We all of us of a certain age who grew up in the UK remember nerds paradise Tomorrow's World. Sure it was fun looking at lots of hot new gadgets which would revolutionize our lives, but it was hard to take a technology program seriously that had a puffed pastry letter in its opening credits. Hardly cutting edge now was it? And falling ratings meant it got the chop in 2003.
I don't actually remember much of what was shown on it apart from the usual stuff about robots doing all our housework by the year 2000. And I vaguely remember some guy who said he was going to put music onto a chip and we laughed because we thought nothing could ever replace LPs. But most of it (probably 90%) never found its way into stores. Do you remember any of the other 'inventions' they talked about? And whether they ever saw the light of day?
I've always thought science fiction novels were a load of rot because they always put today's society into the future, just with different hairstyles. It is very hard to think outside of one's own time. Just look, for example, at this prediction for fashions in 2000:
A total joke, apart from:
1. The shoe predictions: Marc Jacobs recently did the cantilever heel:
2. These days all men do wear cell phones and many also sport Anthrax beards:
My fondest hope for the future is that breast implants develop to the stage when they no longer look like three elephants squished into a mini a la Natalie Rooney's rather unfortunate ones (or maybe the surgeon was a trainee and she got them half price):
So, I'm curious, what are your predictions for, say, 2050?
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30 comments:
2050? Hopefully I'll have viagara on prescription and will be banned from setting foot anywhere near the local girl's college.
But seriously, I think the home computer will shrink to the size of a small lunchbox and will be the main household entertainment centre for music, TV, pictures, art, and work. It'll be fully portable but nobody will take it anywhere as they'll all be morbidly obese. George Orwell eat your heart out!
I'm a bit of a fatalist, I fear; I think ahead to 2050 and imagine a scenario like 'Children of Men' or worse yet, '28 Days Later'. I really think we are going to get wiped out by some rampant virus. How's that for upbeat?
I am naively going to say vehicles that run on something other than fossil fuel.
I think the answer lies in human waste, which is bad news for people who suffer from constipation but great news for those who eat curry and dried fruit.
Hang on...must dash, three men in black have just arrived at my door with guns...
well if fashion continues the way it currently is...we will all be wearing straps only...seems we are showing almost everything the way it is now...the one thing i foresee is that our homes will become more electronic...just like we have controllers for the car to open it, turn it on prior to entering it, etc...we will have something similar for our homes...okay i am boring...it's either that or mass destruction...either way i won't be here...
We'll all be half computers. Implants so we just blink to take a photo, say hello to answer the phone ringing from our eardrum.
The instant female orgasm from electronic stimulation of a woman's spine will be available well before then. What will women do when orgasms are that easy? Makes you think.
I think Vi is the closest - we will quasi-cloned. I msut take up your point on science fiction though. Some of the best and most thought provoking novels have read have been science fiction. Think Dune, Kurt Voonegut etc. they allow writers to explore other social arrangements. Doris Lessing said that her science fiction (the Canopus in Argos series) books were the most important she ever wrote.
It's hard to predict that far ahead, because nanotechnology will have as profound an impact on our lives as the internet and mobile phones already have.
In answer to your specific question, I suspect breast implants will be viewed as one of those quaint 20th century notions that has long been superceded. Instead, a woman who fancies having a bit more up top will go into a supermarket and buy a bottle of nanite-laden saline. This will be injected into her chest, where the nanites will penetrate the fatty breast tissue. Then, she'll use her computer (or equivalent thereof) to wirelessly instruct the nanites to replicate the cells, and thus provide as much of an increase as she wishes. The end result will look completely natural (even if freakishly large) because, fundamentally, the resulting breasts will be.
Once done, the nanites will then be deactivated, and either absorbed into the body harmlessly, or will be passed in her urine. (Alternatively, the nanites might just go dormant, allowing for future reactivation and further adjustment, but I suspect this won't happen. The possibilities for mischief from those of us who work in the wireless industry would just be too great... :) )
2050?
The prediction I can make fairly confidently is that I'm not likely to be blogging then!
Tomorrow's World? Gosh, I had a flashback to a girlish crush on Howard Stapleford :-O How embarrassing.
x
steve...
Fear not, if by 2050 Viagra is not available on prescription simply move toChile where they are giving it out free to pensioners!!!
they'll all be morbidly obese.
oh please don't let it be so! They need to invent a diet pill that doesn't make you die of heart attacks to bad.
Gabrielle...
I really think we are going to get wiped out by some rampant virus.
I don't mind dying from the virus as long as I get a warning that I'm about to get it, then I can have a merry couple of weeks sniffing every drug and having wild orgies!
Misssy M...
What are you on about Misssy? Shit fuelled cars?? You may be onto something but the shit fumes would be something awful.
Daisy...
we will all be wearing straps only
I don't know Daisy, maybe it will be fashionable to wear one's internal organs on the outside, like having a heart pendant that is actually your throbbing heart. Could be fun!
Vi...
say hello to answer the phone ringing from our eardrum.
All of it will just mean less and less physical activity and more fatsos alas.
Gorilla Bananas...
What will women do when orgasms are that easy?
I have to say I enjoy making my men slave over giving me an orgasm. If someone can't put in the leg work then they aren't worth it. So if female orgasms were instant I think it would take all the fun out of sex!
Textual Healer...
I must take up your point on science fiction though.
Maybe some science fiction books are thought provoking but I have never been able to get into them and science fiction movies are just sleep inducing for me.
Stephen...
because nanotechnology will have as profound an impact on our lives as the internet and mobile phones already have.
I'm afraid that I don't really have any idea what nanotechnology is..according to wikipedia is a multi-disciplinary field!
Then, she'll use her computer (or equivalent thereof) to wirelessly instruct the nanites to replicate the cells
this sounds like fun, are you inventing this as we speak? Can I be your experimental model?
Ro...
I'm not likely to be blogging then!
why, because you'll be dead? Don't rule out full body transplants by then!
Kitty
I had a flashback to a girlish crush on Howard Stapleford,
woah girl, you are a kinky one!
anthrax beards need to go, like, now. along with the ironic mustache. i think in 2050 the ironic facial hair will be replaced by the ironic toenails. we'll be wearing them really long and use them to jab at nasty people on the subway.
I know for sure that personal jetpacks which were due out for 2000, have now been deferred to 2050, due to the unfortunate fact that those who predicted that we would all be falling from the skys to our premature death in 2000, were a load of merchant bankers.
In 2050 I suspect we'll all be speaking Mandarin and yearning for a return to gentler times when it was just the US invading oil-rich sovereign states...
The only thing I can say about Tomorrow's World is that NOT ONE of their predictions came true. I'm still waiting for solid/luminous bicycle tyres to become available on the open market.
What is my prediction for 2005 ?
We'll all be dead and not one of us will have fucked a total stranger on a continental train.
How sad.
BZZ ...crackle .... what's that ???
It's 2008 already ???
You're shitting me - I'd better sign up for the Tomorrow's World team as I appear to be a total c*** too.
i don't know about you EK but i am still holding out for the train thing...who knows...it could happen...but it better be before 2050 or i wouldn't remember it anyway
teleportation will be as everyday as getting in your car
Strap-ons on women will become mandatory; men start to walk funny and take on a permanent haunted look.
A new ice age descends. Oops, got that one a little bit wrong didn't we guys; although all those carbon footprints will certainly come in handy as our arses are frozen off in the next millenium won't they?
Being Scottish will become a criminal offense.
Fart deodorising devices can be fitted up the bottoms of those deemed to be a hazard e.g. those who fart a lot.
In fashion circles, black is once again the new black. Hurrah!
kara....
ironic facial hair will be replaced by the ironic toenails.
that is freaking hilarious!!
gilbert the alien...
It is such a relief to have someone like you who knows what will happen in the future. I hope that if you issue the merchant bankers with jetpacks they get the malfunctioning ones!
fingers...
In 2050 I suspect we'll all be speaking Mandarin
I'm fucked if I'm going to bother learning Mandarin. Basically I'm fucked.
electro-kevin...
is that NOT ONE of their predictions came true. I'm still waiting for solid/luminous bicycle tyres to become available on the open market.
That's what I thought, nothing apart from fax machines and CDs came true.
not one of us will have fucked a total stranger on a continental train.
Speak for yourself ;)
Daisy...
it could happen...but it better be before 2050 or i wouldn't remember it anyway
It will happen, just wear some crotchless knickers and a short skirt next time you travel by rail!
Mei Del...
teleportation will be as everyday as getting in your car
I look forward to it as I hate driving.
everything will be on renewable sources of energy, or at least most of it. technology will become organic and nanotechnology will replace most of the current bulky stuff
i think everyone prefers a more greener lifestyle, so rather than to expect metals and space-age stuff, technology will gear towards disappearing from sight entirely and becoming at one with nature and its surroundings.
2050? There will no longer be any local languages...it'll all be a hybrid of slang, acronyms, and texting lingo
2050? Capitalism will still be in existence but social and economic fragmentation will mean society as we know it will be broken into clearly visible strata with basically no movement between social classes. Cities will be ginormous, and the key world language Chinese. The American $ will be on knees and they'll be hippy like communes all over the place in the countryside as urbanites run away from cities and their problems. I don't envisage a scene like something from Robocop but I do think homes will literally become fortresses, with families getting all shopping online delivered to the door and most present-day office work being undertaken at home due to the expansion of technologies.
finger's comment sent a chill up my spine but only because I know he's onto something. terrifying eh?
Cool question. I'm going to avoid the apocalyptic because those scenarios always bring me down. Although Shaun of the Dead with its Zombie invasion was pretty effin cool:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfDUv3ZjH2k
I'd like to think that the biotech giants succeed in eradicating a few common pernicious diseases. Like, how about, a vaccine for Herpes? That would be nice.
my prediction is that we will be 2 little old ladies telling dirty jokes to each other and gossiping.
side note...
hey guess what, i have Guylian Chocolate Seashells! :)
mars... everything will be on renewable sources of energy
I sincerely hope so!!
VE...
it'll all be a hybrid of slang, acronyms, and texting lingo
You are probably right. Writing someone a love letter will probably be: I wanna DATY tonight. Does that sound gr8?
Thank God I received well thought out literate love letters before the birth of texting!!
jo....
I'd love to join a hippy like commune - but one where people washed and where the chicks didn't have pubic beards.
sparsely kate....but only because I know he's onto something. terrifying eh?
maybe he knows something but I prefer to believe that the future will have fewer wars...
Gargamello...
Shaun of the Dead with its Zombie invasion was pretty effin cool
Yeah, I know, what a cool movie!
Kira...
hey guess what, i have Guylian Chocolate Seashells!
you know if you eat them all yourself you'll just make yourself sick!
Flying dogs would be cool...
I have a vivid memory of someone on TW (probably Michael Rodd) demonstrating CDs. Unlike vinyl, he told us, they couldn't be scratched (uh-huh) and the laser could play through anything. He then put jam on the disc and played it. That seems useful I thought.
I see how the sex toys are now and it make me wonder what the se toys of the future will be like. Will they still be like the ones we have on hotgvibe.com ?
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