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Technology developed fast. Sputnik was in 1957. 20 years later we had: The United States landed probes on Mars in 1976. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikin

Technology developed fast. Sputnik was in 1957. 20 years later we had: The United States landed probes on Mars in 1976. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program The Voyager program: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1 The Space Shuttle was developed in the 1970’s Supersonic commercial flight… bullet trains in Japan and France… As a kid in the 1970’s, I imagined 2021 would be much more futuristic.

skhr0680 5y ago
I’m imagining talking to a person in 1971 and saying one of these things about the future is true and one is a lie: In 50 years, even people in the worlds poorest countries will have be able to send a letter that arrives instantly to any place in the world, have a color camera and video camera that can take almost unlimited photos and that you can view immediately and send to your friends instantly, a TV that can watch any TV program or movie ever filmed, a record player with all of the music in the world, a library with every book, a clock that is never wrong, a TV phone that can call anyone on the planet for free, a computer more powerful than every computer currently on the planet added together, a map of the entire world that knows where you are and can tell you how to get to anywhere you want to go to, in one candy bar sized piece of glass, that they all carry around in their pocket. or In 50 years, the US and Soviets will have colonized the entire solar system, and traveling to space will be as mundane to people then as riding the bus is now.
- ansgri 5y ago
  You’d better add more details to the second option to make it fair, there’s a cognitive bias that leads to a more detailed option being more believable.
  - loloquwowndueo 5y ago
    The first option while more detailed focused entirely on advances in computing and digital signal processing; this was mostly unknown to laypeople in the seventies. So despite the level of detail, it’s likely that random people on the street would have considered the second option more likely / true, since the space race and Cold War were front-page news every day.
- pmlnr 5y ago
  > a TV that can watch any TV program or movie ever filmed > a library with every book LOL. Reality wants a word with it's licenses and DMCA-s.
  - skhr0680 5y ago
    Hey, who said anything about paying?
    - pmlnr 5y ago
      It's not just the question of paying. There are so many movies, series, etc, especially dubbed ones, that only exist in closed, offline archives, and licensing prevents them from being digitalised at all.
      - nomdep 5y ago
        Even blockbuster movies. Does anyone remember the movie “Cocoon”? Is impossible to watch it now unless you can find it in an old VHS tape
        harph 5y ago
        You mean the one from 1985 about those oldtimers bathing with lifegiving alien artifacts? Such memories! Also ofc I found it in one google search.
        folmar 5y ago
        It has 20 different encodings on Pirate Bay alone, quite far from impossible to watch.
        jl6 5y ago
        Amazon have it on blu-ray, in stock, next day delivery.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Duncan Makenzie had a new minisec, and he was not quite sure how parts of it worked. The 'Sec was the standard size of all such units, determined by what can fit comfortably in the human hand. At a quick glance, it did not differ greatly from one of the small electronic calculators that had started coming into general use at the end of the twentieth century. It was, however, infinitely more versatile, and Duncan could not imagine what life would be like without it. Because of the finite size of clumsy human fingers, it had no more controls than that of its ancestor of three hundred years earlier. There were fifty neat little studs; each, however, had an unlimited number of functions, according to the mode of operation - for the character visible on each stud changed according to the mode. -- Arthur C. Clarke, Imperial Earth, 1976 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1267 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1267 That itself was nearly a decade after the newspad of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968): http://technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=529 http://technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=529 https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=-3949GAIokg https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=-3949GAIokg See also "As We May Think" by Vannevar Bush, 1945. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/?single_page=true http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-ma... (Numerous HN discussions: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22as%20we%20may%20think%22&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). You'll find similar notions proposed by H.G. Wells (1930s), Paul Otlet (1930s), and arguably Denis Diderot (18th century). The notion of universal access to media is hardly novel or original. The technology to make it happen did take some time, but the outlines were clear by the 1960s and before. It is indeed the property and rights aspects which have principally held us back. It's interesting to note that for any printed materials, with SciHub and LibGen, the battle is very nearly completely won.
The_rationalist 5y ago
Major advances have been killed because of death aversion e.g The space shuttle. There was a human error and had they double/triple checked it would have been avoided. Anyway the human life cost is hypocrisy, with the budget they have and considering the gigantic number of avoidable deaths on earth through money they could have gotten a net life ratio by divesting e.g 0.1% of their budget, it's all inept media politics. In consequence, many things that were possible are no longer. About supersonic airflight, the Concorde was sabotaged, it was again much more safe than e.g driving a car and it was sabotaged economically by making illegal all air route except the transatlantic one. I'm unconvinced the bang from going beyond the speed of sound is that much of an issue, and they could done it higher in the air if needed? Anyway there are many technologies nowadays that reduce this noise, unfortunately the time to market and legal inept inertia will make us wait for another number of decades until this majorly useful technology come back. About maglevs and void tunnels trains I don't know why it doesn't pan out, must be too expensive, probably.
u801e 5y ago
> As a kid in the 1970’s, I imagined 2021 would be much more futuristic. In the 1970s, we had calculator watches. Now we have smartphones. So that's one way to look at it :)
- melling 5y ago
  If we are thinking in half a century, the Wright Brothers first flew in 1903 and Chuck Yeager went faster than sound in 1947. Sure, some things have greatly improved in the last 50 years. Color television was a big thing in the late 60’s. Now we’ve gone from analog to digital at 4K on huge flat panels.

skhr0680 5y ago

I’m imagining talking to a person in 1971 and saying one of these things about the future is true and one is a lie: In 50 years, even people in the worlds poorest countries will have be able to send a letter that arrives instantly to any place in the world, have a color camera and video camera that can take almost unlimited photos and that you can view immediately and send to your friends instantly, a TV that can watch any TV program or movie ever filmed, a record player with all of the music in the world, a library with every book, a clock that is never wrong, a TV phone that can call anyone on the planet for free, a computer more powerful than every computer currently on the planet added together, a map of the entire world that knows where you are and can tell you how to get to anywhere you want to go to, in one candy bar sized piece of glass, that they all carry around in their pocket. or In 50 years, the US and Soviets will have colonized the entire solar system, and traveling to space will be as mundane to people then as riding the bus is now.

ansgri 5y ago
You’d better add more details to the second option to make it fair, there’s a cognitive bias that leads to a more detailed option being more believable.
- loloquwowndueo 5y ago
  The first option while more detailed focused entirely on advances in computing and digital signal processing; this was mostly unknown to laypeople in the seventies. So despite the level of detail, it’s likely that random people on the street would have considered the second option more likely / true, since the space race and Cold War were front-page news every day.
pmlnr 5y ago
> a TV that can watch any TV program or movie ever filmed > a library with every book LOL. Reality wants a word with it's licenses and DMCA-s.
- skhr0680 5y ago
  Hey, who said anything about paying?
  - pmlnr 5y ago
    It's not just the question of paying. There are so many movies, series, etc, especially dubbed ones, that only exist in closed, offline archives, and licensing prevents them from being digitalised at all.
    - nomdep 5y ago
      Even blockbuster movies. Does anyone remember the movie “Cocoon”? Is impossible to watch it now unless you can find it in an old VHS tape
      - harph 5y ago
        You mean the one from 1985 about those oldtimers bathing with lifegiving alien artifacts? Such memories! Also ofc I found it in one google search.
      - folmar 5y ago
        It has 20 different encodings on Pirate Bay alone, quite far from impossible to watch.
      - jl6 5y ago
        Amazon have it on blu-ray, in stock, next day delivery.
dredmorbius 5y ago
Duncan Makenzie had a new minisec, and he was not quite sure how parts of it worked. The 'Sec was the standard size of all such units, determined by what can fit comfortably in the human hand. At a quick glance, it did not differ greatly from one of the small electronic calculators that had started coming into general use at the end of the twentieth century. It was, however, infinitely more versatile, and Duncan could not imagine what life would be like without it. Because of the finite size of clumsy human fingers, it had no more controls than that of its ancestor of three hundred years earlier. There were fifty neat little studs; each, however, had an unlimited number of functions, according to the mode of operation - for the character visible on each stud changed according to the mode. -- Arthur C. Clarke, Imperial Earth, 1976 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1267 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1267 That itself was nearly a decade after the newspad of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968): http://technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=529 http://technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=529 https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=-3949GAIokg https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=-3949GAIokg See also "As We May Think" by Vannevar Bush, 1945. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/?single_page=true http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-ma... (Numerous HN discussions: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22as%20we%20may%20think%22&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). You'll find similar notions proposed by H.G. Wells (1930s), Paul Otlet (1930s), and arguably Denis Diderot (18th century). The notion of universal access to media is hardly novel or original. The technology to make it happen did take some time, but the outlines were clear by the 1960s and before. It is indeed the property and rights aspects which have principally held us back. It's interesting to note that for any printed materials, with SciHub and LibGen, the battle is very nearly completely won.

The_rationalist 5y ago

Major advances have been killed because of death aversion e.g The space shuttle. There was a human error and had they double/triple checked it would have been avoided. Anyway the human life cost is hypocrisy, with the budget they have and considering the gigantic number of avoidable deaths on earth through money they could have gotten a net life ratio by divesting e.g 0.1% of their budget, it's all inept media politics. In consequence, many things that were possible are no longer. About supersonic airflight, the Concorde was sabotaged, it was again much more safe than e.g driving a car and it was sabotaged economically by making illegal all air route except the transatlantic one. I'm unconvinced the bang from going beyond the speed of sound is that much of an issue, and they could done it higher in the air if needed? Anyway there are many technologies nowadays that reduce this noise, unfortunately the time to market and legal inept inertia will make us wait for another number of decades until this majorly useful technology come back. About maglevs and void tunnels trains I don't know why it doesn't pan out, must be too expensive, probably.

u801e 5y ago

> As a kid in the 1970’s, I imagined 2021 would be much more futuristic. In the 1970s, we had calculator watches. Now we have smartphones. So that's one way to look at it :)

melling 5y ago
If we are thinking in half a century, the Wright Brothers first flew in 1903 and Chuck Yeager went faster than sound in 1947. Sure, some things have greatly improved in the last 50 years. Color television was a big thing in the late 60’s. Now we’ve gone from analog to digital at 4K on huge flat panels.