

What people in 1899 thought would happen to travel technology - justinY
http://www.tnooz.com/2012/09/04/news/what-people-in-1899-thought-would-happen-to-travel-technology-hint-we-failed-them/?fb_ref=wp

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Cogito
This keeps showing up on HN for some reason!

Some previous discussions and articles for those interested:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4316895>

[http://publicdomainreview.org/2012/06/30/france-in-the-
year-...](http://publicdomainreview.org/2012/06/30/france-in-the-
year-2000-1899-1910/)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2271197>

[http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2010/5/2/jean-marc-cotes-
vis...](http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2010/5/2/jean-marc-cotes-visions-of-
the-year-2000-1899.html)

[http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2007/9/10/french-prints-
show...](http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2007/9/10/french-prints-show-the-
year-2000-1910.html)

<http://acidcow.com/pics/17678-futur-imagined-23-pics.html>

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flexie
Funny how predictions on the future are often just extrapolation of recent
advances in technology.

~~~
cubancigar11
Directly quoting from Orientalism (E. Said) since he said it best:

"The French philosopher Gaston Bachelard once wrote an analysis of what he
called the poetics of space. The inside of a house, he said, acquires a sense
of intimacy, secrecy, security, real or imagined, because of the experiences
that come to seem appropriate for it. The objective space of a house—its
corners, corridors, cellar, rooms—is far less important than what poetically
it is endowed with, which is usually a quality with an imaginative or
figurative value we can name and feel: thus a house may be haunted, or
homelike, or prisonlike, or magical. So space acquires emotional and even
rational sense by a kind of poetic process, whereby the vacant or anonymous
reaches of distance are converted into meaning for us here. The same process
occurs when we deal with time.

Much of what we associate with or even know about such periods as "long ago"
or "the beginning" or "at the end of time" is poetic — made up. For a
historian of Middle Kingdom Egypt, "long ago" will have a very clear sort of
meaning, but even this meaning does not totally dissipate the imaginative,
quasi-fictional quality one senses lurking in a time very different and
distant from our own. For there is no doubt that imaginative geography and
history help the mind to intensify its own sense of itself by dramatizing the
distance and difference between what is close to it and what is far away."

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daviddisco
I was surprised to see such accurate depictions of airplanes. This was four
years before the Wright brothers made their first flight.

~~~
kristopolous
That's because those are from 1910:
[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_XXI_Century...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_XXI_Century._Flying_police.jpg)

while ones from 1899, not so accurate:
[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_XXI_Century...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:France_in_XXI_Century._Air_postman.jpg)

The 1899 depictions are due to earlier models from people like
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_P%C3%A9naud> and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cl%C3%A9ment_Ader>

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holdenc
I like the strapped-on-whale powered submarine. Any ambitious valley
billionaires ready to fund trips through the ocean on whale powered
submarines? Just make sure to collect the money before they get on the
submarine.

~~~
nsns
Shouldn't we use technology to _stop_ exploiting animals?

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ekianjo
Well, hotels on the room... we kind of have that with sleeper trains and bar
services in wagons. Not too far :)

And playing sports underwater: already exists.

Net: we did not fail at everything.

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MojoJolo
I'm really wondering if technology just happens because there's a need, or
just because it was based / inspired on art, movies, etc.

~~~
potatolicious
A bit of both I'd expect. Art is inspired by need, while technology is
informed by art.

See for example cell phones - wireless communication was the need, popularized
in many sci-fi shows in more specific, imaginative forms, and later informed
the actual product (flip phones/Star Trek communicators).

~~~
MojoJolo
I'm also inclined to that answer.

But a quick thought though. Isn't art is inspired by imagination? Which is if
"art is inspired by need", it maybe be just a need based from imagination.
Maybe not a really a need.

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isuttle
Pretty awesome to see croquet being played on the ocean floor. Why not?

