
How the Space Age Imagined 2014: Asimov's Predictions, Revisited - idleworx
http://theappendix.net/posts/2014/7/isaac-asimovs-predictions-of-life-in-2014-revisited
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peter303
Disney's evolution of Tomorrowland/EPCOT reflect the three phases of futurism
since Asimov's essay. In the early 20th century the future was about more
fantastic machines- rockets, super-cars, better home appliance. The
Tomorrowland Rocket to Mars ride embodied this. But young people became
disenchanted with the pollution and militarism of hard engineering in the
1960s and turned their attention to the biological sciences on Earth Day 1970.
The future was about ecology, sustainable living, commune type socialization,
etc. The EPCOT dome ride embodied this vision of the future. Then came
personal computers, video games, special effects movies, the internet and
mobile. The future shifted to an information rich world. Now younsee lots of
computer screen exhibits in Tomorrowland.

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antjanus
I've always wanted to put my finger on how futurism evolved. This summarizes
it pretty well.

I wonder what the next shift will be?

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toyg
The generation that witnessed the birth of the internet clearly put techno-
utopia back on the map: private space flights, talk of getting to Moon again
and Mars... The info-dense views parent suggests have come and gone
(cyberpunk), in part because we got there faster than expected.

Our children will actually have to deal with the problems we're creating today
(copyright maximalism, the failure of representative democracy, legislation
scaling to worldwide dimensions etc) so I guess their futuristic visions will
be again focused on how to get along on this little planet.

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jacquesm
One of the best inspirations you can get for what you could build to score a
home-run is to read science fiction. The older the better in a way, because
those ideas may be _just_ viable today. In general reading is a great source
of inspiration but SF has a special place in that it is forward looking by
definition and has/had some pretty creative people doing all the groundwork.

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M2Ys4U
Indeed. To aptly quote Asimov: "Individual science fiction stories may seem as
trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today, but the core
of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation, if we
are to be saved at all."

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romanhn
Prior discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6287340](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6287340)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6995644](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6995644)

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xiaoma
Just under the article title, there's a link called "past" that shows previous
discussions.

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romanhn
Neat! Although this seems to be URL-based, linking to mostly empty threads,
unlike the discussions I referenced.

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smegel
I _wish_ Art Deco was still a thing.

