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I REMEMBER THOSE! Wow. Really, that campaign is a great way of showing younger folk just what they're taking for granted, and what used to be thought of as "fu

I REMEMBER THOSE! Wow. Really, that campaign is a great way of showing younger folk just what they're taking for granted, and what used to be thought of as "futuristic", and how close the present matches the predicted future.

mojomark 8y ago
Me too, and that's a good point. Judging from comnents above, I don't think viewers today (who weren't used to life before the internet and mobile) don't really grasp the level of foresight required at the time to be so spot on (with the exception of the phone booth still being a thing). I'm sure there's another name for it, but I call it the "Bob Dylan Effect". Basically, if you were born after or too young to remember something having a revolutionary and influential in scope as Dylan was (for music and culture), the impact becomes so woven into the fabric of life that in the wake of the revolution, it's difficult for most people who didn't live through it to grasp the magnutude of the impact. I have a lot of friends who hear Dylan and say "meh, sounds like the same old folk music, I don't get what the big deal is about". But that's the point! Where do you think that sound and approach to music came from? Seems to be the same case with the internet and mobile. Everything seems obvious now, so the ideas of people who really were ahead of their time, simply seem (to some people) like obvious inevitabilities, when that's not at all the case. Note that something like the moon landing doesn't fall into this "Bob Dylan affect". The moon landing today is still as captivating as it was when it happened. That's because the space race didn't persist, and people aren't taking vacations to Moon City, so we're not really in the wake of a space revolution. But, you bet your sweet bippy that in 80 years, well after Musk gets humans to Mars, there will be someone saying "meh, what's the big deal - of course we were going to get to Mars"... when in reality, without a visionary like Musk, we'd still be floating around the planet and moon poking weightless blobs of water (a.k.a. videos I can't stop watching once I start).
- sophacles 8y ago
  TvTropes calls the phenomenon you're describing "Seinfeld is unfunny". Worth a read if you haven't come across it before: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...
  - nyolfen 8y ago
    i’m reminded of SA’s “read history of philosophy backwards”: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/11/read-history-of-philosophy-backwards/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/11/read-history-of-philos... > My hypothesis – and I don’t know if it’s true – is that this is only cliched now because Sartre won. The point of studying Sartre is not to learn that you choose your own identity, but to read him backward – to start with this idea that choosing your own identity is obvious, and then read Sartre to learn exactly how controversial it was at the time and what sorts of arguments Sartre had to go through to get people to accept it, and eventually understand the position that the original reader of Sartre was supposed to have started with. If you succeed, you might still believe that you choose your own identity, but you’ll also understand that this isn’t an obvious necessary fact of the universe, that there used to be people who believed you didn’t and that they had some good arguments too.
- LeoPanthera 8y ago
  > (with the exception of the phone booth still being a thing). Many phone booths are becoming wifi hotspots, so, with some minor historical revision, they're not too far out.
- pvg 8y ago
  don't really grasp the level of foresight required at the time Is there anything much to grasp there, though? These are fairly straightforward near-future sort of extrapolation of then-existing technology, for an ad. "A colour Newton that actually works and you can use on the beach" is hardly some mind-blowing prediction nor was it intended to be.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - xsmasher 8y ago
    At a time where it took hours to download a picture, pagers were more popular than cell phones, WML/WAP wasn't even a dream yet, and e-Commerce did not exist, these ads were pretty prescient.
    - pvg 8y ago
      Sure, but they are prescient in a completely obvious way. The bit I'm questioning is the 'level of foresight'. 'Faxing from the beach' required exactly zero foresight.

mojomark 8y ago

Me too, and that's a good point. Judging from comnents above, I don't think viewers today (who weren't used to life before the internet and mobile) don't really grasp the level of foresight required at the time to be so spot on (with the exception of the phone booth still being a thing). I'm sure there's another name for it, but I call it the "Bob Dylan Effect". Basically, if you were born after or too young to remember something having a revolutionary and influential in scope as Dylan was (for music and culture), the impact becomes so woven into the fabric of life that in the wake of the revolution, it's difficult for most people who didn't live through it to grasp the magnutude of the impact. I have a lot of friends who hear Dylan and say "meh, sounds like the same old folk music, I don't get what the big deal is about". But that's the point! Where do you think that sound and approach to music came from? Seems to be the same case with the internet and mobile. Everything seems obvious now, so the ideas of people who really were ahead of their time, simply seem (to some people) like obvious inevitabilities, when that's not at all the case. Note that something like the moon landing doesn't fall into this "Bob Dylan affect". The moon landing today is still as captivating as it was when it happened. That's because the space race didn't persist, and people aren't taking vacations to Moon City, so we're not really in the wake of a space revolution. But, you bet your sweet bippy that in 80 years, well after Musk gets humans to Mars, there will be someone saying "meh, what's the big deal - of course we were going to get to Mars"... when in reality, without a visionary like Musk, we'd still be floating around the planet and moon poking weightless blobs of water (a.k.a. videos I can't stop watching once I start).

sophacles 8y ago
TvTropes calls the phenomenon you're describing "Seinfeld is unfunny". Worth a read if you haven't come across it before: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...
- nyolfen 8y ago
  i’m reminded of SA’s “read history of philosophy backwards”: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/11/read-history-of-philosophy-backwards/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/11/read-history-of-philos... > My hypothesis – and I don’t know if it’s true – is that this is only cliched now because Sartre won. The point of studying Sartre is not to learn that you choose your own identity, but to read him backward – to start with this idea that choosing your own identity is obvious, and then read Sartre to learn exactly how controversial it was at the time and what sorts of arguments Sartre had to go through to get people to accept it, and eventually understand the position that the original reader of Sartre was supposed to have started with. If you succeed, you might still believe that you choose your own identity, but you’ll also understand that this isn’t an obvious necessary fact of the universe, that there used to be people who believed you didn’t and that they had some good arguments too.
LeoPanthera 8y ago
> (with the exception of the phone booth still being a thing). Many phone booths are becoming wifi hotspots, so, with some minor historical revision, they're not too far out.
pvg 8y ago
don't really grasp the level of foresight required at the time Is there anything much to grasp there, though? These are fairly straightforward near-future sort of extrapolation of then-existing technology, for an ad. "A colour Newton that actually works and you can use on the beach" is hardly some mind-blowing prediction nor was it intended to be.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- xsmasher 8y ago
  At a time where it took hours to download a picture, pagers were more popular than cell phones, WML/WAP wasn't even a dream yet, and e-Commerce did not exist, these ads were pretty prescient.
  - pvg 8y ago
    Sure, but they are prescient in a completely obvious way. The bit I'm questioning is the 'level of foresight'. 'Faxing from the beach' required exactly zero foresight.