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My kid coulda done that

Back to the future

There’s no future like the old future. Pick up any piece of sci-fi today, and odds are you’ll find some incredibly dystopic vision of the world to come: Slave-labor telepresence work, neurally-implanted advertising, blissed-out teens on dumbdrugs. Bleah. What happened to the old, superoxygenated, go-go dreams of a rocket-finned future?

Back in 1961 … now that was when the future meant something. That’s when some florid hack penned a piece in which he asked “Will Life Be Worth Living in 2000 A.D.?”, a question he immediately answered with a resounding HELL YES. Though the article is a total laff riot, it amazingly manages to get a few predictions half-right — it says that “there will be machines doing the work of clerks, shorthand writers and translators. Machines will ‘talk’ to each other”, and it argues that “mail and newspapers will be reproduced instantly anywhere in the world by facsimile”. But my favorite part is when the author gets to the irreplacable linchpin of any self-respecting postwar vision of the year 2000: Personal jetpacks. From a web-site reproduction of the article:

It will be the age of press-button transportation. Rocket belts will increase a man’s stride to 30 feet, and bus-type helicopters will travel along crowded air skyways. There will be moving plastic-covered pavements, individual hoppicopters, and 200 m.p.h. monorail trains operating in all large cities.

The family car will be soundless, vibrationless and self-propelled thermostatically. The engine will be smaller than a typewriter. Cars will travel overland on an 18 inch air cushion.

“Thermostatically”?

I also liked the final paragraph: “It’s the way they think the world will live in the next century - if there’s any world left!”

Ah yes: If there’s any world left. Gotta love the emotional whiplash course-correction, in which the cheery, pipe-smoking affability of the author descends, with no warning whatsoever, into completely sociopathic Cold War duck-and-cover nihilism.

(By the way, looking at the piece again, I’m half wondering if this is not in fact an actual repro of a real article, but a modern parody of one. Anyone out there know?)

(Thanks to Sean for this one!)


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I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.

Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!

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The “Milky Way Transit Authority” map

Should automobile software be open-sourced?

My Bookforum review of Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not A Gadget”

Molecular secrets of the “iron-plated snail”

Garry Kasparov, cyborg

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a bunch of stuff

January 31, 2010 » 07:29 PM
V. A. To me death seems to be an evil.
M. What, to those who are al­ready dead? or to those who must die?
A. To both.
M. It is a mis­ery, then, be­cause an evil?
A. Cer­tain­ly.
M. Then those who have al­ready died, and those who have still got to die, are both mis­er­able?
A. So it ap­pears to me.
M. Then all are mis­er­able?
A. Ev­ery one.

January 24, 2010 » 03:22 PM

One of the more interesting trends is family, which came in at number five. Specifically, discussion about family, moms, dads, daughters, etc. jumped during 2009. With Facebook users getting older, this isn’t a big surprise. However, the fact that the mention of “kids” jumped by a factor of five this year is rather dramatic. It’s tough to know what this means, though. (via Facebook Unveils Most-Mentioned Topics of 2009

)

January 15, 2010 » 01:36 PM

BEYOND AWESOME. They are announcing a recall of the Plush Uterus “due to a potential choking hazard for children”. To apply for it, “Please send an email to the address below with the subject line, ‘UTERUS OPT OUT’”.

January 14, 2010 » 10:04 PM

“To order, please TYPE “YES” IN CHECKBOX BELOW TO AGREE YOU UNDERSTAND THIS PLUSH MUST BE KEPT AWAY FROM KIDS (it is a sex organ, after all). If it is not checked, WE WILL NOT SEND THE UTERUS.” (via @ibogost)

January 11, 2010 » 01:45 PM

I watched Space: 1999 back in the day, but I swear to god I do not remember this scene.

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