Modern Mechanix old - Latest Comments in What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

jayessell — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:35:59 -0000

Charlie...
September 23 is the 70 anniversary of the Westinghouse Time Capsule.
(Only 4930 years to go!)
Included amoung the artifacts of the 20th Century are gramophone recordings
of Finlandia, Star and Stripes Forever and Flat Foot Floogie.

Here's an excerpt of "The Middletons at the Worlds' Fair".

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

PS: Is there an article about the 1938 Time Capsule?

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

John — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:46:59 -0000

Heart disease, well that`s a different story.

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

Daan Zonderland — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:22:41 -0000

Wow, that's a cool article.
And all of would have been true and reality if it weren't for the notorious Military-industrial complex.
That's what's screwing this planet and those that dwell on her...

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

boyd diez — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:09:46 -0000

It's all very nice but where will we get a power source for all this???

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

FascistUSA — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:21:23 -0000

There are answers to everything "troubling" mankind.

Simple answers.

Accurate answers.

Maybe when Philosophers (lovers of truth) return to Amerika...

we can see some real progress.

But.

Progress towards what? Low IQ idiots buying crap they don't need off of TV and Telephones?
Longer life spans so low IQs can get in more hours of TV?

The average Amerikan has no values. No intelligence. No ambitions.

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

El Futuristo — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:03:33 -0000

In 2048, as the dawn breaks against the Illinois sky, I wake from my light fitful sleep to see what the day brings. There is leftover stew from last night. My garden is plentiful at this time of year, and my luck was good, thankfully. The garden fed rat is always fat, but not always able to avoid my deadly slingshot.

I look to the east and see the cooling towers of the plant that powers the ADM Citiplex. I might go check out their dump today, but last week, the security guards were having a laugh taking pot shots at me from their perches up on the walls. Good things show up there from time to time, plastics, organics for my compost and sometimes even metals, but not very often. It's still a worthwhile trip and those guards are too lazy to pay much attention to commuters nosing around the trash piles. Besides they depend on us in a way to carry it all away a piece at a time.

After I make sure the deer fences are sound I begin to weed my garden. I think about riding my bike over to the street market in the afternoon. but remember hearing that there is a new gang of bike thieves making life miserable for everyone these days. Sure you can buy it back from a totally honest bike dealer at the market who had no idea the bike was stolen and just needs to get back what he paid for it. The reality is that if they knock you off your bike with a tight wire or a stick in the spokes, you are going to end up with some bruises and prolly a few kicks while you are also emptying your pockets. There is never enough time to whip out a slingshot or a club before they are on you.

The suburbs are a rough place sometimes. There is no security and there are always scavengers, both human and animal, trying to survive at your expense...............

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

FunkyJ — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 07:29:12 -0000

Amazing how accurate they were in some cases, but also how blindly optimistic that humans could sort their shit out and actually work together for the betterment of humankind.

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

Charlene — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 00:19:18 -0000

I'm surprised by the beliefs that Roddenberry and Asimov predicted women's liberation. In the original Star Trek and the first few years of TNG (until Roddenberry was shoved out), women are almost universally portrayed as either nurturers, bimbos, icebergs, secretaries, or nutcases. Asimov's Susan Calvin is a wholly unrealistic neurotic iceberg; every other female character he wrote before meeting Janet is a whining nagging stupid stupid stupid shrew who cares more about dinner being on the table than she does about alien invasion.

I mean, I love Asimov, but I hate the women in his early stories.

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

jayessell — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 21:38:16 -0000

Eliyahu...
Your last comment is the best.
There is no forseeable alternative to petrochemical fuel for the personal VTOL.
(The proper name for the 'flying car'.)
The movie 'Back to the Future II' had two cheats:
Limitless energy and a propulsion system that obeys unknown physics.
(That's the 'half full' version of 'violates known physics'.)
Other than that, it's doable.
A high-resolution GPS, internet like packet switching (except the 'packets' are actual people!) and
a virtual highway system don't sound impossible.
"Where we're going, we don't need 'roads'!"
Oh yeah... each pVTOL would reasonably cost $1,000,000 each.

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

Eliyahu — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:09:53 -0000

The flying car discussions have always amused me. Probably the biggest obstacles to their common use are the infrastructure they'd require and the fact that there's no way to put brakes on them.
First, imagine if you will our skies filled with millions of flying cars. How do you erect directional signs, lane markers (and remember, the lanes will now be three-dimensional; not two), speed limit indicators, etc.? Speed limits of one sort or another would be even more crucial since flying cars aren't going to have brakes or be able to stop or slow down quickly when they overtake a slower one. Lanes would be even more vital than on the ground to prevent collisions. Otherwise, imagine a huge paved lot the size of the US in which drivers go in any direction they choose at any speed they choose, all hundred million of them at once! Air traffic controllers already are overstretched to the limits just dealing with airlines and general aviation numbering just a few thousand planes in the air at any one time and on carefully regulated airways.
Again, the problem of brakes and stopping is a killer for air car designers. Even a hovercraft capable of going more than a few miles per hour is going to have problems if there were actually traffic around it. Someone crosses in front of it and what's he going to do? Swerve up into the next higher lane and make someone else dodge him?
Given the way many of us take care of our vehicles, maintenance would also be a real problem. If a car runs badly or stalls on the road, the driver can coast to the side or push it to the shoulder and walk. What's he going to do at five thousand feet? We aren't talking about an airplane with airfoil surfaces that can glide to the ground. We're talking about flying cars. Otherwise, this would just be a discussion of whether airplanes will become the common means of transportation. A flying car, by definition, isn't an airplane and is likely to drop like a stone when it loses power. Imagine living underneath these things...
Finally, the straw that breaks the camel's back: fuel. A flying car is not going to be fuel efficient, no matter who designs it. It takes a lot more power to fly than to roll on wheels, and there's nothing short of amending the laws of physics that can change that.

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

Beiccakcip — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:03:09 -0000

Brilliant!

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

jayessell — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:14:51 -0000

Kim...
Since the 1950s we were promised big flat TVs.
They were 25 years in the future in 1950.
1960.
1970.
1980.
That future finally arrived.

Since the 1950s we were promised Fusion Reactors.
They were 50 years in the future in 1950.
1960.
1970.
1980.
1990...........

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

Kim — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:19:45 -0000

When you look at the article and read all those things, first thing that comes in mind is "I wish all those things were true" lol. All those flying cars and traffic computer makes life so sweet. I'm pretty sure we'll experience those things waaaaay later on in the future, but as for now, as weir in the year 2008 heading for 2009 we have to keep on dreaming, and someday all those things will become reality. When we look at the world today compared to 40yrs ago, we have gotten so advanced. Look at the iphones... its a cell phone, computer, GPS, audio player, and practically everything in one. Technology will change and become a great progress in the next couple of years!

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

Rosie — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:56:19 -0000

"Dude", Where's My Hovercraft?

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

Lucy — Wed, 21 May 2008 09:38:11 -0000

love how he foresees domed cities

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

KoKo — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:57:28 -0000

JMynt,

You say "It is a sad thing we no longer predict greater future for ourselves."

I would say it is sad if we can no longer realistically predict a better future. But it is not sad that we have stopped making ridiculously fanciful and unrealistic "predictions" like the stuff in the article.

In either case, what matters is whether or not our views are realistic, not whether they are optimistic. Optimism for its own sake is lunacy.

But you also say, "Even though there are practicle things that can be done no-one really adresses problems like global warming, AIDS, world hunger, energy needs. Yeah people pay lip service to these problems but they donâ€™t tell you they are solveable or even managable."

You obviously haven't been paying attention. Many, many people are working hard to address all those issues, and often they are making great progress. Even though I hate and despise Bush, his AIDS control plan in Africa has made significant progress, for example.

Unrealistic (and uninformed) pessimism is just as bad as unrealistic optimism.

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

jayessell — Tue, 20 May 2008 07:39:08 -0000

Charlie, see if you can find a "things are just going to get worse" article from the 1930s.
And 1950s.
And 1970s.
And 1990s.

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

JMyint — Mon, 19 May 2008 23:27:56 -0000

Koko,it is a sad thing that we no longer predict greater futures for ourselves. We have things now that were not even imagined forty years ago and yet we don't see solutions to are mundane problems. In the past, even in the worst of times, people always had the belief the future would be better. For the most part they were right. Today we are face with problems and what do we hear, give up, cut back. Even though there are practicle things that can be done no-one really adresses problems like global warming, AIDS, world hunger, energy needs. Yeah people pay lip service to these problems but they don't tell you they are solveable or even managable.

It has been sited by many attempted suicides that they just no longer saw any future. Perhaps are Civilization is on the verge of suicide itself.

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

KoKo — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:55:14 -0000

@Richard,

Yes, they do. And they do cost a ridiculous amount.

That's my point about these kinds of predictions. They never consider the economic conditions, the infrastructure, and especially the political will necessary to make these things possible.

These predictions actually say more about the time they were made (post-war, rapidly increasing prosperity, creation of the League of Nations and the UN, overall optimism) than about the situation they try to predict. Maybe that is why nobody does this kind of thing any more; we know better than to be blindly optimistic now.

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

Richard Bartrop — Mon, 19 May 2008 02:41:29 -0000

What the articles was predicting wasn't a flying car as such, but a ground effect vehicle, which really is a bad idea for a road vehicle. We don;t have 300 mph cars, but there are a ew that will top 200 mph, and at least one manufacturer has a model that it claims will do 250. True, you could buy a nice house for what they cost, and there are no roads in North America where you can use that speed, but they do exist.

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

jayessell — Thu, 15 May 2008 11:49:50 -0000

franklin, you may enjoy...
http://www.exitmundi.nl/exi...

And what do you mean "we"?

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

franklin — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:53:35 -0000

we are all gonna die in 2012 anyway
the magnetic poles are gonna shift bc planet X is coming around the earth and is going to aline all the planets forcing this pull to creat crzy hurricanes tornados and posible volcanic eruptions covering the earth with ash, the only people who will survive are the ones who go under ground-no lie, this is not a joke-god be with all of you

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

KoKo — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:09:16 -0000

@Nautilus,

You fill our ears with pretentious crap.

To respond to one point, society has become slightly more religious, but only in the US. The rest of the developed world is increasingly secular.

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

Nautilus — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:50:28 -0000

Interesting, although many have predicted that we would become a more secular society, my observation is that the recrudescence of religious beliefs has increased full force in the past 10 years. Also, the article, though I confess I did not read it in its full length, appears to be an outgrowth of the Cold War era, which promised technological advances for society (and as we've seen without concomitant social development.) In lieu of flying cars, I would hope by the year 2030 that we've learned to accept individual/group differences more, put an end to foreign wars that buttress technological development, and by then hopefully we would witness a narrowing gap between the tailends of the economic distribution in terms of 'quality of life.' What is the social/existential trajectory of the United States? If we are becoming or have become a post-relativistic society how do we advocate to treat eachother more humanly, when the very defintion of the word lends itself to deconstruction. Everything that is solid melts into air...

Re: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?

Te Atatu Intermidiate — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:23:59 -0000

we are in 2008 thaty did not happen