weakling) or terrifyingly overweight and at risk for Type 2 Diabetes (or already have it). Clearl;y they extrapolated from a fitness culture that was in its' infancy. But they didn't realize that the processing of food- which was also in its' infancy- would run in dangerous parallel.
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Prediction #6: Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today. Farmers will own automobile hay-wagons, automobile truck-wagons, plows, harrows and hay-rakes. A one-pound motor in one of these vehicles will do the work of a pair of horses or more. Children will ride in automobile sleighs in winter. Automobiles will have been substituted for every horse vehicle now known. There will be, as already exist today, automobile hearses, automobile police patrols, automobile ambulances, automobile street sweepers. The horse in harness will be as scarce, if, indeed, not even scarcer, then as the yoked ox is today.
They extrapolated from the recent invention of cars and correctly guessed that this technology would rise and take over. Good for them! (I have no idea if they were right about cars being cheaper than horses. I have never priced horses and google gave me a gigantic spread of prices- although I suppose car prices have a gigantic spread too, if you consider used junkers to Jaguars.) It is quite possible that some technology in its' infancy right now will be ubiquitous in the future. My guess is that genetic engineering will be that technology.
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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. Even to-day photographs are being telegraphed over short distances. Photographs will reproduce all of Nature’s colors.
They got that right in every detail. Impressive prediction.
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Prediction #10: Man will See Around the World. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span. American audiences in their theatres will view upon huge curtains before them the coronations of kings in Europe or the progress of battles in the Orient. The instrument bringing these distant scenes to the very doors of people will be connected with a giant telephone apparatus transmitting each incidental sound in its appropriate place. Thus the guns of a distant battle will be heard to boom when seen to blaze, and thus the lips of a remote actor or singer will be heard to utter words or music when seen to move.
They got this right too. How did they figure this out before anybody had even conceived of computers, let alone the internet. I am impressed again.
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Prediction #13: Strawberries as Large as Apples will be eaten by our great-great-grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. Raspberries and blackberries will be as large. One will suffice for the fruit course of each person. Strawberries and cranberries will be grown upon tall bushes. Cranberries, gooseberries and currants will be as large as oranges. One cantaloupe will supply an entire family. Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, apples, pears, peaches and all berries will be seedless. Figs will be cultivated over the entire United States.
Close but not exactly. Strawberries are quite a lot bigger than they were in 1900, though.
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Prediction #18: Telephones Around the World. Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn. By an automatic signal they will connect with any circuit in their locality without the intervention of a “hello girl”.
Correct!
Some predictions were way wrong:
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Prediction #17: How Children will be Taught. A university education will be free to every man and woman. Several great national universities will have been established. Children will study a simple English grammar adapted to simplified English, and not copied after the Latin. Time will be saved by grouping like studies. Poor students will be given free board, free clothing and free books if ambitious and actually unable to meet their school and college expenses. Medical inspectors regularly visiting the public schools will furnish poor children free eyeglasses, free dentistry and free medical attention of every kind. The very poor will, when necessary, get free rides to and from school and free lunches between sessions. In vacation time poor children will be taken on trips to various parts of the world. Etiquette and housekeeping will be important studies in the public schools.
No. Pure wishful thinking, unfortunately.
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Prediction #28: There will be no wild animals except in menageries. Rats and mice will have been exterminated. The horse will have become practically extinct. A few of high breed will be kept by the rich for racing, hunting and exercise. The automobile will have driven out the horse. Cattle and sheep will have no horns. They will be unable to run faster than the fattened hog of today. A century ago the wild hog could outrun a horse. Food animals will be bred to expend practically all of their life energy in producing meat, milk, wool and other by-products. Horns, bones, muscles and lungs will have been neglected.
Wrong, thank God...at least for now. Maybe this will eventually come true.
Social changes seem to be driven by technological changes. The trick is to correctly predict which technology will bloom and expand (which these people did a good job predicting) and then also guess how the expansion of that technology will cause social change. That's a lot harder to do. Science fiction writers build their careers around trying to do just that but can often be hilariously far off the mark. I am pretty impressed with whoever did this in 1900. Some things are wrong. Some things are a little right and a little wrong. Some things are 100% accurate as predicted.
