(Presumably) Written at the start of the 20th Century, this list of predictions is better than reality. Sort of
The right/sort of nearly there vaguely:
- A weird prediction of air conditioning, or “Hot or cold air from Spigots”. Oddly, this guy predicts it would be run in the same way as electricity, from central plants.
- Predicting the internet. This is actually three of the entries in one; “Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance”, “Man will see around the world” and “Telephones around the world”.
- To England in two days. His expectations were low. Make it 6 to 8 hours. Also predicts the hovercraft.
The half-way to being right:
- Ready cooked meals. We have a shit load of cheap, nasty microwave food, but it’s not sent to us by pneumatic tubes. You can get a pizza delivered at moments notice, though. And, no, we don’t cook food in labs. Well, the Slug might.
- No food exposed to air. There’s a lot of health and safety regulation (some of it useful, some just wasteful), but we’re not that paranoid about germs.
- There will be Air-ships. Planes exist all right, but they turned out to be more than the passing fad he predicts.
- Grand Opera will be telephoned. That one itself was wrong, but predicts the invention of synthesizers, pedals, and other electronic music doodads.
- How children will be taught. Eh, partially right, partially wrong.
- Store purchases by tube. The closest we have is internet shopping. I’ll mark that up as partial credit.
- Few drugs will be swallowed. We actually have an affinity with popping pills to solve problems, but the guys scores points for predicting x-rays
The utterly batshit and wrong:
- US to have 500 million citizens. It’s got around 300m. Also, Nicaragua isn’t yet an American State.
- C, X and Q being removed from the language. The way things are going with txt msgs, it’s more likely to say vowels will be removed first.
- No mosquitos or flies. They’re not extinct yet, the bastards.
- No cars in large cities. Bristol is determined to get rid of them in favour of bikes, but so far no luck.
- Cars cheaper than horses. Maybe if there wasn’t so much tax on fuel and cars, but not under today’s conditions.
- Everyone will walk ten miles. But we’re the biggest bunch of lardasses to ever attempt to walk the earth. 10 metres is more like it.
- There will be no wild animals. We have rats. Mostly in Westminster, but they’re not exterminated. In his defence, we do breed animals to produce the most food possible.
There’s a few more I left out, since I honestly have no idea if they’re true or not. Stuff like “People will be two inches taller”.
Yep. The 21st Century sucks.
I have discovered a pot-noodle dispensing machine next to a lab I do stuff in. The future is fucking awesome.
Cars are way cheaper than horses! It costs thousands to keep a horse, feed it, house it, you need lots of land to keep it in, but you can pick up a banger for a couple of hundred and run it for something cheaper than a horse’s food and vets bills.
I’d give that full credit.
hahahahahah this is hell funny
Not at the oublisher, I think that it’s funny because it’s true, the future is progressing slower! I also believe that it’s the worlds dependancy on oil, and also, most people just want to buy the cheapest items they can, because most people in the world aren’t smart and buy cheap but look, most people are still stuck in last millennium! good wor kmankind, you just got whipped by womankind for not buying the future, you just bought her a dress because she was about to cry!