French artists in 1899 envisioned what life would look like in the year 2000
openculture.com
openculture.com
There's a complex kitchen one, and many people do have robot butlers in their kitchen today, they're just corporate chic instead of nearly alchemical, and called a Keurig. Though I would not invite such a creature into my home on account of its aesthetics I do admit its impressive.
Another observation is that we've abstracted away the robot-ish nature of a lot of these machines. There's a special factory that makes k-cups, so that our home environment can have the simpler machine. We decided to pave millions billions(?) of miles of road, and also perfectly flatten the square footage of nearly every store and warehouse, just to make the machines run smoother. I think it would be hard for a person from 1899 to understand just how much flatness we've engineered for our cars and roombas and shopping carts to work universally.
Edit: The Eiffel Towers had some, earlier than that. See comments ;) Sorry.
Google comes through for once.
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2020/04/the-elevator-shaft-tha...
tl;dr: Cooper Union's Foundation Building built 1853. Otis demonstrated his invention at the Crystal Palace in 1854, first installed Haughwout Building in 1857
Also freight elevators existed for a long time before but were unsafe for passengers.
While we’re way better at maintaining our bodies than 100 years ago, we’re still mostly focused on improving our environment, just like 100 years ago.
In 2124 I’d like no illnesses, regrowing limbs, perfectly balanced nutrition that is universally available, safe and accessible bio tech, and I could go on.
[1] https://gallica.bnf.fr/services/engine/search/sru?operation=...
I can see that, in limited capacities, in less than 10 years for animals, and 20 for humans. Regrowing bones from genetic/growth defects for children at least, maybe minor bone reconstruction too.
>> World’s 1st drug to regrow teeth enters clinical trials
[1] https://biomedizin.unibas.ch/en/communication/details/univer... [2] https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/08/Researchers-f...
We are all thinking about flying cars, and these drawings don't disappoint, but there is as much happening underwater as it is happening in the sky.
Now, we are still fascinated with flying, machines, etc... but going underwater is boring by comparison. We have submarines, mostly for the military, a bit of scientific exploration, etc... but besides a few passionate people, people usually don't think that much about the underseas. It is as if space completely took its place in our imagination.
I suppose if the surface became uninhabitable, or if we wanted to hide from space-based surveillance.
I can't think of anything better.
The long-term benefits of exploration are often in the tools to solve the problems with the exploring. Tang and Velcro and microwave ovens are minor examples - I bet you can think of better things the space program gave us! Overall, it's s greater good for society and it spawns lots of specialized businesses and innovation. It's not the destination; it's the journey.
The ocean may not be "the final frontier" (nods to Roddenberry), but that seems like an appropriate "next frontier."
Compared to building underwater: massive costly issues to overcome due to water pressure (when going deep), issues with lack of light. When building at the surface: waves, wind, lack of stable build platform.
These are all issues that where known and predictable in 1899 as well...
Space was more of an unknown unkown.
Because, unlike outer space, the deep ocean was a magical and alien dimension that existed only feet away from everyone's doorstep, and the technology for getting there was under rapid development. Jules Verne's 20,000 LUTS came out only twenty years previous to this article. The artist may well have read it as as child.
That the sea was not only accessible to a degree, but we also had hints of what was down there, would likely put that in the front of thinking minds as a problem solved in the near future, outer space being a bit less attractive of a mystery, since it was not obvious that resources could be gained from trying to go there.
I do often wonder what our current predictions of the future will look like five or six generations down the line. I'd like to think that we have a better grasp on problems that need solving or how technology will naturally combine to accomplish more work, but I bet the folks in the late 1800's thought they had a good grasp on that, too.
BIG submarines are for the military but by far the biggest consumer of submarine technology is the oil and gas industry so people do think about it a whole lot. The underwater world is largely inaccessible to the average person because of the capital requirements (even fewer people can afford subs than boats) but we absolutely depend on that technology to power our energy infrastructure.
Which was also invented by a Frenchman: Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
You'll go to at most 10 meters with their gear and a bunch of professional minders. Great fun.
There's a special mention that deserves to be featured: submarines used for logistics in intercontinental trade routes: the infamous narco subs from south America cartels.
Also, tourism subs exist, including those used in deep sea trips.
In some ways, this is also limited by the format. It would have been easy for people back then to illustrate a Roomba or a modern sound setup (instead of the old-school speakers), but it would have been a pretty boring picture and confusing to people at the time, without additional explanation at least. The way these scenes are drawn, it's immediately obvious what has changed.
My neighborhood dates from the turn of the century. The houses that date back to the original days of the neighborhood are easy to spot, because they're built up on a berm about 3 to 4 feet higher than the street level. This is because when they were built, the street was just a bunch of mud and horse manure. The standard house design would dig out a half under grade basement, piling the excavated dirt into a berm around the house to keep it above the surrounding muck.
Note that this phrase now means “24 years ago.” Seems every day I have to correct myself to “turn of the 20th century.”
https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-19th-century-vis...
(and no, the paris decree does not count). There were female marketed "trousers" appearing in the 1850s, so it is clearly completely retarded to suggest that the french artists "couldnt envision women wearing pants".
But carry on with the official party line, but do so knowingly that it is fake.
There are three different "could"s in the comment to which you're replying.
I think, had your comment included the second paragraph, it would have been much more useful.
I also highly doubt there was a 100% universally shared view on female pants at the time.
it's last one this slide https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-19th-century-vis...
There was a startup 3 decades ago, where you ordered custom khakis on the web. As a first step towards broader custom clothes. Entering assorted measurements, or modifying the dimensions of a previous purchase, a custom pattern was quickly laser cut, manually stitched in one of the last garment factories in the US, and overnighted. Patented, sold, bungled, abandoned. Stitching automation continues to improve, but full automation isn't quite there yet? Body scanning seems close. So near-term next-day almost-automated tailoring from Mexico?
This particular problem is bot about production of clothing, it is about everything else: design, sourcing of rae materials, distribution. The standard start-up approach of applying "tech" to that doesn't work.
But yes those people all focused on their tv walking in the street /really/ look like current day smartphone users.
Perhaps this hints that our vision of the future should have us doing less.
We humans just like good engaging stories, even if they are not always realistic.
Even deep space maneuvers can be done manually if you know what you are doing - point ship engines in right direction and thrust for right number of seconds/minutes.
Sure, for stuff like orbital launch, some crazier Oberth effect burns or continuous thrust propulsion (ion, solar sail) you definitely want computer control.
I can see an argument for manual landing on another cosmic body, given the famous story of Neil Armstrong saving Apollo 11 landing by manually landing the capsule. Though the latest generation of lunar landers can perform the procedure fully autonomously, using machine vision to find an optimal landing spot.
I tried looking up, whether manual or automated moon landing is planned for HLS program, but couldn't find anything specific. It's probably going to be some mix of both.
Or they imagined that such devices would be much more powerful but much less general than what we actually have. The card showing books being shredded and fed into students by headphone looks like a computer to me even though it is cranked manually. Quite a lot of my software development career was dedicated to programs that transformed knowledge in one form (specifications and domain expertise) into knowledge in a different form (detailed drawings, bills of materials, and descriptions of the final product.
People in Matrix movies were not doing much.
It's unskilled. People will still be performing feats of dexterity, strength, courage, and genius in the future. They won't be shoving books into a woodchipper.
Personally, I am inclined to think that as time unfolds, the complexities of forecasting the distant future intensify. Just a month ago, the notion of individuals donning AR/VR headsets while walking down the streets seemed far-fetched. However, with the release of the Vision Pro and folks using it in public places as it was a phone, I realized I would not be able to predict much in the coming future and just live the moment and hoping the best for humanity.
Maybe you missed the Google Glass phase a decade ago.
What changed? It’s still far-fetched and not due to technical reasons
afaik it's mostly social media clout chasers shenanigans, you can't use the vision pro like that because the windows are fixed
I like to think that in 100 years what seems modern will look the same to our descendants (if there is no event that brings us back to the Middle Ages).
Even today's science-fiction movies are limited by an imagination that is born from what we see around, including the ones with magic.
"La curiosité" is a good one too, most city kids are seeing a horse like they would see a lion
Automobiles de guerre: tank were already right around the corner, 15 years away.
Audition du journal: commercial broadcasting was 20 years away, with early efforts starting as soon the early 1900s.
- Going to other galaxies: As opposed to flying, those are physically impossible,
- 2100 utopia would be about ecology and people consuming less, not more,
- When I was a kid, I used to dream about flying blades (drones) or minicomputer in our hands where would could read stuff of program. Today I don’t see a single thing that I would like to dream about.
Maybe social relationships?
and social relationships
Silent Running https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067756/
The unified computing ecosystem from The Expanse.
The public transport from Westworld
I can see us consuming less of any given resource we heavily use now, but only because we no longer need it due to some new innovation, and for no other reason.
Perhaps just like a mostly peaceful independence of India, Australia, Canada etc would have seemed unthinkable at the height of the British Empire, perhaps a non-consumerist society which seems unthinkable today is still in the cards.
Either way, we will obviously see less consumption in the coming century - either voluntarily, as I hope, in order to stop the worse forms of global warming; or else global warming will continue in its current path to 3, 4, 5 degrees of warming, and the ensuing catastrophes will force it on us.
2100 utopia is the dream that we can all be united under the one system.
The start to rising positivity is causing people to chase dreams off a cliff. I'd be careful about what ideas you give people.
People follow dreams well past the point where they should logically conclude, even to death.
Always wondered what would happen from it. And, I guess, maybe it's technically possible if we ever figure out how to read and write human brains/body chemistry?
Seeing this drawings is interesting because it's possible lots of things that happened are old ideas like automation in farms. The ideas are correct in some with the visuals or details different, but overall very interesting. Shows how important it is having a vision.
This is probably not what you meant, but instead you are looking for a direct brain-computer interface? Why do you think that would be a good thing?
Also, could we use these to train an AI? As in: pair 1899 predictions with the actual outcome, train a model, and later provide today’s predictions of 2124 as input?
1) ok, but should be staring at iphones
2) not this one perhaps, given our treatment of whales
3) john deere tractors - it's a thing
4) could see many of our overvalued billionaires going for this
5) drone strike
6) robo hoover - available everywhere
Whaling was one of the biggest industries back then, I'd argue by the standards of 1899 that would seem quite humane
Almost infinitely better than back then?