
What people in 1900 thought the year 2000 would look like - dhilbarroshan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/04/what-people-in-1900-thought-the-year-2000-would-look-like/
======
Houshalter
This is relevant:

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/j1/stranger_than_history/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/j1/stranger_than_history/)

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/j6/why_is_the_future_so_absurd/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/j6/why_is_the_future_so_absurd/)

>When people look at historical changes and think "I could have predicted X"
or "You could have predicted X if you looked at factors 1, 2, and 3"; then
they forget that people did not, in fact, predict X, perhaps because they were
distracted by factors 4 through 117. People read history books, see coherent
narratives, and think that's how Time works. Underestimating the surprise of
the present, they overestimate the predictability of the future.

>People seem to imagine futures that are minimally counterintuitive, with one
or two interesting changes to make a good story...

...

>Suppose I told you that I knew for a fact that the following statements were
true:

>If you paint yourself a certain exact color between blue and green, it will
reverse the force of gravity on you and cause you to fall upward.

>In the future, the sky will be filled by billions of floating black spheres.
Each sphere will be larger than all the zeppelins that have ever existed put
together. If you offer a sphere money, it will lower a male prostitute out of
the sky on a bungee cord.

>Your grandchildren will think it is not just foolish, but evil, to put
thieves in jail instead of spanking them.

------
jbuzbee
It's a bit of a stretch to call these predictions of the year 2000 from 1900.
In reality, these were likely just a fun way to put cartoons on cigar boxes in
order to get people to buy the next in the set. I don't think 1900's Parisians
really believed in a future of whale-powered busses and people riding super-
sized sea-horses.

~~~
cLeEOGPw
Yep, seems more like pure fiction without even much effort put into it, just
that some things turned out semi-true.

------
ender7
I find the first set of pictures the most interesting, because they all
display various forms of what we would think of as _automation_ \-- machines
to do house cleaning, farming, barbering, grooming -- but none of them
actually automate anything. The floors do not clean themselves, nor do the
tractors navigate their own course. All of the machines are still controlled
by levers and pedals. The barber is still required to cut hair, although his
efforts seem magnified. The housewife still must carefully control the
cleaning machine, perhaps saving some elbow grease but not very much in the
way of leisure time.

A century ago, we thought that machines were going to be multipliers of the
effectiveness of human effort. Now, it seems clear that they will inevitably
replace it.

~~~
eloisant
Actually floor do clean themselves with a Roomba, and while they aren't
ubiquitous yet driverless tractors do exist.

Also washing machines are pretty much automatic. The human intervention is now
limited to "put clothes inside and push a button" which does bring a lot of
free time in exchange, compared to the time where housewives had to do all the
laundry manually.

~~~
ejolto
I think you misunderstood ender7's comment. The robots in the _drawings_ of
the article don't work automatically, while the robots of today cerntainly do.

------
MrJagil
An example of "you don't know what you don't know". I.e. the digital
revolution was impossible to predict, as it was impossible to imagine;
"digital" is not an apparent extension of anything familiar to an inhabitant
of 1900.

That said, I've seen versions of this article many times before, and it has
always felt a bit like blog-spam, since they all just link to the source
images and add (un)funny captions.

~~~
ctdonath
They may not get the details right (being impossible to predict as noted) but
they do tend to get the generalities right (like instant worldwide visual
personal communications, cheap fast travel, instant long-shelf-life foods).

Underdiscussed is how many predictions are entirely possible (like hotels on
the moon, total eradication of vermin) but we don't because we're not
interested after all or see untenable consequences (space travel is boring for
the cost, disruption food chain is devastating).

------
WalterBright
I still find it amazing that we went from first flight 1903 and 65 years later
landed on the moon.

My great aunt remembered the first motorcar to arrive at her village, and
lived to fly across the Atlantic in a jetliner.

~~~
ambicapter
I always find that comparison disingenuous as flight has nothing to do with
rocketry. I think it might be less exciting but more instructive to talk about
time between first submarines (keeping humans alive in a hostile environment)
to spacecraft.

~~~
WalterBright
Rocketry grew out of the aviation industry, not the submarine industry.

~~~
derefr
The principles of rocketry were powering fireworks and guns a long time before
they were powering flight. :)

------
dimtion
It is interesting to see how back then people were watching the future as a
continuity of their time.

That is why I am very septic about predictions of the future, even if some
become true alone, it is quite impossible to grasp how a future society might
look as a whole.

~~~
akjetma
This is tangential, but...

We had a futurist from Intel visit our small startup about two years ago for a
future planning/predicting exercise. I think we were not the correct audience
for these exercises though, due to the small size of our company.

What I learned from the exercise was that companies as large and influential
as Intel don't have to follow market trends or predict "how things will be"
because they are not subjects of some natural market--they _define_ the
market.

It seemed crazy to me to have exercises planning 20+ years into the future,
but Intel necessarily has to do this due to the size of the ship they're
piloting.

~~~
caseysoftware
That's a really good point. I think of earlier incarnations of Microsoft the
same way.

Bill Gates' stated Vision decades ago was "a computer on every desktop" and he
helped (led?) us there to the point where we now take it for granted. The
sheer audaciousness of the original Vision is amazing considering the cost,
size, etc of what computers were then. Whatever the (often valid) criticism is
today, they helped define and expand our industry in a way that shouldn't be
overlooked.

Not many companies _hope_ to do that, let alone accomplish it.

~~~
onewaystreet
But on the other hand Bill Gates and Microsoft were blindsided by the
Internet.

~~~
jandrese
Bill Gates wrote a book in 1995 entitled "The Road Ahead" that barely
mentioned the Internet and especially the World Wide Web. Microsoft was
definitely behind the ball on the Internet revolution.

~~~
agumonkey
And weirdly they tried to swing back forcefully because not long after the web
started to become a thing, Gates touted .Net everywhere, even though it was
long before .Net actually shipped. IIRC, longhorn, even Xp was supposed to be
fully based on networked object components, like Java RMI.

And.. win95 plus (or was it 98?) had an html/javascript based active desktop
that is conceptually similar to current web paradigms and UX.

The world DNA evolves weirdly.

~~~
chewxy
Yes! ActiveDesktop! I used to have my tripod based homepage on my
ActiveDesktop and I would watch the hit counter everyday (heh, vanity
metrics).

Also, Microsoft tried to train everyone about the concept of hyperlinks -
Explorer in Win98 used to open files with a single click (and it was
highlighted and underlines like hyperlinks too). Too bad the concept didn't
catch on.

And in the book The Road Ahead, I recall Bill Gates describing something like
Google Docs/Office Online too.

Shame that in their clinginess to IP made them unpopular.

------
lordnacho
My 2 cents:

\- Tech predictions tend to be incremental. Back then things were made of
levers and pulleys, so all the tech predictions are solutions to problems
using this particular hammer. In our time, it's an app. Would anyone pre 1950
have predicted that just about everything is going to be turned into numbers?
Even our mechanical stuff like servos and combustion engines are controlled by
calculating machines. At the same time, you tend to think you're at a
fundamental level, wherever you are: who here doesn't think that information
science (algorithms, Shannon limits, calculability) are fundamental advances
that will continue to be relevant forever? Well, 100 years ago people also
thought they'd figured it out and that we were just about to finish physics.
Then quantum and relativity came about and turned everything over. (Heck, the
Romans thought they'd figured it out.)

\- A rather major revolution during the last 100 years is in materials. This
changes what just about everything is made of, what can be made, and what it
costs to make. Also strangely unappreciated.

\- Aesthetics are hard to predict. People in the pics are wearing similar
clothes and living in similar style houses to the illustrators. Ultimately
economics and social memes open up various kinds of aesthetics, but it's still
very hard to say what people will think is nice. Look at flat UI. We can have
skeumorphic, but for some reason we stopped that.

\- Similarly, moral opinions change. Our view of execution has changed.
Homophobia is now wrong. Premarital sex is easier to get. There's a whole load
of atheists out in the open. Seahorse racing is considered animal cruelty.

\- Economics has changed enormously. Both the theory and the demographics.
Keynes was years from writing the Consequences of the Peace. Friedman was not
born yet. Most people don't have servants. Automation did happen with washing
machines and dishwashers. Still waiting for a thing that folds and stacks
clothes.

------
joe_the_user
Interesting enough, novelist E.M. Forster anticipated the Internet as well as
other trends in his 1907 story "The Machine Stops"[1]. Note the Forster
describes _qualities_ of modern internet discussion with eerie precision as
well as predicting a world wide network with poor-quality video resolution.

[1]
[http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html](http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html)

------
comboy
Made me think about this talk by Neal Stephenson:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE0n_5qPmRM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE0n_5qPmRM)

~~~
tectonic
Thanks for the link, great talk!

------
imakesnowflakes
What I find really curious is that how, at every decade, we were living in
"modern" times. We were living in "modern times" in 1950's, in the 1970's, in
the 90's and now in 2015. It means that we are living in "recent times" with
"recent discoveries", but does it mean anything?

Other thing I have found curious is when people ask things like, "Ghosts? Do
you believe ghosts in 2015?", no really, what do we know about ghosts not
existing, in 2015 that we don't know in 1900? It is as if people assume that,
since we have been searching for things like this for 100s of years, and we
haven't found them, they should not exist at all. People seem to assume that
we are standing in a room where we can see the bounding walls, when in reality
we are standing in a mist with very limited visibility and we have no idea
where the walls are...

Periods like 'a year' is just an arbitrary time span. It which is big from
human perspective. A 100 year span is big in terms of human existence. It
might be a blink of an eye for another being which experience time
differently. So I think It is a fallacy to attribute such time periods some
kind of absolute size, and make assumptions on that basis..

~~~
thoman23
Are you feeling okay? Did you just get back from Colorado or something?

~~~
imakesnowflakes
He he..I am fine. Thanks for asking. I am from India. That is another thing I
have found curious. Somehow, in online discussions, people always assume that
you are from US.

And my comment does not mean that I believe ghosts exists, if that is what you
meant by the Colorado thing....

~~~
claviola
Weed. The answer is weed.

~~~
MrZongle2
Don't discount hypoxia!

------
spydum
somewhat offtopic.. back to the future: part II marty travels to October 21,
2015. It's pretty hilarious to see the scenery they depict:

    
    
      * hoverboards
      * flying cars 
      * flying advertisements
      * hologram advertisements
      * autolacing shoes
      * autofitting/drying jackets
      * robot bartenders
    

You know, for a 30 year guess (produced in 1985), they weren't far off.. we
have

    
    
      * Robot cars
      * all sorts of automated beverage stations
      * VR making a comeback (just wait for FB to sell some VR ads)
    

I'm sure the other stuff is just around the corner :)

~~~
mkehrt
You missed the one they got really right, because it looks so natural: flat-
screen tv.

~~~
tauchunfall
I find it interesting, that instead of on-demand-TV they solved the problem of
missing TV-shows by showing multiple shows on one screen.

Actually my family had cable TV and a Grundig television in the early nineties
with such a function.

------
Mz
I think they are being too harsh about the "cavorting with marine animals"
comments. We actually do have scuba gear these days and we do a lot of things
underwater that would have been fantastical at that time. We do have
submarines, diving gear, deep sea diving equipment, etc.

------
reitanqild
Just want to mention Jules Verne.

Some of the stuff[0] he wrote felt scaringly accurate even though the exact
implementations differed quite a bit.

[0] :"Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" from 1870 was one of my childhood
favourites.

------
ansible
So this is interesting to me because of the concept of futurism in general.

People in 1900 were thinking about the future, and what it would be like. They
were seeing significant technological progress on that timescale, and
wondering what would happen next.

In contrast, I would guess that most people living in 1800 wouldn't imagine
the world of 1900 much different from their own, though we also saw dramatic
changes in that time with the industrial revolution in full swing.

So futurism itself is a relatively new thing.

------
ommunist
This illustration style can often be seen in British pubs. These are not
really visionary works, this is art deco to bring more fun and cheers when you
are having your pint. I am sure Washington Post author stripped out all sexual
jokes typical to this genre from this series. Glad to see there were nice
coincidences and point precise predictions though. By the way - this one from
the same series predicts design of contemporary public trains in China
[http://www.studiolum.com/wang/hu/postcard/100years/en-
lan-20...](http://www.studiolum.com/wang/hu/postcard/100years/en-
lan-2000/30.jpg) UPD: Skype -> [http://media.techeblog.com/images/en-l-
an-2000.jpg;](http://media.techeblog.com/images/en-l-an-2000.jpg;) Home
nuclear reactor (not quite yet) - [http://c8.alamy.com/comp/BA1DXG/future-
vision-in-the-year-20...](http://c8.alamy.com/comp/BA1DXG/future-vision-in-
the-year-2000-heating-with-radium-colour-lithograph-BA1DXG.jpg)

------
rlpb
Is this really what "people in 1900" thought? It looks to me (and the article
says so) that it is what _artists_ thought. Although interesting, I think it
is worth noting that most artists are not technologists today, presumably
weren't in 1900, and so can't really represent the best, or even in general
(as the general public don't consist of mostly artists), of what we think
about what the future holds.

------
dvh
Google phrase "en l'an 2000"
[https://www.google.sk/search?q=en+lan+2000&tbm=isch](https://www.google.sk/search?q=en+lan+2000&tbm=isch)

------
felhr
More accurate than people in 50's thought about 2000

------
iLoch
Most of these are pretty insane and don't reflect an improvement in utility of
any existing technology in any meaningful way, or if they do then they seem to
defy a pretty basic understanding of physics. Who made these predictions? I
feel like I could come up with a much better prediction for 2115 than have
been made here about 2000, but I've also got a better understanding of
technology than the general population.

Since I'm criticizing the predictions made by others, I might as well throw my
predictions for 2115 out there as well:

\- Oil industry will still exist, but in a very limited fashion and will be
highly regulated.

\- Oil will mostly be replaced by advanced battery, solar, and fusion energy.
Batteries will be designed to be more durable and longer lasting to cope with
the pollutive nature of disposable batteries.

\- Air travel will be less common due to increased counter-terrorism measures
that no one asked for.

\- Ground based travel and transport will be mostly automated due to its
massive success in reducing accidents while at the same time increasing
vehicle speed substantially (automation has allowed for better coordination
between vehicles, eliminating traffic jams and slow drivers)

\- Improvements in energy tech have also improved travel distances between
charges, further incentivizing land based travel, which is now considered more
safe than air travel.

\- Greater divide in socioeconomic statuses - the middle class is almost non-
existent, however living conditions for the lower class have also improved as
a result of automation and increased government aid.

\- Automation is everywhere. Transportation, food services, factories. Most
blue collar jobs now revolve around maintaining and creating automata, while
white collar jobs remain a human task, however, work in those jobs relies
heavily on computers and robotic assistance.

\- Drones patrol the skies performing all sorts of tasks. The night sky in the
will look similar to a busy highway at night.

\- We've cracked certain functions of the human brain. Gaining knowledge on a
subject is now based on what your interest is, not your mental ability.
Schools still exist, but their focus is on enabling children to discover their
passion. Some find it earlier than others, and once you do you can opt to
become an expert in that field.

\- Death will be a choice for those with money - albeit you won't get to
choose to keep your body. We're capable of repairing large portions of the
human body with synthetic parts, however we haven't solved aging. Death will
either be final, or you can choose to be synthesized into a virtual world -
however those alternative endings are commercial and require a paid
subscription to maintain.

\- Wealthier people are generally more beautiful thanks to advancements in
gene editing.

\- Tension caused by war is increasing as the US continues to automate its war
efforts.

I could go on for a while, but I think most of the things here aren't too
outlandish. At the very least most of them would be possible if you have
money. Just my two cents though. I'm interested to hear what others think.

~~~
arrrg
Those were paintings made for cigar boxes. Of course they are not supposed to
be accurate. They are jokes, visions of the future in the same way that
Idiocracy is a vision of the future. (Okay, that might be a sensitive topic
for some, since there actually are people who do take that movie seriously for
some weird reason, including believing its basic premise to have any basis in
reality.)

Of course Idiocracy reflects some of the beliefs about how we think the future
might be, but in the service of creating a fantastical, entertaining and funny
picture the image of the future it draws is also deliberately grotesque and
weird and as much about the present as it is about what we belief the future
to be.

I don’t think those paintings are all the different. They should not be taking
as a really serious attempt to predict the future, I think.

------
curiousjorge
the attachable wings is an interesting one. I wonder if in the year 3000 we'll
be able to fly around in the sky with a device as small as a small band you
wear around your ankles and wrists. Michio Kaku says one day we can do this in
the future.

to be able to fly around will be an pinnacle of our achievement as humanity.

