fRy hooked us up with a cool
story on MSNBC (originally on Feed) about what we can anticipate coming in the future. Covering everything from nanotechnology
[?] to toys, genetics to espionage, it's a fun read with loads of interviews with smart people.
Slashdot Mirror
1.) When Woz took the Apple I into work to see if they were going to hold him to his IP contract with them, they laughed at the notion of a Personal Computer.
2.) There's the famous Bill Gates "640k should be enough for anybody." quote from '81.
3.) "...There are no significant threats to the Intel or Microsoft desktop PC franchises through 2003," -Chris Goodhue, PC analyst with the Gartner Group, 1998
4.) The Titanic was deemed unsinkable by the press and media because of the technological achievement of the watertight compartments. (As a matter of fact, White Star Line never advertised it as unsinkable. An article in in an engineering magazine during the period was quoted as saying the Titanic was "virtually unsinkable" which started the hype.
5.) According to Xerox, paper usage is growing 7% annually. We were supposed to have a paperless society by now.
6.) In 1899, Charles Duell, the director of the U.S. Patent office stated "Everything that can be invented already has been." (GASP! Exactly 100 years ago!)
Plus, about 50 years ago, computer companies scoffed at the idea of any kind of portable computer. Shall I go on?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
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How can anyone think that they can predict what will happen in 100 years? It would be tough to even guess which technologies will shape the next century, let alone what their effects will be. Anything that actually comes true will be pure luck. The only prediction I am going to make is that we will still be here, and even that isnt definete. Im just content with taking it one day at a time.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Futurists are just never right. I mean, never. The only spot-on predictions I can think of offhand came from people who were just grotting over the facts and came up with something - they were labeled 'futurists' after the fact.
/. recently, is a prime example. Many of the arguments against it, why it's a failure, etc., are arguments against it, not as an example of successful or failed futurism, but against the vision of the future that it represents: that there are fundamental flaws in that vision, which we need to scramble to avoid in building the real future. Similarly, Buckminster Fuller's designs arent universal today. We have no Dymaxion Cars, geodesic domes are prevalent only in certain specific arenas, such as highway equipment maintenance huts. Nevertheless, his way of looking at the world, and the principles behind his designs, have influenced a generation not just of futurists, but of actual designers.
What futurists come up with sounds plausible because their scenarios allow for the interplay of a few more factors than we generally allow ourselves to play with when we daydream. This air of verisimilitude breaks down when confronted with the real world's blizzard of interacting effects.
Take personal fliers. When you read about it in Popular Science it sounds reasonable enough: you avoid poky ground traffic and zip from here to there. Economies of scale would allow anyone to afford one, just like a car.
We still don't have 'em. The energy budget just isn't there - they still cost too much to fly - and besides, The Vision doesn't allow for what will happen when one comes crashing down into a neighborhood. At least autos mostly only crash into other autos. Only extraordinarily do they crash into living rooms. Not so personal fliers.
This makes it sound like futurism is a useless occupation. Not so. It at least provokes valuable discussion. Epcot Center, the subject of a bunch of use and abuse on
It isn't the confection that's important, but the flavor is.