4 ms·

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 poor

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.

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.