Nikola Tesla’s Predictions for the 21st Century | Hacker News Reader

Nikola Tesla’s Predictions for the 21st Century

blogs.smithsonianmag.com

106 pointsimdhmd32 comments

I'm very surprised they missed the most important prediction by Tesla:

>>>When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.

>>>We shall be able to witness and hear events — the inauguration of a President, the playing of a world series game, the havoc of an earthquake or the terror of a battle — just as though we were present.

From: When Woman Is Boss http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1926-01-30.htm

Looking at that again, there are other gems but the above stuck with me because, well, just look at it.

I wonder if what anything he has said would be considered prior art for current patents ...

He even imagined One Click buying through the world brain - amazing prescience ;-)

> Today the most civilized countries of the world spend a maximum of their income on war and a minimum on education. The twenty-first century will reverse this order. It will be more glorious to fight against ignorance than to die on the field of battle.

Alas.

We're barely 13.4% into the twenty-first century. Give us some time, will ya? Even Tesla didn't make that prediction until the 1930's, well after the turn of the century.

Public defense spending is about on par with public educational spending (if you factor in private spending education on college education then education wins out). Additionally, the total of pension, health care, and welfare spending trumps defense spending by a factor of nearly 3.5x to 1. It's simply not correct to fantasize that our government is exclusively military focused to the exclusion of all else, defense spending is quite large but it's not enormous compared to the equal or greater public spending priorities of education, health, pensions, etc.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2013USbn_1...

I just discovered that site while looking into this question as well. It seems really useful.

Here are two charts that backup your point further.

Education since 1900: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1900_2015...

Defense since 1792: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1792_2015...

In particular, it is worth noting how low military spending was before WWII. I would be very interested to find similar charts for all world powers going back to ancient times, if anyone can help.

Your own linked to site lists the following expenditures by the US federal government:

    Pensions = 24%
    Health Care = 24%
    Defense = 23%
    Welfare = 12%
    Interest = 6%
    Other Spending = 4%
    Transportation = 3%
    Education = 3%
    Protection = 2%
    General Government = 1%

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/piechart_2013_US_fed

Who's fantasizing here?

Of course, these figures don't include so-called "black budgets" for such things as CIA/DEA/etc "front companies" from which these agencies generate & draw funds without congressional oversight.

You're being intellectually dishonest, it's not cool. The vast majority of educational spending is at the local and state level, the vast majority of defense spending is at the federal level. If you look at the totals of spending across all levels (federal, state, local) you can see how close the spending levels for education and defense are. The numbers are even summed for you.

Who is being "intellectually dishonest?" When you refer to "our government," I automatically assume that you mean the federal government, as I'm unsure of whether you reside in the same state as I, or not. I was referring to the federal government, and the amounts spent are consistent with the claims made above.

Were the federal government to spend as much on education as is spent on defense our nation wouldn't be as "dumbed-down" as we presently are.

In my state the schools are dilapidated, and teachers are underpaid, which results in high school graduates who are barely literate.

However, our police are well paid, well equipped, and well funded, a good portion of which is from federal sources.

My state receives roughly 29% (44th in the nation) of its funding from the federal government, and spends 25% of the total state budget on education. Of the amount spent on education, 68% goes to salaries & pensions.

If the federal government spent more on education, the respective states would be able to increase their spending on education, which is what I believed this thread to be about.

In the US education is handled by the states while military is handled on the federal level. To look only at the federal level when talking about education doesn’t even make sense. You are a dishonest and clumsy ideologue that bends the facts to his or her will, selling a distorted picture of reality.

Maybe you want education to be handled on the federal level. That’s a valid position to take – but it still wouldn’t make sense to then only look at federal spending on education to compare it with military spending.

Yet the federal government does spend money on education. This is a fact, and in no way am I being dishonest when I say that if the federal government spent more money on education then we would have a more well educated electorate.

The respective states actually do fund defense, although to a lesser degree than the federal government.

Kindly illustrate how I'm bending facts to sell a "distorted picture of reality?"

if the federal government spent more money on education then we would have a more well educated electorate

I don't think this can be assumed. Funding alone is not a good predictor of educational outcomes [1], and the source of the funds (local, state, federal) also matters.

[1] http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/s...

A two year study can hardly be considered to be definitive. I wonder what the results would be for a 20 year study?

Also, my state is one of those which spends the least on education, so my views are probably skewed as a result.

You cannot ignore the states. Cannot. That is not possible. To do that is to not comprehend (or not wanting to comprehend) how the US is actually structured.

Yeah, the states spend some money on defense and the federal government spends some money on education, but to claim that the federal government has the same responsibility for education as the states is a gross and stupid distortion of reality. To even talk about this that way is so dumb, it makes my brain hurt.

I find it reprehensible to ignore the fact that the federal government spends so little on education in relation to other expenditures.

There is no "gross and stupid distortion of reality" in believing that our federal government should be doing more to facilitate education.

Why is there a federal Department of Education? To fund education! When the federal government reduces education allotments to the states, the entire nation suffers as a result.

http://www.economist.com/node/15330604

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_edu_spe_as_per_of_tot_...

Another perspective, from the War Resistors League[0]:

Where your income tax money really goes:

* Total Outlays (Federal Funds): $2,650 billion

* MILITARY: 54% and $1,449 billion

* NON-MILITARY: 46% and $1,210 billion

"'Current military' includes Dept. of Defense ($653 billion), the military portion from other departments ($150 billion), and an additional $162 billion to supplement the Budget’s misleading and vast underestimate of only $38 billion for the "war on terror." "Past military" represents veterans’ benefits plus 80% of the interest on the debt.[1]

These figures are from an analysis of detailed tables in the "Analytical Perspectives" book of the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009. The figures are federal funds, which do not include trust funds -- such as Social Security -- that are raised and spent separately from income taxes. What you pay (or don’t pay) by April 15, 2008, goes to the federal funds portion of the budget. The government practice of combining trust and federal funds began during the Vietnam War, thus making the human needs portion of the budget seem larger and the military portion smaller."

[0] - http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm

[1] - "Analysts differ on how much of the debt stems from the military; other groups estimate 50% to 60%. We use 80% because we believe if there had been no military spending most (if not all) of the national debt would have been eliminated. For further explanation, please see box at bottom of page."

How does it work out when you figure in State, County, and Local spending?

The government is not the people. Public spending is not the country's spending.

I wonder on what basis people make predictions like that. It seems like wishful thinking.

This is no different from fortune telling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect). Make a bunch of predictions, some will be accurate, some will be a off, and some will be really bad. But people will remember the accurate ones and adapt enough the off ones that it looks like you were a visionary.

So long as you also invent alternating current.

What are Tesla's wrong/a bit off predictions?

I think the author of the article is reaching on some of these predictions:

The Secretary of Hygiene or Physical Culture will be far more important in the cabinet of the President of the United States who holds office in the year 2035 than the Secretary of War.

I have no idea how he interpreted that to predict the EPA. This is something closer to Health&Human Services or the Secretary of the Gym ("Physical Culture" referred to exercise in those days).

In the very next sentences, Tesla elaborates on that he is referring to pollution on beaches and unsanitary drinking water. That's why this is most closely connected to the EPA.

The struggle for existence being lessened, there should be development along ideal rather than material lines.

Insight into why he pursued his extraordinary ideas so passionately.

I wish you wouldn't have changed the title. I'd be very interested in Tesla Motors' predictions, not so much in "Nikola Tesla's Amazing" predictions.

> I am convinced that within a century coffee, tea, and tobacco will be no longer in vogue.

Tea is a great herbal drink. IMO, its here to stay.

Back then in the U.S. and Europe, black tea was pretty much the only thing they knew as "tea". Of the different types of tea, black is the least healthy and most caffeinated, which is why he would call it a "stimulant".

Of course Tesla could not have predicted the military industrial complex and the gun lobby in the US.

JP Morgan bankrolled Tesla's tinkering...come on, son!

Governments live and die by their debt issuance capabilities. In 2008, Hank Paulson saved the world through his altruistic service as Secretary Treasurer and saving our benevolent banks. The MIC needs money to enforce all of our legal contracts. Tesla didn't have a prediction to make because it is the same today as it was then.

Read some history, yo!

"Tragedy and Hope" is one place to start--not to be confused with finish.

A quicker and equally valid starting tome would be "None Dare Call It Conspiracy".

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