
Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014 - bmmayer1
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v-fair.html
======
ricardobeat
Round-up:

✗ EL panels (not yet)

✗ Smart glass (unless you own a ferrari)

✓ Frozen meals + programmable microwave

✓ Lame robots

✓ 3D movies

✗ Fusion power plants

✗ Radioactive batteries

✓ Solar power

✓ Self-driving cars (in progress)

✗ Moving sidewalks (do airport conveyors count?)

✓ Video calls

✓ Mobile data, sharing, e-books

✓ Global mobile phone network

✗ Moon colonies (double fail since he just takes them for granted)

✓ Fiber-optics

✓ Unmanned mars missions, plans for a colony (mars one etc)

✓ Flat screen TVs

✓ 3D display tech demos

✓ Meat substitutes

✓ Digital teaching aids (kinda)

✓ Boredom and consumerism

~~~
zanny
On some of the missing ones:

1\. We have at least one fusion plant I know of, the UK Joint Torus, which I
know have been operating for decades. It just consumes more power than it
generates. But Asimov suggests one or two, which is strikingly accurate.

2\. We could probably make radio-decay batteries (maybe not AA size, but car
batteries running on Thorium or some such, albeit an extremely expensive
containment for something running so hot). We probably just don't do it
because the radiation risks are too high.

And I'd count airport conveyors as moving sidewalks. Or just the complexity of
baggage carrying systemes in those airports, lend that we easily have the
technoloy to create weather resistant rotary motor systems as sidewalks, but
like Asimovs suggestions of underground housing, cost is the bigger prohibitor
than technology.

Also, I don't think the degree of boredom he touches on has occured.
Consumerism and the wealth concentration in the US has kept people needing to
maintain 40 hour work weeks where productivity is magnitudes higher. We
produce vastly more, but work as much as ever. Back in the 60s the sentiment
was that 21st century Americans might have 10 hour work weeks.

~~~
dalek_cannes
> We produce vastly more, but work as much as ever. Back in the 60s the
> sentiment was that 21st century Americans might have 10 hour work weeks.

Isn't that because we now have a very large semi-parasitical managerial class
that we need to support? It's almost a retreat into feudalism. Doubt anybody
saw that coming.

~~~
Houshalter
That doesn't make a lot of sense. People don't work because they want to
support someone else, they work because they want to support themselves.

~~~
contingencies
That comment is at once so amazingly wrong and quintessentially American, it's
almost a work of art.

~~~
Houshalter
Right because people obviously work for the sole purpose of supporting their
manager. Not to feed themselves or anything, that's silly American stuff.

~~~
qu4z-2
What about building nice things, or making the world a better place? (Although
that's probably truer of the hacker profession than some others)

------
jpatokal
Asimov's own biases shine through pretty clearly in the initial bit:

 _One thought that occurs to me is that men will continue to withdraw from
nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better. By 2014,
electroluminescent panels will be in common use. Ceilings and walls will glow
softly, and in a variety of colors that will change at the touch of a push
button._

 _Windows need be no more than an archaic touch, and even when present will be
polarized to block out the harsh sunlight. The degree of opacity of the glass
may even be made to alter automatically in accordance with the intensity of
the light falling upon it._

He was, rather famously, an acrophobe who disliked heights and open spaces and
never flew when he could help it, so apparently he'd prefer a future without
windows and sunlight.

 _There is an underground house at the fair which is a sign of the future. if
its windows are not polarized, they can nevertheless alter the "scenery" by
changes in lighting. Suburban houses underground, with easily controlled
temperature, free from the vicissitudes of weather, with air cleaned and light
controlled, should be fairly common. At the New York World's Fair of 2014,
General Motors' "Futurama" may well display vistas of underground cities
complete with light- forced vegetable gardens. The surface, G.M. will argue,
will be given over to large-scale agriculture, grazing and parklands, with
less space wasted on actual human occupancy._

This depiction of life pretty much exactly mirrors the completely walled-in
life of _The Caves of Steel_ , which many readers found dystopian, but for him
was more of a utopia.

[http://stason.org/TULARC/education-books/isaac-
asimov/2-11-I...](http://stason.org/TULARC/education-books/isaac-
asimov/2-11-Is-it-true-that-Isaac-Asimov-had-a-fear-of-
flying.html#.Uh1qGqwecak)

~~~
nohuck13
Maybe it's because of biases like these, but we tend to vastly underestimate
the timespans in which cities can be radically remade. 50 years? Commercial
buildings being built in 1964 would have been expected to last 50+ years. Much
of Chicago's lakefront is buildings from the turn of the 20th century or
earlier. A skyscraper taller than 47 floors has never been demolished
peacefully [1]

1
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20535821](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20535821)

------
tokenadult
"Even so, mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease
spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have
serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that
psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014."

It is a striking finding of cross-cultural studies of suicide that many of the
places with especially high suicide rates, and many of the cultural subgroups
with high suicide rates among groups who live in the same place, are the
advantaged rather than the disadvantaged. While people have to struggle to
survive, they stay alive to continue the struggle. When people's basic needs
are all met, they sometimes doubt the meaningfulness of living.

"Why Suicides Are More Common in Richer Neighborhoods"

[http://business.time.com/2012/11/08/why-suicides-are-more-
co...](http://business.time.com/2012/11/08/why-suicides-are-more-common-in-
richer-neighborhoods/)

~~~
wikiburner
The suicidal in lower income situations could succumb to it in more subtle
ways, for example heroin, crack, or meth overdose, suicide by gang, suicide by
cop, etc.

~~~
wildgift
That seems very different. That's more like exciting, risky behavior mixed in
with a deathwish.

~~~
solistice
If you have nothing to loose and a death wish, you go on a rampage. If you
have a reputation to uphold postmortem, going that route seems to be out of
question. One route would be death due to work exhaustion, which the Japanese
actually have a word for: "Karoshi". The other, more direct, is suicide.

There's many ways in which a deathwish can manifest, they're not limited to
suicide.

------
leeny
I guess he never anticipated that "the best minds of [our] generation are
thinking about how to make people click ads."[1]

[1] [http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/why-this-
tech-...](http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/why-this-tech-bubble-
is-different-20110415-1dhbm.html#ixzz2dDwQHDql)

~~~
dredmorbius
Catabolic Collapse and Rent Seeking are largely the same thing:

[http://www.ecoshock.org/transcripts/greer_on_collapse.pdf](http://www.ecoshock.org/transcripts/greer_on_collapse.pdf)

Ads, FIRE industries, intellectual property feudalism, and microcode: it's
where the fiscal hoarding opportunities are. They're creating little if any
real wealth.

------
BecauseWeCan
"Even so, mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease
spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have
serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that
psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014.
The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the
true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine."

This bit is spot on.

------
coldtea
> _At the New York World 's Fair of 2014, General Motors' "Futurama" may well
> display vistas of underground cities complete with light- forced vegetable
> gardens._

Amazing prediction!

Well, he got the GM part wrong, but indeed, there was a series called
"Futurama" and it DID display "vistas of underground cities" (New New York)!

~~~
scardine
Not complete underground cities, but there are plenty underground marijuana
light-forced gardens out there... Even with panels that change colors (some
growers use different wavelengths for vegetative and flowering stages). :-)

~~~
solistice
You seem to know an awful lot about growing marijuana. Past work experience?

------
Syros
I think it's important to note here that Asimov was never a big proponent of
the "science fiction author as Nostradamus" theory. He was always very clear
that neither his nor any other writer's predictions should be given any more
credibility than the average Joe off the street.

In fact, I'm pretty puzzled as to why this article was written at all.

~~~
taitems
Intentional or not, he has certainly predicted technology that has only
recently come into existence. They may seem obvious now, but I wonder how
inevitable they seemed during the 50s and 60s? Take for instance the Multivac:
it is essentially Wolfram Alpha, even down to the pro-tier pricing he mentions
in one short story.

~~~
ijk
I suspect Wolfram Alpha was explicitly designed with Multivac in mind, either
directly or indirectly through the general idea of an oracular AI machine.

Google, on the other hand, is a bit more alien--though I have met plenty of
people who try to address Google as if it was Multivac (or Siri, I suppose).

------
GrantS
In fact, the animatronic 1964 GE pavillion show that Asimov is talking about
can still be seen today at Disney World. It's called the Carousel of Progress,
kind of tucked away behind the Buzz Lightyear ride in tomorrowland and sadly
(but understandably) not as popular as it used to be.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney's_Carousel_of_Pro...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney's_Carousel_of_Progress)

------
CCs
Cache:
[http://www.readability.com/articles/woerybqt](http://www.readability.com/articles/woerybqt)

(New York Times seems to be down)

~~~
ijk
(Because of the _other_ news item today):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6286374](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6286374)

------
michaelpinto
I loved this "Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well
as hear the person you telephone. The screen can be used not only to see the
people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading
passages from books. Synchronous satellites, hovering in space will make it
possible for you to direct-dial any spot on earth, including the weather
stations in Antarctica (shown in chill splendor as part of the '64 General
Motors exhibit)."

~~~
jacques_chester
He was right about Antarctica. In 1998 and 2001 my dad did winter missions
with the Australian Antarctic Division née ANARE.

Part of his job was keeping the satellite links functional. We got to talk to
him on the phone once a week.

On the numbers, he had more bandwidth than I did at the time -- 155kbps.
Latency was a bit rough though.

------
patdennis
>"Windows need be no more than an archaic touch, and even when present will be
polarized to block out the harsh sunlight. The degree of opacity of the glass
may even be made to alter automatically in accordance with the intensity of
the light falling upon it."

This actually makes me curious. Why don't we have photochromic windows? We use
the technology in transition lenses.

~~~
jlgreco
I think the technology is just too expensive unless you want to show off:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_glass](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_glass)

------
transfire
What I don't think Mr. Asimov could have imagined is the rise of the
Oligarchs, dominated primarily by the heads of the banking industry, though
also by the petrochemical and a few other top-tier industries. These
individuals have increasingly distorted the free-market system and corrupted
the political systems to satisfy their own narrow ends. They are financial
protectionists. And because of them a great deal of innovation that could have
been has been stymied. I would argue that if it were not for their depressing
effects on society, Mr. Asimov's predictions would now look rather
underwhelming by comparison, as we would have achieved far more than he
predicted. Alas, given our current state of affairs, I do not think it
possible for society to advanced very far beyond were it currently stands. And
in a matter of decades we are likely to start moving backwards rather then
forwards. On that mark, with his concerns on population growth, I believe Mr.
Asimov hit it squarely on the head.

------
b0rsuk
Why are moving sidewalks so incredibly popular in old SF novels ?!?! The
concept is silly. The constant energy use is a showstopper, and even if you
assume thorium reactors would handle it, there's material fatigue.

Another early SF prediction which which is baffling today: everything (houses,
cars, highways) made of... plastic. Plastic being the material of the future.
But perhaps it's not as naive, seeing as early plastic was really durable,
some our plastic bowls are still in good shape after 20 years. LEGOs are very
durable, too.

Hovercars - ordinary 2D cars are one of most common causes of mortal accidents
today. Imagine the chaos with an extra dimension! Hoverbuses - perhaps, but
cars ???

But the one that really cracks me up is by Strugatsky brothers: carbonated
soured milk (Impossible according to one chemist).

~~~
skrause
The future from the 50s and 60s would also be pretty loud. With the recent
discussions about the annoyance of leaf blowers, image the noise of a city
where each car would have this:

 _" Jets of compressed air will also lift land vehicles off the highways,
which, among other things, will minimize paving problems"_

------
adamconroy
Very good Isaac. Except the robots are allowed to kill.

~~~
Roboprog
I'm sure the drone-bots' creators view it as a matter of preventing inaction
which allows humans to come to harm (and not considering the vic's as human,
alas)

------
polymathist
"...there will be increasing emphasis on transportation that makes the least
possible contact with the surface. There will be aircraft, of course, but even
ground travel will increasingly take to the air*a foot or two off the ground.
Visitors to the 1964 fair can travel there in an "aquafoil," which lifts
itself on four stilts and skims over the water with a minimum of friction.
This is surely a stop-gap. By 2014 the four stilts will have been replaced by
four jets of compressed air so that the vehicle will make no contact with
either liquid or solid surfaces."

Sounds a little bit like the hyperloop, no?

~~~
wtallis
The Hyperloop definitely comes to mind, but I think hovercraft are a well-
established realization of what he predicted there.

------
purplelobster
The most accurate prediction is to predict that most things will stay the
same.

------
coldtea
> _And experimental fusion-power plant or two will already exist in 2014.
> (Even today, a small but genuine fusion explosion is demonstrated at
> frequent intervals in the G.E. exhibit at the 1964 fair.)_

Anybody knows what happened to that G.E fusion thing he mentions?

~~~
eru
It was probably a Fusor
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor)).
You can put one on your desk at home, if you care.

------
btbuildem
Pff, Asimov. I don't understand why people hold him in such high esteem, his
imagination was flat and lacking.

Want to read some real futurology and prime-cut sci-fi? Check out Stanislaw
Lem. (eg. Peace on Earth -- it will blow your mind).

------
jonahx
I'd be curious to know if anyone has ever written one of these types of
predictions, at any period in history predicting another period 50+ years out,
and not had a large percentage of big misses.

~~~
dobbsbob
George Orwell, William Gibson, Star Trek writers.

~~~
yk
Gibson, like everybody else, had completely missed cell phones.

------
emerod
<i>All high school students will be taught the fundamentals of computer
technology, will become proficient in binary arithmetic and will be trained to
perfection in the use of the computer languages that will have developed out
of those like the contemporary "Fortran" (from "formula translation").</i>

We're still working on this one.

------
anigbrowl
_Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in
existence._

They're good but not common.

~~~
area51org
There are uncommon sort-of-good ones (by Asimov standards), but the semi-
common ones are abysmal. Ever own a Roomba? I never will again.

~~~
anigbrowl
I was thinking of semi-humanoid industrial robots, like this (prototype) model
from ABB:
[http://www.abb.com/cawp/abbzh254/fcfbdad9a72cfe08c1257862006...](http://www.abb.com/cawp/abbzh254/fcfbdad9a72cfe08c1257862006bcfbf.aspx)

------
barbs
At the risk of sounding pedantic, should the title for this HN submission have
(1964) at the end of it?

------
jloughry
Best: the subtle mis-prediction that there would be a 2014 World's Fair.

I think we have the Web today instead.

~~~
hexis
I think he was only off by a year -
[http://www.milanworldsfair.com/](http://www.milanworldsfair.com/)

------
squozzer
Not bad, but had to laugh at his statement, "All earth will be a single choked
Manhattan by A.D. 2450 and society will collapse long before that!"

Uh, a collapsed society could not support a growing population, Dr. A.

------
dredmorbius
Let's judge...

The piece is less optimistic and cornucopian than I'd expected. The first part
is pretty light, but it turns a shade dark, especially for. The prediction
record includes a few failures but surprisingly more hits than I expected.

 _men will continue to withdraw from nature_ Yes and no. Our environments are
more artificial, but we're not living in hermetically sealed enclosures.

 _Electroluminescent panels .... Ceilings and walls will glow softly._ It's
simply vastly less expensive and more flexible to have light fixtures than to
change out your entire interior room skin when you want to change your
lighting scheme. Though what's becoming possible with LED lighting is fairly
distinctive. Most lamps are designe around traditional bulbs though.

 _Windows ... no more than an archaic touch._ Asimov highly underestimates the
desire of people to see the outdoors. We _do_ have glasses with extensive
coatings, though most are aimed at UV and thermal radiation. Again, the low-
tech approach of blinds or curtains allows for more styling at lower cost than
electronically dimmable windows, though these exist (for a price). Asimov
fails to forsee photovoltaic cells integrated into window designs, another
technology starting to emerge today. His future is apparently energy-abundant.

 _Suburban houses underground_ Again: costs, tradition, and views make this a
very rare exception, though some high-efficiency homes are built partially
below grade.

 _Gadgetry_ It turns out that the easiest way to automate meal preparation ...
is to centralize the gadgetry at a food-preparation facility. We have TV
dinners (which existed in 1964), as well as take-out and other options for
food. Though microwaves can be convenient. I wonder how Asimov would have
responded to the craze for restaurant-style kitchens in private homes.

 _Robots_ They're rather less common or good than Asimov supposed. As with
cooking gadgets, it turns out that it's difficult to design something that can
navigate a home (including stairs and uneven surfaces), perform tasks,
usefully, and not cost a bundle. Especially when competing with low-cost maid
services.

 _No electric cords_ Well, that was optimistic. Though the variety of cordless
power tools now available is fairly impressive. I'm afraid, though, that my
home is rather infested with current-feeding snakes of various descriptions.

 _Fusion power plants._ The power plant of the future. And it always will be.
_Solar power_ Here I'd say we're exceeding Asimov slightly: we've got large
plants, though not as many as I'd like to see, and distributed solar in the
form of panels on houses and other extant structures is pretty commonplace,
even in less favorable locations such as Germany. _models of power stations in
space_ alas, are all I suspect we'll ever see. Perhaps several hundred years
out.

 _The world of 50 years hence will have shrunk further._ We certainly do have
a great deal _more_ transportation, though our basic modes haven't changed,
nor have top travel speeds, from what was available in Asimov's day. The
biggest change is the proliferation of high-speed rail systems. Slower than
jet aviation of 1964, but more prevalent, at least along covered routes. Which
exclude the United States. The first such line had already been in operation
for a decade, however, in 1964: Japan's Tōkaidō Line.

Hovercraft: other than military applications, not used to any significant
extent. Hoverspeed, operator of the English Channel hovercraft ferries,
converted fully to catamaran operations in 2000. Along with land hovercraft,
the energy required for lift is excessive, directional control a challenge,
and the overall effort not worthwhile.

 _vehicles with "Robot-brains"_ In extensive field trials. I'd say we're
actually roughly where Asimov predicted we'd be in this regard, not bad.

 _moving sidewalks_ Expensive and prone to breakdowns when used outdoors, but
heavily relied on in airports and some other regions of high pedestrian
traffic. Though without the benches he supposes. As with other predictions,
Asimov goes for flair over practicality: it's vastly more convenient to put
benches on a wheeled (or tracked) vehicle than it is to move an entire
roadbed. Trolley cars are effectively providing the service he describes, and
had been for nearly 100 years when he wrote his piece.

 _Communications_ Yes, we've got A/V communications, but more comms has
actually moved to text for a simple reason: it's asynchronous. And easily
storeable and searchable. Asimov is also spot-on for satellites, though that's
a fundamental technology whose basic concept is largely unchanged from Arthur
C. Clarke's first proposals. Direct-dialing weather stations in remote
locations _is_ in fact something I've enjoyed, though generally via a Web
browser.

 _Moon colonies_ Nope. That gravity toll is a real bitch, Ike.

 _laser beams_ Spot on here: communications are carried increasingly by light,
not radio waves, though in fibers, not beamed through space or the air.
Astronomical telemetry remains radio-based.

 _television wall screens_ Also spot on. Pity he didn't call for 3D to be a
brief overhyped fad, or I'd have been truly impressed.

 _Population_ Well, he only fell short by half a billion, though his US
estimate is high (actual is 313 million).

 _increasing penetration of desert and polar areas_ Somewhat, though mostly
people are crowding into existing cities. Though the growth of cities such as
Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Las Vegas counts as desert growth to me.

 _Underwater housing_ Yes. But not in the way he'd intended. Our continental
shelves are still largely habitation-free, unless one has redefined New
Orleans and certain boroughs of New York City as belonging to the shelf....
And other than the Costa Concordia, _bathyscaphe liners_ are few and far
between.

 _Processed yeast and algae_ Vegemite and nori flakes aside, not so much. And
I really don't see the cultured burger going very far.

 _Not all the world 's population will enjoy the gadgety world_ Correct. That
part of the population will make the gadgets.

 _They will have moved backward, relatively._ That's rather stunningly
prescient. Calls to mind the 99%.

 _Nor can technology continue to match population growth_ Part of the
Zeitgeist. The first rumblings of limits were starting to echo about in the
1960s, though the Club of Rome's _Limits to Growth_ wasn't published until
1972.

 _Undoubtedly, the world of A.D. 2014 will have agreed on the [lowering the
birth rate]._ Sadly, not.

 _lifted the life expectancy in some parts of the world to age 85._ Yes. Japan
most notably.

 _birth control by rational and humane methods_ It exists. Birth control pills
were already available by the late 1950s, though formal approval didn't arrive
until 1960. And of course, the Catholic Church, GOP, and Tea Party are
entirely on board. Sigh.

 _automation_ Yes and no. Great strides in manufacturing (really, we've got to
come up with a better word than "hand made" to describe, well, other than hand
made stuff), though there's still a great deal of manual processes. In other
areas, humans are cheaper, more reliable, more adaptable to harsh or adverse
conditions, and more easily instructed, than robots. Though automation and
labor costs and rates are presenting challenges. _Machine tenders_ isn't a bad
description for many of us, and Asimov's comments on teaching and the place of
fundamentals of tech are pretty accurate.

And his comments on boredom may also be more accurate than many hear accept.
We're seeing the world from a perspective of another 50 years of technological
progress and divorce from direct physical labor -- labor which while it can be
wearying, is also engaging. And there are certainly a wide range of
psychological issues, particularly depression, present in our 2014.

~~~
lambda
> Robots They're rather less common or good than Asimov supposed. As with
> cooking gadgets, it turns out that it's difficult to design something that
> can navigate a home (including stairs and uneven surfaces), perform tasks,
> usefully, and not cost a bundle. Especially when competing with low-cost
> maid services.

He did say they'd be uncommon and not very good. What he didn't forsee is that
they would not be humanoid robots.

Roombas are available, and can help clean your house. They aren't all that
common, and aren't all that "good" by his metric of what a robot should be
able to do, but they do exist, and people really do use them.

Furthermore, UAVs are increasingly common in the military. While some of them,
like Predator drones, are remote controlled, some of them can operate fully
autonomously for the vast majority of their flight.

And of course, industrial robots are so ubiquitous that they've faded into the
background long ago.

So I would say that "uncommon and not very good" (according to his vision of
humanoid robots that can replace most manual human tasks) is a fair
assessment. He just figured that they would be clumsy humanoid robots, as
opposed to more specialized robots that were fairly good at an individual task
but can't do anything else.

~~~
dredmorbius
Calling a Roomba a robot ... is somewhat on par with calling a blade of grass
a tree. A Roomba randomly careers across a floor probabalistically providing
sufficient coverage to fully vacuum or mop it.

Yes, we've got more intelligent robots, but they're a tad more expensive.
Industrial manufacturing robots exist, but the reprogramming costs exceed the
manufacture cost of the robots themselves. They make sense in very high-value,
generally high-volume production. They're _not_ particularly adaptive, though
they _can_ switch between different modes (programs) fairly well.

Flying through empty space is a reasonably simple problem. We've had ICBMs for
ages. Navigating through complex terrain (ground-based robots, autonomous
vehicles) is a markedly more complex domain space.

Most robots we've got at present are very, very highly specialized. Or
incredibly stupid, though good enough for the task at hand.

------
jimgardener
why do I keep getting a 'server not found' error ? you guys seem to be able to
access this url.. however I had to google this heading and read the article @
[http://www.mydogear.com/articles/521d762aa97dca07b21805ea](http://www.mydogear.com/articles/521d762aa97dca07b21805ea)

------
asr2bd
I wish he was right about the education part

------
chris_wot
So it looks like NYTimes is down.

------
bart42_0
It would be fun to write a 'Visit to the World's Fair of 2064'

------
danielq
This was amazingly accurate!

------
codezero
Couldn't wait for 2014 to post this, huh? :P

------
traughber
We still have four months left!

------
lowglow
Just read Diamond Age.

------
a3voices
This is a good description of how much we've failed as a society. Since we
haven't accomplished most of those things.

------
osetinsky
Did he predict that the Syrian Electronic Army would take down the nytimes?

------
milesf
Where's my flying car?!? I was promised a flying car and I want it right now!

~~~
gaius
Unless you are over 60, you weren't. You were promised an oppressive cyberpunk
dystopia - and here it is #nsa

------
craftshape
\- What will the World's Fair of 2014 be like?

\- At the New York World's Fair of 2014, General Motors' "Futurama" may well
display vistas of underground cities complete with light- forced vegetable
gardens.

\- In fact, one popular exhibit at the 2014 World's Fair will be such a 3-D
TV, built life-size, in which ballet performances will be seen.

\- The 2014 World's Fair will have exhibits showing cities in the deep sea
with bathyscaphe liners carrying men and supplies across and into the abyss.

\- One of the more serious exhibits at the 2014 World's Fair, accordingly,
will be a series of lectures, movies and documentary material at the World
Population Control Center (adults only; special showings for teen-agers).

Summary from [http://textteaser.com](http://textteaser.com)

