
What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008? (Nov, 1968) - nreece
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/03/24/what-will-life-be-like-in-the-year-2008/
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pg
Basically, we got the things that depend on electronics (web, cell phones) and
not the ones that depend on other technology (flying cars, domed cities,
artificial organs).

I notice there's another way to partition that set: we got the things that
don't require too much government involvement.

We got the cheap meat-like food, but from an innovation less benevolent than
algae farms: factory-farmed meat.

Come to think of it, there turned out to be a similar workaround for the domed
city problem: everyone just moved where the weather was good.

What's weirdest about this for me is that 1968 was the year we came to
America. I remember 1968. It's kind of crazy to think there were a lot of
people walking around then thinking we'd be travelling around in flying cars.

~~~
dfranke
I'm still holding out hope for autonomous cars within a decade. Technology-
wise we're pretty much there. The hard part will be convincing the public and
government regulators to accept them.

~~~
icky
A coworker of mine who's been in the GIS industry for about as long as said
industry has existed gave that very same assessment. The real obstacles at
this point are social: people will freak out at the thought of robot trucks
driving on the same highways as they do (or stealing their trucking jobs).

I give the example of trucks on highways because that would probably come
first, as it's simpler to safely implement than passenger vehicles or city
driving.

~~~
jimbokun
"(or stealing their trucking jobs)"

This was covered in a Simpsons episode. Turns out that all the trucks already
drive themselves, but the truckers' union has prevented that information
getting out to the general public.

(Couldn't find it on youtube.)

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martythemaniak
Sure it's funny, but just wait until the people of 2045 dig up Ray Kurzweil's
"Singularity is Near". Fourty years ago some people thought we'd have
automated cars, undersea resorts and climatized, domed cities. Today some
people think 40 years from now we'll be immortal, omniscient, omnipotent gods
that rule the universe...

~~~
phaedrus
One of my CS professors is heavy into Kurzweil. He had me read "The
Singularity is Near". I decided Kurzweil's arguments are the rhetorical
equivalent of those algebra jokes where you "prove" 1=2 but it goes through a
step that hides a divide by zero. Similarly, "The Singularity is Near" uses
steps that seem logical to come to a ridiculous conclusion.

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lg
I think the four-hour workday is an interesting idea. I'm still in school but
I worked at a real estate development office for a summer, and most of those
jobs could've been done in four hours a day if people didn't get away with
being so lazy. I bet a lot of companies could reduce the workday to four
hours, and if they're quicker to fire people for not making deadlines and
such, they'd get exactly the same productivity out of them as they do now
(plus, lots of people would probably want to work there).

~~~
ardit33
If we all had a 4hr job day, then people will be getting 2 jobs. In a consumer
markets, where how much you pay for housing determines the schooling of your
kids, or the "want" for plasma tvs, nicer cars, more shiny things will make
people work as much as they can.

The only way to enforce a 4 hrs work day will be thru law (goverment mandate
not to work more than 4hrs a day, ala EU's 37.5 normal workweek),

Or, if something like that star trek machine that can create everything (you
press a button, and food just comes out from it, or any electronics/material
need you need). Then people will be working only to teach, design new things,
entertain, as material needs will be superflous.

~~~
icky
> Then people will be working only to teach, design new things, entertain, as
> material needs will be superflous.

It's frightening to consider that IP laws would probably outlive natural
scarcity...

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edw519
Hey, we still have 8 months to go. Maybe it'll all be true by then.

~~~
icky
They were obviously predicting the state of the art at the end of President
Gore's 2008. ;-)

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parker
"TV-telephone shopping is common. To shop, you simply press the numbered code
of a giant shopping center. You press another combination to zero in on the
department and the merchandise in which you are interested."

\--> I find it fascinating that they just couldn't conceive of a massive
network of computers to do things like this... some things are so out to lunch
still, but things like direct deposit of funds into your bank account, I can't
believe that was so far fetched?

~~~
wallflower
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel>

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socratees
People overestimate things on a shorter term, and underestimate on a longer
term.

~~~
michaelneale
That quote (or variation) if often attributed to Bill Gates? is it? or is it
older wisdom of some sort.

~~~
socratees
Yes its a quote from gates' book "The Road Ahead". He uses it in may of his
interviews. :)

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gaborcselle
Makes me think that the things that are most likely to change are those where
entrepreneurs can most easily create products without needing to get around
government rules and regulations.

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tim2
"The single most important item in 2008 households is the computer."

A true visionary.

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aflag
Some people are so close to that futuristic 2008, yet most people in the world
are so far away. We really should figure out a way to fix all that.

~~~
rglullis
Why?

~~~
rms
Inequal distribution of resources

~~~
rglullis
Again: why?

 _Why_ should we strive for equality?

~~~
rms
For now, we can strive for a bare minimum of clean water, 2000 calories a day
of food energy, and governments that don't stifle economic advancement. We
have plenty of resources to do this now, but it isn't happening because once
wealth and capital get concentrated in individuals or groups of people it
tends to just make them more wealth.

And the answer to the _why_ is that I believe humans have a fundamental right
to life. I have no real justification; it just feels right to me.

~~~
rglullis
Funny thing is: people who live in countries with higher levels of equality
(think Japan, Finland) are the very same countries with high suicide rates.

Not saying that correlation implies causation, just to show that perhaps this
ideal equality is not so fundamental to our overall happiness.

Also, I'd like to know _how_ we can strive for clean water and food for 7
billion people (9 billion until 2050) _while_ keeping civil liberties to
people along the process.

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bayareaguy
Large areas of the sea being are indeed beds of "protein-rich" algae - fed by
nitrogen in industrial and agricultural waste.

[http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-
ocean30jul30,...](http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-
ocean30jul30,0,6670018,full.story)

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petercooper
Most predictions of the future tend to be exaggerated, because that's what
people like to read and dream about. That does mean, however, that most of
today's predictions about the future can also be taken with a pinch of salt,
which is a little depressing.

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dougm
"Heart disease has virtually been eliminated by drugs and diet."

Not really much excuse for the diet part of this one going so far wrong is
there.

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johnyzee
Sort of depressing - basically everything that rings true was possible in '68.
Hell, even the internet was almost ready in '68.

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icky
I love their faith in the National Centralized Single-Point-of-Failure Traffic
Computer. ;)

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phaedrus
I found it ironic that they pegged the population for today (around 350
million), amongst all the other things they got wrong, and then went on to say
that only domed cities could support such a large population!

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xirium
Colonisation of the ocean was considered enevitable in that era. It is also
covered in the 1970 book Future Shock by Alvin Toffler. However, so far, it
has been easier to improve utilisation of land.

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noonespecial
Ha! I saw "one click" shopping in there. Eat your heart out amazon.

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TrevorJ
I'm frikking depressed now.

