

The year 2000 illustrated in 1900 - vibrunazo
http://publicdomainreview.org/2012/06/30/france-in-the-year-2000-1899-1910/

======
rvkennedy
These are clearly _supposed_ to be funny.

People in diving suits fishing for birds?

The school where books are ground up and electrified into pupils' heads?

A serious attempt to predict the future is a rare thing indeed, even on the
part of science fiction writers, who are often more concerned with allegory
and the exploration of ideas than with literally trying to figure out what the
future will look like.

For my money one of the best "future visions" is Spielberg's Minority Report.
Not for "pre-crime", but for the suburbs that still look like suburbs, the
personalized advertising (perhaps a little extreme), and the general normality
of the cities (aside from the silly vertical freeways). The future looks a lot
like now - because buildings last a long time, and the landscape changes even
less than that.

~~~
adorton
That's one of the things I love most about Children of Men. It's clearly meant
to be a realistic portrayal of 2027 (given the circumstances of the setting).
The movie was made in 2006, but the main character wears a London 2012 hoodie.
The futuristic elements are extrapolated from real things - the advanced, high
res computer screens, the stylization of the cars, etc.

------
RyanMcGreal
To be fair, the illustrator(s) did get several trends right: industrialized
farming and animal breeding, machine textile manufacture, RVs, classrooms full
of kids with headphones in their ears, using computers on the toilet, battle
cars (so disappointed we don't call them that), and airplanes that launch
missiles.

~~~
ZoFreX
They got aerial firemen right, too - it's routine to use helicopters and
planes to fight large fires now. And the idea of automated electric mopping is
so close to the Roomba I'll give it a pass.

~~~
jlgreco
The Scooba, also by iRobot, is a mopping version of the Roomba.

------
aw3c2
All content is from
[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:France_in_XXI_Cen...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:France_in_XXI_Century)
, including the text. Only difference is that the images are shown in big
size, not just as thumbnails (even then, they are just embedded images hosted
at Wikimedia). There are more images at Wikimedia. Choose your path. :)

~~~
_delirium
You can also view it on Wikimedia Commons as a slideshow, via an experimental
interface:
[http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Fran...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:France%20in%20XXI%20Century&gsAutoPlay=0&gsDelay=10000&gsDir=desc&gsAutoStart=1&withJS=MediaWiki:Gadget-
GallerySlideshow.js&withCSS=MediaWiki:Gadget-GallerySlideshow.css)

Commons is a bit messy, since it started with a focus on archiving and sorting
images more than displaying them (except insofar as they're displayed in
Wikipedia articles), so it's not surprising that third-party sites are re-
presenting its content. And since its point is to collect freely licensed
content and promote reuse, there's nothing wrong with that. But there's a bit
more focus recently on making it directly browsable.

Slideshow gadget info: [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Gadget-
GallerySlidesh...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Gadget-
GallerySlideshow)

------
gbog
Many people here don't get the ironic nature of these drawings.

So, sorry to unveil this fact to you: It was just for the fun. Teacher pushing
books in the crusher to feed student earphones? Underwater flying? Flying
cops? All this is funny speculation that has a single purpose: entertainment.
It is just like drawings of Dubout, with a scifi theme instead of cats (and a
lower artistic value).

So, in makes it even more surprising that it has some relevance to today's
achievement. I would like to compare with serious "scientific" forecasts of
the future at the same time. I would bet they weren't as accurate as these
drawings.

~~~
Gormo
The presentation and style are pretty tongue-in-cheek, but I don't think that
diminishes the nature of these drawings a predictions of a potential future,
especially since a lot of them represent developments that actually _did_
occur over the course of the 20th century.

------
xedarius
What strikes me as significant about the predictions, is, what has dictated
our development is the kinds of materials we can produce, not necessarily the
ideas behind what you can build from those materials. I realise the
illustrations are flights of fantasy from the imagination.

However I wonder if you focus on the materials of the future you could make
more accurate predictions.

For example carbon nanotubes is a material of the future (I've heard it said
we could build a lift to the moon with carbon nanotubes).

Superconductivity, when we can make room temperature superconductive material,
well blows the mind to think what you can make with that. Hover cars?

Wireless electricity, not strictly a material, but a game changer none the
less.

~~~
sp332
You can't build a bridge to the moon because it orbits the earth once every 2
weeks or so, and the earth goes around in 24 hours. Either it would only sync
up every 2 weeks, or the moon would be tethered to the earth's rotation :)

~~~
doc4t
He is not talking about a bridge but a space elevator. See
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator> for more info - quite
fascinating idea.

------
newbie12
No one could have predicted the horrors about to befall France in the 20th
century...the bloom of her youth destroyed on the battlefields of the First
World War, followed economic depression and then defeat and occupation by the
Nazis. In many ways, the French nation died and never made it to 2000.

~~~
zalew
Except imperializing half of the world, being a member of G8, a nuclear
superpower, and leader in a few major industries.

Sending you kind greetings from the champion country in getting screwed over
in the last centuries.

~~~
m0th87
I think OP was trying to remark that France now is nothing like the France the
artist drew from in 1900. Which is true, but it's also true of every place on
the planet. This speaks more to the resiliency of nations than anything else.

~~~
zalew
No place in Europe is now like it were in the 1900s, but France's Paris is
pretty damn close ;)

------
vibrunazo
My first impression was: why so many underwater pictures? Did they figure we
were running out of landmass? Or is it because the ocean was one of the
frontiers associated with exploration?

~~~
dspillett
Space travel wasn't really considered possible. Air travel was seen as a maybe
but the first successful powered flight has not yet happened (or if someone
had managed it by then, their achievement had not been widely reported).

The first practical small submarines were around on the early 1800s (man
powered at that point) and there had been many advancements in underwater tech
(including significant steps in individual breathing apparatus and practical
powered sub-marine vehicles) in the late 1800s - so around 1900 the oceans
were the next great frontier in the eyes of many of the people who were in a
position to care about such things, particularly after the popular success of
Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues" and to a lesser extent other similar works.

This aspiration of the oceans as the next great frontier may also have been
driven partly by the massive increase in demand for fuel over that century or
two due to the industrial revolution: if you could find a massive source of
useful fuel material in that great unexplored wilderness you could name your
fortune.

 _lt;dr:_ around then, under-water was cool to the public (brought up in the
industrial revolution & looking for the next exciting technological
developments), potentially very important militarily, and seen as one of
mankinds next big steps.

~~~
rrreese
_Air travel was seen as a maybe but the first successful powered flight has
not yet happened_

By 1900 there had been several successful experimental airships, and in 1900
the Luftschiff Zeppelin LZ1 launched. It would be another three years before
the Wright Flyer flew though.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship#Early_pioneers>

~~~
dspillett
Ah, for some reason I had my history backwards and thought successful winged
flight attempts came before Zeppelins had seen that much success. Thanks for
the correction.

------
digitalengineer
Did you notice there are only pictures of white people? (France still had a
lot of colonies during the 1900's and traded actively around the world).

~~~
ajasmin
It would be interesting to see non-european predictions.

------
Jun8
One can recite the old adage "Prediction is hard, especially about the future"
and laugh at these. But one important lesson that they give is that how hard
to break free from the constraints of current thinking to be totally
innovative. Look at the floor cleaning robot depicted in "Electric Scrubbing"
and compare with the Roomba. The robot is essentially a mechanical French maid
(now, there's an interesting thought), i.e. the manner of cleaning is
_exactly_ the same.

Another example is "A Tailor of Latest Fashion" where what seems to be a steam
engine powers an automatic dress maker.

------
dlikhten
Just interesting, nobody could ever imagine computers that fit in your hand.
Everything there is about the physical tools, nobody imagined that tools would
instead become intelligent.

------
petercooper
Though absolutely no advancements in fashion :-)

If even the jump from the 80s to now has taught me anything, we, right now,
are going to look _ridiculous_ to people in 30 years, let alone 100.

------
alayne
When this stuff was posted three years ago on HN, there was a link to an
interesting site that has many examples of future predictions
<http://www.paleofuture.com/>.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=729904>

------
polshaw
I think we tend to quickly forget the motivations of creating these, because
they are 100 years old. They appear to have commercial links-- so
'interesting' would probably have been a more important quality than honesty
or in depth thought on the matter. For example, i don't believe anyone giving
proper consideration in 1900 would believe we would be under the sea 'fishing'
for seagulls.. it was just an interesting idea that would be possible.

If this were CNN today on a 2100 prediction HN would be all over it calling it
populist/sensationalist/lazy etc.

I'm surprised they didn't guess 'wireless' a little more (the classroom) since
radio was being invented at the time (even wireless headphones were almost
technically possible with a crystal radio).

------
jevinskie
Google Books also archives many, many old Popular Science magazines. They have
some wild predictions like planes towing trailers. [0] Quite an interesting
read for the classic illustrations, DIY plans that are _still_ useful today,
chemistry experiments that would make the ATF and DEA blush, and of course the
endless pages of ads peddling every contraption imaginable.

[0]:
[http://books.google.com/books?id=WCQDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA102&...](http://books.google.com/books?id=WCQDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA102&dq=popular%20science%201949&pg=PA107#v=onepage&q&f=true)

------
maayank
I found this also to be very beautiful:
[http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/08/23/space-colony-art-
fr...](http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/08/23/space-colony-art-from-
the-1970s/)

------
PLejeck
> In the year 2000, EVERYBODY RIDES MUTANT EEL BEASTS.

Why didn't this happen?

------
dgant
These is quite prescient, interpreted liberally:

* Very liberally, drive-through car wash * Air as a domain for combat * Commuter air travel * Aerial firefighting * Air mail * (okay, nobody's riding on seahorses) * Roomba * (okay, nobody's hunting seagulls) * Air traffic control * Mechanized farming * Spy drones * Mechanized animal processing * Automated goods fabrication * (okay, nobody's stealing eagle eggs) * (okay, nobody's riding fish) * Synthesizers * Mobile homes * Online education * Very liberally, drive-through car wash (again) * Tanks/armored vehicles * Bombers * (okay, nobody's playing sports underwater) * (okay, nobody's domesticating whales or commuting underwater)

Most of what they got right: things we do which are labor-intensive and could
be automated

Most of what they got wrong: the value or cost of putting people under water,
and the degree to which animals play a role in daily life

------
brianjyee
Back to the Future 2 was made in 1989 and hit on several things. Most
predictions seem to think we'd all be in flying cars by now.

[http://gawker.com/5667202/11-things-from-back-to-the-
future-...](http://gawker.com/5667202/11-things-from-back-to-the-future-ii-
that-actually-came-true-and-3-that-havent-yet)

------
doktrin
These were clearly made mostly-in-jest, however I was a little amused at the
juxtaposition of archaic flying vessels together with personalized consumer-
level air travel.

While we have long since passed the era of the Zeppelin, we're certainly
nowhere near cruising along with air-taxis or wing/slash/jet packs.

~~~
endersshadow
I don't think the flying car or jetpack is really that crazy of technology. We
can easily make quad-copters for personal transport. With enough investment,
it could become a commodity good.

But, think about how bad the average driver is. Now realize that they're
driving in two dimensions. What happens when you add a third? Terrible,
terrible things. That's why we haven't invested in any infrastructure in
flying cars, and without that infrastructure, it ain't gonna happen.

------
alokm
The "limited" creativity of its creator is very clear. He/She seems to be
obsessed with either going in the air or going under water. I wonder whether
this creativity was truly individual, and would a collective creativity been
able to fathom the future to a better degree.

~~~
yk
You can look at Jules Verne, who did also write about means of travel. And the
most important visible innovations from that time are usually related to
transportation. So I believe collectively transportation was the technology
which captured imagination at that time.

Atop of this, it is really hard to sell postcards in which the bastard
offspring of looms rule the world.

------
jrmg
That reminds me of this book on life in 2010, written in the 70s, which is
also great:

<http://2010book.tumblr.com/post/310745454/cover>

------
motoford
I think these illustrations hit closer to reality than the predictions from
the sci-fi authors we just read about in the recent HN post "1987 Time Capsule
Predictions by Sci-Fi Writers About 2012"

------
chli
I'm wondering why they are so many pictures of underwater activities ?

~~~
ljf
I presume it's because underwater adventuring and photography was very new and
exciting:
[http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/archeosm/archeosom/en/sca...](http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/archeosm/archeosom/en/scafan.htm)

First underwater photography:
[http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/the-first-
under...](http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/the-first-underwater-
photo/)

~~~
vignesh_vs_in
Or the concept of multistorey building is not caught-on yet

~~~
jarek
It's not as though the Eiffel Tower was built in 1889 or anything...

~~~
vignesh_vs_in
it's not a multistorey building, it's a tall radio tower

~~~
jarek
Looking at it, the concept of a multi-story building must seem so alien and
far-fetched as to naturally conclude the future is underwater.

------
guscost
Edward Bellamy wrote a book about 2000 in 1887
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward>

------
swalsh
The thing that always gets me about these old timey predictions, is while they
are probably way far fetched from their perspective the reality seems to be
even more incredible (jets flying faster than the speed of sound, as opposed
to blimps). I think it really lends credence to the idea that humans think of
technology in terms of a linear progression, but it's actually exponential.

------
nwatson
Alberto Santos-Dumont flew his own personal dirigible balloon around Paris
circa 1900 (see new post <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4317490>). He
was the only person to experience unrestricted personal urban airflight and is
certainly a major inspiration for those illustrations here that depict air
travel.

------
wiradikusuma
Reading articles like this makes me wonder, is there any "prediction" made by
people today for, say, 100 years from now? I wonder how the future people
would think about those "predictions" :)

Or, since I want to be alive to share the laugh, any prediction for year
2020-2050 made this year or last year?

~~~
DanBC
Intel - the tomorrow project
([http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/research/tomorrow-
pro...](http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/research/tomorrow-project/the-
tomorrow-project.html))

> _The Tomorrow Project explores our possible futures through fact-based,
> science-based fiction and video conversations with scientists and science
> fiction authors, legends and world renowned experts, passionate advocates
> and everyday people. Science fiction gives all of us all a language so that
> we can have a conversation about the future and these conversations make
> dramatic changes._

------
malenm
Site is down for me - here is the cached Google version:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wOFiv4Z...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wOFiv4ZiP7IJ:publicdomainreview.org/2012/06/30/france-
in-the-year-2000-1899-1910)

------
3minus1
I thought it was interesting how it showed so many airplanes. A lot of them
look like real planes and they use terms like "plane" and "helicopter." The
first manned flight wasn't until 1903, but I guess it wasn't out of nowhere.
The idea was "in the air" so to speak.

------
egeozcan
We are about to accomplish most of the dreams they had about air travel. The
only thing remaining is free Internet while on plane :) (I know it exists but
very uncommon especially in Europe)

------
dkroy
It is sad, I get excited whenever I see anything remotely Steampunk.

~~~
paganel
I was also going to make a similar comment, along the lines of "OMG, this is
Steampunk porn!" or something, so that I don't think it's sad :)

On a more serious note, those images also reminded me of Hayao Miyazaki's work
([http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=5...](http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=51))

------
localhost3000
kind of adorable... whatever we imagine life to be like in the year 2100,
chances are we'll look just as silly in retrospect as these illustrations

edit: gracias

~~~
RyanMcGreal
Actually, these pictures were only projecting 100 years forward, not 1,000.

------
alagappanr
Interesting that many of the illustrations were related to aviation- Aviation
Police,Aerial Firemen or even Robbers.

------
mcguire
How did they know so much about anime?

------
habosa
Summary: everything flies.

------
TheHeasman
This.... this is beautiful

