
“Toward the Year 2018”, a speculative book from 1968 - diodorus
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-1968-book-that-tried-to-predict-the-world-of-2018
======
chromaton
"Life X years in the future" has been a popular topic for books and other
media for some time now.

The predictors are usually quite wrong. However, in a few cases, they seem to
hit the nail right on the head (cell phones). What I'd like to do is reverse
engineer the insights or mindset the people who made accurate predictions so
that they could be emulated.

At the same time, I want to identify the prejudices or logic errors of the
people who are wrong (anti-gravity belts) to help avoid making the same
mistakes.

Does anyone have any insight as to why some predictions turn out right? Is it
just luck, or is there some greater principle that can help us find out what's
ahead?

~~~
WaxProlix
I think a lot of what people get wrong in these predictions is the _social_
element. Dad's telecommuting to work in the study and smoking Lucky Strikes
while Mom - aproned and barefoot - cooks in the kitchen, that sort of thing.

What this misses - aside from the basic incorrectness itself - is that shifts
in social perception and overall conscientiousness are major drivers of
innovation. So, look at the intersection of what's feasible (with improvements
in materials, design, miniaturization, understanding of the human body, etc)
and what's wanted (convenience in daily life, improvement of self-image, etc)
and you can get things like e-cigarettes, self-driving cars, boner pills, hair
loss treatment, yadda yadda.

~~~
Momquist
That's what I was thinking too.

When I think about failed predictions, the flying car almost immediately comes
to mind. You could see them regularly on 50s-60s pop-science and SF magazines
covers.

Back then there was the idea that flying machines would soon become affordable
on an individual level, and that most people would want to buy their own
helicopter or small plane. Quite a few SF novels assumed it was a definite
possibility, with the inevitable abandon of cities.

And it made a lot of sense at the time. I remember reading City by Clifford
Simak as a kid, which is based on this premise, and thinking that it would
soon come. The concept was very tempting.

~~~
smellf
Simak was a terrible predictor (if "prediction" is even what he was trying to
do, vs just writing science fantasy), but his "pastoral scifi" is such a treat
to read even today.

It's possible that he was predicting, and that those ideas were common at that
time - Clarke's Childhood's End came out just one year after City (1953) and
also features personal flying transport and lots of rural life (even though
cities still exist).

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timcederman
Interesting that the article lists global warming from carbon dioxide as one
"unnervingly close to the mark". The first public written record we have of
that possibility dates to 1912: [https://qz.com/817354/scientists-have-been-
forecasting-that-...](https://qz.com/817354/scientists-have-been-forecasting-
that-burning-fossil-fuels-will-cause-climate-change-as-early-as-1882/)

~~~
mandelbulb
The initial public record is not that relevant. More importantly, during the
50s scientists had already begun to agree global warming is a serious,
occurring issue.

Compared to other issues, however, like the depletion of the ozone layer later
on, measures against climate change have had to deal with the oil industry the
entire world is still relying on.

~~~
timcederman
My points being is if it comes 56 years after it's first publicly raised as an
issue, it's not particularly prescient.

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fumonko
Does anyone know of a recently written book that tries to predict the world
fifty years from now?

~~~
Top19
Copyright 2009

The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767923057/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_e-6u...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767923057/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_e-6uAbS0GVYB3)

~~~
bencollier49
"2020: China Fragments"?

~~~
varjag
He also predicted the new cold war with Russia, at the time where such
sentiments were dismissed as out of touch with reality.

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melling
In 1968 you looked back 50 years to 1918 and realized how much incredible
change took place.

Extrapolate out 50 years and the future probably looked close to the movie
2001: A Space Odyssey, released in 1968

Any chance we can get that future?

~~~
gpsx
I'd like to back this up and I am going to use a really bad example - the
movie "Back to the Future". When they went from the present back to 1955, the
world looked a little different. When the went back to 1885 in "Back to the
Future 3", it was a different world. People were running around in dirt
streets shooting each other.

Granted these dates are a little different. I would consider the 100 years
more from 1900 to 1950 to 2000. In the earlier half century the got the
widespread use to electricity, radio, TV, automobiles, airplanes, and in the
healthcare we got antibiotics and vaccines. I'm sure someone else could make a
much more impressive list than that. Someone from 1900 transported to 1950
would not recognize the world.

We didn't have nearly the same advances from 1950 to 2000. Cell phones and the
internet are huge, but that didn't come until the very tail end. Those areas
would look like science fiction. Other than that, when you place someone from
1950 in 2000, it just looks like everything got a little better.

Maybe starting with the computers and the internet we will start another big
change, particularly with artificial intelligence and automation. But for a
big part of those 50 years, a lot less happened than in the previous 50 years.

~~~
brabel
> We didn't have nearly the same advances from 1950 to 2000.

You couldn't be more wrong!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_change](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_change)
[https://www.yaabot.com/12800/how-far-are-we-from-the-
singula...](https://www.yaabot.com/12800/how-far-are-we-from-the-singularity/)

~~~
gpsx
I understand the singularity and I am not arguing against it. It is reasonable
to expect exponential development as a rule, but that doesn't mean development
happens smoothly. The intended point was about how foreign the world would
look to an average person transplanted 50 years in the future. The original
comment asserted the first half of the century had a more dramatic change than
the second half, and there is a good argument for this.

The links you provided are very good but they deal more with theory than
actual observations by a normal person.

There is one specific concrete example given in those articles - Moore's law.
This is a very good example of exponential development, but only to a point.
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but Moore's law was helped because its very
existence affected the result. To some extent industry even scheduled their
advances. If someone lied to Intel and said a competitor was getting much
better speeds, I bet you we would have seen some faster improvements.

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vulcanodon
Hey neat, I've had a copy of this book on my shelf for a few years now, but
I'd forgotten all about it. Very interesting to read about the background
behind the text. Maybe I should print out the article and store it with the
book for future readers.

~~~
shrimp_emoji
And this comment thread! You want your time capsule to be thorough, right? c:

Hey, nerds in 2068! Today, we think mobile devices, IoT creep, the cloud, and
machine learning are the future of computing while lamenting an erosion of
privacy and security; were we silly geese, or is that your guys' reality?
Also, have you contacted aliens or become digital consciousnesses yet?

Yours, someone who's hopefully still alive (as a digital consciousness aware
of how weird aliens are)

~~~
brabel
Nobody will understand what "IoT creep" and "cloud" mean (at least not the
meaning you imply) in 50 years :D

So, for their benefit: \- IoT creep - Internet of Things is a movement towards
adding tiny computers into all things (light switches, plant watering systems,
fridges, toasters ...) so they can communicate and be controlled from mobile
phones. \- Cloud - refers to cloud computing, which is just the way we call
when you put information or code to run on a company's server instead of on
your own computer.

~~~
varjag
We understand the general trends in tech that happened 50 years ago, I fail to
see why people in the future would be different.

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Zigurd
Once intentionally designed organisms become commonplace, the subsequent
future becomes hard to predict. What comes after human germline modification?

~~~
Retric
That's unlikely to be a fast change. We don't hand much power to 25 year olds
and we are unlikely to alter anything close to 100% of babies in year zero, or
even be making significant positive changes. So, it's really going to be a
very slow transition all things considered.

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lexhung
Cf hàng ltflt Tuy v E t có gì thì g vc ro,

ttl

tltltl vâu

