

The greatest technological leap you’d have to explain to someone from the 1950s - tobiasbischoff
http://nonchalantrepreneur.com/post/39896022627/what-would-the-greatest-technological-leap-youd-have
What would the greatest technological leap you’d have to explain to someone who time traveled from the 1950’s?<p>I possess a device in my pocket that is capable of accessing the entirety of information known to man.
I use it to look at pictures of cats and get in arguments with strangers.<p>via http://bit.ly/VCSgjM
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js2
_I possess a device in my pocket that is capable of accessing the entirety of
information known to man._

This is probably pedantic, but: I've been doing ancestry research lately and
while it's extraordinary how much has been digitized and transcribed, there
still clearly a lot of information known to man that remains outside the
digital sphere, and sadly is often never written down in the first place.

~~~
meej
I don't think it's pedantic. Libraries are full of things that have yet to be
digitized, and much of the digitized content they do provide access to
requires a subscription and may not be indexed by search engines. I don't
think most people realize how much information out there is not accessible
online, so it's worthwhile to point out.

~~~
ChuckMcM
You'd be surprised at just how many libraries have been digitized by Google.
But it remains unable to make that information accessible.

Turns out that archivists, are quite willing to take advantage of offers to
insure the collection they are responsible for is not lost. Of course finding
a way to make that information available has been vexing the company for a
while.

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sethist
I like how this is filtered through a variety of different sites. Why link to
the original Reddit comment when you can link to a Tumblr post of a tweet of a
Twitpic of a Alien Blue screenshot of the original Reddit comment?

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jonathanjaeger
Not sure if this thread was thought up after seeing the Quora email digest,
but..

[http://www.quora.com/Prisons/What-is-it-like-to-be-
exposed-t...](http://www.quora.com/Prisons/What-is-it-like-to-be-exposed-to-
new-technology-after-a-20+-year-prison-sentence)

~~~
tobiasbischoff
amazing.

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Zenst
1950's SC-FI would give an insight into the technology mindset of the time and
what they expected in the future then. Or could ask any number of the 62 year
olds today online. But if you suddenly transported a person from the 1950's
into today then technology would be the least of the area's of todays society
for them to get there heads around. Object size and small computers would be
one and one which would they would appreciete would be the size of radio's and
general media quality as back then there was still in the valve days with a
populas at not aware of any changes on that front. This along with general
building of anything and the big is best mentality being the fashion of the
day.

I also think that it is supprising what technology they would expect and what
we actualy have today at consumer level. They would be expecting robot
servants and a automated house.

Youtube has a 1957 house of the future video that is worth a watch if you want
a better answear of the times <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VowfYuhx1-o>

a google picture or article search on "1950s home of the future" brings up
much more of the period articles of the time.

I think the first thing somebody in the situation of comming from 1950 into
today suddenly would ask is "so are the cars not flying", why do the houses
look smaller and not much different and in many area's will be asking is that
it, oh.

So sadly as a whole the vision from the 1950's is still in many area's the
vision today.

Probaly the only area which has lived upto expectations would be car
production assembly lines with robots, they did love there robots of the
future in those days and we still do aspire and love them today.

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r00fus
I'm pretty sure a good number would be underwhelmed - after all, most sci-fi
in that era had us colonizing the moon and Mars by now.

The lack of the proverbial "year 2000 flying car" aside, most would probably
be amazed by the interconnectedness of everything - ability to google common
questions and get directions to almost anywhere on the planet would be quite
amazing.

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kevin_morrill
I actually liked one of the other ideas in the Reddit comment thread more.
Photo realistic CG effects in movies might be more surprising and mind
boggling to see all of a sudden.

I think people would be impressed, but not necessarily surprised that a future
society had invented smartphones.

~~~
dalke
Smartphones? That's like a cross between a Dick Tracy wrist radio (1946) and
Vannevar Bush's Memex (1945), right? ;)

Some years back I went to a 2001 retrospective. The filming, which took place
in 1966, attempted to predict what life would be in 2001: space craft, moon
colony, orbital hotel, a computer that was unremarkable when it beat an
average human at chess, real AI, computers which could recognize emotions and
read lips, flat screen video, suspended animation, and so on.

Most of those we still don't have.

The presenter also commented about some of the things they missed. The only
one I recall now is that in the film it was one screen, one (simple) display.
There were no information dense displays, with overlays or multiple virtual
windows on the same screen.

