Future Part Two

Remember the Far Side cartoon where a couple scientist types are looking at a blackboard with a complex equation that is abruptly simplified? They are pointing where the equation says "about here a miracle occurs," and one scientist is saying something like, "I think this step needs a little more work."

Most people seemed to think about the future that way. Something would be invented that would bring about that whizz-bang future. That something was invented, but I'll get to it in a bit. But somehow they didn't think about how we would get to that whizz-bang future. All they knew was that the future was going to be different.

Well, today is different, and the same, all at once. Science Fiction became respectable after W.W.II, when the "far-out" ideas of rocketry and atomic bombs became reality. If they were right on those two items, who could say that space travel, flying cars, or wristwatch picture phones were impossible? Futurology became big business as people tried to figure out how to get in on the ground floor. Prior to then, people were more concerned about staying alive in the here and now, than speculating about the future.

The advertising industry found that almost anything could be sold by presenting it as new, or modern, or advanced. They didn't say "futuristic", but the product designs (who's ever going to forget those tailfins?) and bright copy screamed it louder than words. People became conditioned to expect updated and improved products. Compared to say, 50 years ago, the future isn't what we thought it would be. In many fundamental ways, the world of 2000 looked a lot like the world of 1950. Cars, airplanes, rockets, and buildings are very much alike. Oh sure, the trim is different, and the power plants more efficient, but Reginald Mitchell (died 1937) would easily be able to figure out a 747-400. Come to think of it, so would the Wright brothers. Given some time to think about it, Henry Ford (died 1947) could probably understand everything about the current Ford products, and would certainly have no trouble driving one.

The technology around us has been in constant and dramatic change since the late 1800's. I'm not even sure that today has the most rapid changes, and it certainly doesn't have the most dramatic changes. Changes today seem to be constant improvements of things, where earlier changes were more fundamental. I'm thinking of going from a world without electricity, to one with it. Going from horse and human power to mechanical power. Going from written letters to the telegraph to the telephone. Indoor plumbing. Radio. Public libraries and inexpensive books. Compared to that, going from a VCR to a DVD player is small change.

I think part of the problem is simply too short a time period for comparison. There are still people alive today that remember the world of 100 years ago, and probably half the population remembers 50 years ago. Even if the technology has changed, people haven't. I wonder how much of the wondering about what happened to the future is really a dissatisfaction with the present? next