
1966 children about the future [video] - scottlocklin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwHib5wYEj8
======
Robotbeat
The more optimistic children seem to have been more correct. We are more
integrated, have more cures for diseases, etc.

The most pessimistic ones (who, understandably for children, have a
caricatured view of the threats) echo a lot of the concerns we have today
(including automation, which might be the most over-blown fear) except for the
notable presence of fears of nuclear war. Merely 2 decades after the first
(limited) nuclear war, that wasn't completely unfounded. However, those fears
were not realized because humanity, somehow, was able to restrain themselves
from using these terrible weapons again. And over-population also seems to
have largely been solved as well.

That's a ray of hope. Problems which seem too intractable now or seem
inevitable, like anthropogenic climate change, CAN be addressed, just like we
avoided nuclear war. Just like overpopulation was addressed (through education
and development and access to healthcare). Just like we were able to stop the
ozone hole by banning ozone-depleting refrigerants.

These big, nasty collective-action problems CAN be solved.

~~~
excalibur
Boomers frequently like to talk about how nuclear war was "solved" in the '80s
and '90s and isn't a concern anymore. But the reality is that it was only
avoided for a while, and will never be solved so long as nuclear stockpiles
are maintained. Our present moment is more dangerous than any point in
history, the Cuban Missile Crisis is the only thing you can even compare it
to. Yet so many today insist upon seeing this as a non-issue, and largely
ignore the problem.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Nuclear war never stopped being a possibility, but it became much less likely
in the 90s with the end of Cold War and the USSR. I don't think it ever
disappeared from public consciousness, it just fell down on the list of
worries. Nowadays, with the US/China stories, I personally am getting worried
about it again - but still less than about the climate.

~~~
conception
Pakistan/India probably is the greater threat and whatever ensues after that.

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black_puppydog
"I think people will be regarded more as statistics than as actual people."

There's probably a fair bit of nostalgia in there (and for a time way before
mine, too) but boy did that boy nail it.

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mellosouls
This is apparently a segment from the long running futurist BBC programme
_Tomorrow 's World_.

[https://www.twitter.com/bbcarchive/status/946365140642889728](https://www.twitter.com/bbcarchive/status/946365140642889728)

How many others were reminded of the wonderful Up series which started a
couple of years earlier?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_(film_series)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_\(film_series\))

~~~
fitzroy
I'd been wondering if this was from 7 Up, before I saw this comment. And now
just seeing that 63 Up aired in June 2019. Wow!

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saagarjha
In 1966, it was nuclear winter; today it's climate change. It's interesting
how children's views of what can go wrong in the future change based on what
seems to be the most relevant disaster of the time. I wonder what children
from 1900 would say to the same question…war, maybe?

~~~
NeoBasilisk
I could be wrong, but my understanding is that people were generally pretty
optimistic in the early 1900s (before WW1 obviously). Everyday applications
for electricity were rapidly changing daily life for people.

~~~
dredmorbius
You had then (as now) several major trends. The progressivists were
_modernists_ promoting _modernism_ \-- technology and rationality (along with
a whole host of jingoistic thinking).

A principle response was the _fundamentalist_ movement, back to fundamentals,
especially of religion, and against science and technology, most especially
evolution. See the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist–Modernist_contr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist–Modernist_controversy)

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open-source-ux
This young child's prediction in the video is completely spot on:

 _" livestock...they will be kept in batteries. They won't be able to graze on
pastures. They'll be kept in buildings...artificially reared...be bigger, give
more food."_

Link to segment:
[https://youtu.be/cwHib5wYEj8?t=244](https://youtu.be/cwHib5wYEj8?t=244)

~~~
OJFord
It was so spot on, including terminology, that I felt compelled to look up the
history - and indeed it was an extant but I young and growing industry - so I
think really it was just something else being talked about in the press and
schools in the same way as robots, computers, automation, and atomic bombs. It
just turns out to be more accurate in 2019, fundamentally simpler, I suppose -
we overestimated our abilities on the flying car front anyway!

~~~
nearbuy
It seems like all the most accurate predictions were predictions of things
that were already happening becoming more prevalent. The factory farms were
one example. Increased automation and and use of computers proved correct, as
did viewing people as statistics. One child said it'll be more crowded and
more people will live in flats, which is completely correct (although I
suspect the child was imagining it being worse).

While their predictions of "more of the same" were often correct, their
predictions about fundamental changes to the way we live were all off-base.
Nuclear annihilation, cabbage pills for breakfast, human-like robots, no one
having jobs, people living under the sea or in domes on the Sahara... none of
these have happened. Instead, many of the biggest changes to our lifestyles
revolve around home PCs, the internet, and cell phones.

Maybe the lesson is it's easier to be right when predicting that a current
trend will continue.

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mistrial9
anyone who has any experience with film knows that the chosen order of these
interviews, and which interviews, utterly manipulates the viewers'
impressions... how many children were alive in 1966 and how many voices do we
hear here? What did the interviewer ask ? ugh

~~~
RugnirViking
This is from a long-running bbc tv programme - and from the looks of the
uniform and the accent, I'd say that all the children interviewed here were
from a private school - they even reference computers, which while existing at
the time, weren't exactly common outside of large corporations - there were
only about 20000 across the entire world at the time.

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GaurVimen
“Some asshole will be avoiding doing actual work by watching this video on his
handheld telephonic device and trying to decide between Beef O’ Brady’s for
lunch or that shitty Chinese place around the corner again. He’s probably
gonna get the Crab Rangoon.”

Damn, girl nailed it.

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bookofjoe
Seven up 1964 — Michael Apted
[https://youtu.be/1LQZpiSfESE](https://youtu.be/1LQZpiSfESE)

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pmg101
What's funny is listening to these teenagers in 1966 is just like listening to
old folks today - who are indeed the same people!

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andywenkhh
It is really disturbing how huge the fear of a atomic war was back then. It
shows how bad the cold war was in these years. Today, our children fear
different things like the fact, that we are destroying our environment.
Interestingly, it would be quite the same (but sure not really), if the bomb
would be dropped.

Interesting is also that many kids predict the future in the year 2000 kind of
correctly. For example the ideas about computers are quite correct.

