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Is this really true? If someone from 1950s America time-travelled to the present day, is there anything at all that they conceptually couldn't fathom? Maybe if

Is this really true? If someone from 1950s America time-travelled to the present day, is there anything at all that they conceptually couldn't fathom? Maybe if you transported someone from 1950s China to present-day China, they would be more shocked, but a present day suburban home in 2021 is not all that markedly different than a 1950s home -- and neither is the workplace, the commute, the cars. Mostly replaced paper with screens and tvs with bigger, flatter tvs. The most conceptually difficult thing would be understanding that wireless telegraphs with cameras are pocket-sized and everywhere.

bspammer 5y ago
On the scales we're talking about, I would include the 1950s as "present-day". I would include the last 300 years as "particularly special"
adventured 5y ago
> is there anything at all that they conceptually couldn't fathom? Well you set the bar artificially high with that phrasing. Is there ever anything people of the last couple thousand years would be literally unable to conceptually fathom? No. We know that from ancient texts, they would be able to grasp anything we have today (even if it might take more elaborate explanation). 1950s Americans, or any citizens around the world at the time, would be more than astounded by 3-4 billion people being essentially always connected on a gigantic, seemingly instantaneous global communications and commerce network. The modern smartphone would similarly astound, what they can do all-in-one and the quality of it (the audio, the video, the music, movies, news, communication, click-button services & purchasing, digitization of money, the quality of digital photographs and how many you can take with no regard for space, it would all astound). Someone from the 1980s would be just as astounded by a recent iPhone, they'd feel like a time traveler. People in 2007 were truly astounded by the iPhone. It almost felt like a product delivered from the future. It put all industry jaws on the floor and reset the grid for everyone in the tech industry, without exception. Maybe people have now widely forgotten the shock effect it had, I haven't forgotten. That said, the parent's claim was an exaggeration. We're not inventing/harnessing such extraordinary stuff every year. Maybe a few things of note per decade globally. CRISPR, cracking the human genome, modern antibiotics, Internet, Web, transistor and microprocessor, software, computers including personal, space flight, powered flight, various engines, electricity and electric light, fossil fuels, nuclear power and weapons, various green revolution outcomes (food production), solar and a few key renewable energy technologies, the commercial/industrial laser, and so on. There are several dozen things that can be added to that list from the last 100-150 years. A few per decade globally might be a reasonable peg.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  > People in 2007 were truly astounded by the iPhone. It almost felt like a product delivered from the future. It put all industry jaws on the floor and reset the grid for everyone in the tech industry, without exception. This is a large exaggeration. I was there as an adult. It was another cool piece of tech, sure, but come on.
  - rvense 5y ago
    I think it depends who you were. Some people went more or less directly to being always connected to an iPhone from a world of monochrome Nokias and portable CD (or cassette, even) players and the internet being on a PC tower in a separate room of the house, if you had it at home at all. The intermediate steps - laptops, Palm pilots, iPods - were far from universal, at least in my world.
    - bouncycastle 5y ago
      I was already using a PDA by that time (pocket PC), and the technology was already there, so not like it came out overnight. The only thing Apple improved on was the UX.
      - rvense 5y ago
        "The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed." Most people were blissfully unaware of the existence of PDAs, much less how they worked or what they could do, and for them the iPhone might as well have emerged perfectly formed from an unspecified bodily orifice of Steve Jobs. The statement "It almost _felt like_ a product delivered from the future" is entirely justified.
        TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
        > The statement "It almost _felt like_ a product delivered from the future" is entirely justified Not in the American middle-class, upper middle-class, and wealthy.
jfoutz 5y ago
One of my ancestors father was wealthy. They took long trips over the summer. One year, she came home and they had electricity. One year, they had a telephone. She saw one of the demonstrations of flight by the wright brothers. A global pandemic. No war is good, but I'd put the world wars as particularly bad. She saw people drive cars on the moon, on television! ~1905-1985 was a pretty good run. Cell phones, the internet, mrna vaccines. There's probably tons of amazing stuff I'm overlooking. I don't think I would trade with Katherine. Although, I wish she was around for a few years longer so I could talk to her when I was closer to being an adult. I don't think you could find a modern technology that would throw her for a loop. Maybe, but she's a cherry picked example.
- beambot 5y ago
  Don't forget refrigeration and automobiles. 1885-1985 was an amazing century!
Aunche 5y ago
In the 1950's people technology was still relatively grounded in people's understanding. Any intelligent person in the 1950s could understand how an automobile or refrigerator worked if they wanted to. In present day, people treat technology as magic. It's easy enough to figure out how to use your iPhone to FaceTime someone on the other side of the world, but it's nearly impossible to truly understand how it's done.
- kungito 5y ago
  Funny you should mention refrigerator because I'm pretty sure barely any non engineer could understand reverse Carnot cycle, let alone electricity on multiple levels of abstraction (current/fields/kirkhoffs laws/electromagnetism)
OJFord 5y ago
You're responding to a comparison to >10k years ago (8000BC) with '1950s America'?

bspammer 5y ago

On the scales we're talking about, I would include the 1950s as "present-day". I would include the last 300 years as "particularly special"

adventured 5y ago

> is there anything at all that they conceptually couldn't fathom? Well you set the bar artificially high with that phrasing. Is there ever anything people of the last couple thousand years would be literally unable to conceptually fathom? No. We know that from ancient texts, they would be able to grasp anything we have today (even if it might take more elaborate explanation). 1950s Americans, or any citizens around the world at the time, would be more than astounded by 3-4 billion people being essentially always connected on a gigantic, seemingly instantaneous global communications and commerce network. The modern smartphone would similarly astound, what they can do all-in-one and the quality of it (the audio, the video, the music, movies, news, communication, click-button services & purchasing, digitization of money, the quality of digital photographs and how many you can take with no regard for space, it would all astound). Someone from the 1980s would be just as astounded by a recent iPhone, they'd feel like a time traveler. People in 2007 were truly astounded by the iPhone. It almost felt like a product delivered from the future. It put all industry jaws on the floor and reset the grid for everyone in the tech industry, without exception. Maybe people have now widely forgotten the shock effect it had, I haven't forgotten. That said, the parent's claim was an exaggeration. We're not inventing/harnessing such extraordinary stuff every year. Maybe a few things of note per decade globally. CRISPR, cracking the human genome, modern antibiotics, Internet, Web, transistor and microprocessor, software, computers including personal, space flight, powered flight, various engines, electricity and electric light, fossil fuels, nuclear power and weapons, various green revolution outcomes (food production), solar and a few key renewable energy technologies, the commercial/industrial laser, and so on. There are several dozen things that can be added to that list from the last 100-150 years. A few per decade globally might be a reasonable peg.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
> People in 2007 were truly astounded by the iPhone. It almost felt like a product delivered from the future. It put all industry jaws on the floor and reset the grid for everyone in the tech industry, without exception. This is a large exaggeration. I was there as an adult. It was another cool piece of tech, sure, but come on.
- rvense 5y ago
  I think it depends who you were. Some people went more or less directly to being always connected to an iPhone from a world of monochrome Nokias and portable CD (or cassette, even) players and the internet being on a PC tower in a separate room of the house, if you had it at home at all. The intermediate steps - laptops, Palm pilots, iPods - were far from universal, at least in my world.
  - bouncycastle 5y ago
    I was already using a PDA by that time (pocket PC), and the technology was already there, so not like it came out overnight. The only thing Apple improved on was the UX.
    - rvense 5y ago
      "The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed." Most people were blissfully unaware of the existence of PDAs, much less how they worked or what they could do, and for them the iPhone might as well have emerged perfectly formed from an unspecified bodily orifice of Steve Jobs. The statement "It almost _felt like_ a product delivered from the future" is entirely justified.
      - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
        > The statement "It almost _felt like_ a product delivered from the future" is entirely justified Not in the American middle-class, upper middle-class, and wealthy.

jfoutz 5y ago

One of my ancestors father was wealthy. They took long trips over the summer. One year, she came home and they had electricity. One year, they had a telephone. She saw one of the demonstrations of flight by the wright brothers. A global pandemic. No war is good, but I'd put the world wars as particularly bad. She saw people drive cars on the moon, on television! ~1905-1985 was a pretty good run. Cell phones, the internet, mrna vaccines. There's probably tons of amazing stuff I'm overlooking. I don't think I would trade with Katherine. Although, I wish she was around for a few years longer so I could talk to her when I was closer to being an adult. I don't think you could find a modern technology that would throw her for a loop. Maybe, but she's a cherry picked example.

beambot 5y ago
Don't forget refrigeration and automobiles. 1885-1985 was an amazing century!

Aunche 5y ago

In the 1950's people technology was still relatively grounded in people's understanding. Any intelligent person in the 1950s could understand how an automobile or refrigerator worked if they wanted to. In present day, people treat technology as magic. It's easy enough to figure out how to use your iPhone to FaceTime someone on the other side of the world, but it's nearly impossible to truly understand how it's done.

kungito 5y ago
Funny you should mention refrigerator because I'm pretty sure barely any non engineer could understand reverse Carnot cycle, let alone electricity on multiple levels of abstraction (current/fields/kirkhoffs laws/electromagnetism)

OJFord 5y ago

You're responding to a comparison to >10k years ago (8000BC) with '1950s America'?