[HN Gopher] A 19th-Century Vision of the Year 2000
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A 19th-Century Vision of the Year 2000
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 24 points
Date : 2021-01-18 19:34 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (publicdomainreview.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (publicdomainreview.org)
| twoslide wrote:
| Reminds me of these BBC interviews with children in 1966,
| imagining the year 2000 (video):
| https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/946365140642889728
| jedberg wrote:
| Everyone and everything flies, and everything is automated with
| steampunk automation.
| karaterobot wrote:
| People get predictions wrong because they usually just extend
| ideas and concerns from their present lives into the future. It's
| understandable, and to some extent I think you can't get around
| doing that, except by randomly guessing and occasionally getting
| things right. I think about that picture of the winged mailman
| whenever futurists prognosticate about how we'll live in 20
| years, let alone 100.
| gibolt wrote:
| Honestly, many of these images aren't that far off.
|
| Replace the mechanisms with today's robots or the rural postman
| with a digital worker (email).
|
| Flying cars may still be a ways off, but flying busses
| (airplanes) are certainly quite commonplace and have transformed
| the world.
| bpcpdx wrote:
| I like how they dressed us all nice.
| Svip wrote:
| What I find noticeable is how it misses automotive infrastructure
| entirely, and instead focuses on aeroplanes. Some cars are
| depicted, but roads in the rural depictions are still dirt roads,
| not anticipating they would be paved. Paved roads did exist
| before the 1890s, as they were generally used for cyclists.
|
| With the Panhard brothers arranging the Paris to Lyon race in the
| 1890s, you'd think the artist would have heard of this, and
| anticipated more cars. Notice the background of the cities, there
| are almost no cars on the streets.
| jl6 wrote:
| I did not know that the word helicopter was in use back then, nor
| that the first helicopter was built in 1901, before some of these
| postcards!
| perrohunter wrote:
| Were they somehow expecting that we would live underwater by now?
| _cought_ Rapture _cought_
| monocasa wrote:
| I find it interesting the equivalence they make between the
| future's conquest of air and sea. Most of the air infrastructure
| listed exists today if you squint hard enough, particularly with
| the recent advent of increasingly ubiquitous drones. The conquest
| of the deep however hasn't extended much past diving suits and
| exploration, with the possible exception of oil extraction.
|
| "Who here is down to start seahorse racing?" is basically what
| I'm asking, lol.
| Emma_Goldman wrote:
| A testament to how little we can see beyond the existing frontier
| of scientific and technological development. The slides depicting
| the mechanisation of work, chores and music are accurate enough,
| but automation has been a continuous trend elapsing over several
| hundred years - they simply extrapolated forward that which was
| already abundantly evident. But the futuristic automation of the
| future envisioned here is, of course, just the automation of
| nineteenth century technologies.
|
| Also, what's up with the pictures of humans riding sea
| creatures?!
| oh_sigh wrote:
| And why would you go fishing for sea gulls?
| cogman10 wrote:
| > Also, what's up with the pictures of humans riding sea
| creatures?!
|
| Probably had a lot to do with 20000 leagues under the sea.
|
| I was actually surprised at how much flying was depicted. While
| blimps were a thing, the idea of an aircraft as pictured wasn't
| something that existed (AFAIK). You can see some of that with
| the fact that everyone just had wings and nothing else.
| However, there were a few propeller airplanes in the mix which
| somewhat surprised me.
|
| The other part I find fascinating is what they thought you
| COULD easily automate with mechanical means (like a barber,
| lol!)
|
| Some of it they hit right on the mark (like farming) others
| were way off on how easily they'd be automated.
|
| I also thought the automated band was simply funny. I'm sure we
| could do it today, but why? We'd rather digitally record and
| replay that 10000 times.
| derekp7 wrote:
| Weren't player pianos (and nickelodeons) a thing back then?
| Plus, if you've ever visited "House on the Rock" in Wisconsin
| the mechanical orchestras are pretty neat to watch.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| A reason to have a band or orchestra versus recordings played
| over speakers is that there is a noticeable difference
| (though this also depends on the space being used) in sound.
| A recording is _not_ the same as a live performance (whether
| by humans or robots).
| soperj wrote:
| I went to a museum in the Netherlands full of various
| automated band builds, and some of them were incredible (also
| huge), but definitely a massive difference between hearing it
| live vs recording. I couldn't imagine what seeing of one
| these in the streets would be like back in the day.
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