4 ms·

I was surprised at how pessimistic they were. Did the future really look that bleak 25 years ago?

by Auguste 14y ago

ChuckMcM 14y ago
You mean it doesn't now ? :-) Only half joking. It is easier to see what could happen that would be bad, and believe it will come to pass, than it is to see something that is going to make everything good. That said, there were a number of very hopeful letters in there too. In 1987 none of these writers had any real insight into the changes the Internet would bring. "The World is Flat" [1] wouldn't come out for nearly 20 years. Although engineers were getting a pretty good grasp of what would be different 10 years later in '97. I clearly remember showing my parents Java when they came to visit at Christmas in 1994 and they thought it was 'interesting' but really didn't believe that everyone in the world would be affected by it. The next year (Christmas '95) and at my sister's house in Utah I pointed out a web site on a car ad and asked her if she knew what it was. Nope, I told her that soon it would be the only way to get information on anything. She didn't believe me. We've not made nearly the strides in delivered medicine that we might have, that is in part due to regulatory delays, although mechanical things (titanium inserts, replacement joins, heart valves, etc) did quite well. And world politics were clearly difficult to predict. I too saw the juggernaut of Japanese manufacturing excellence and thought "Gee, if we don't get our game on we're dead meat!" but never ever imagined a world with web sites like Global Sources [2] where you fill out a form, wire some money, and have a Chinese factory working on widgets for you before the end of the week. [1] http://www.amazon.com/The-World-Is-Flat-Twenty-first/dp/0374292884 http://www.amazon.com/The-World-Is-Flat-Twenty-first/dp/0374... [2] http://www.globalsources.com/?WT.mc_id=1001007&WT.srch=1&gclid=COv-m63nuLECFYUaQgodKFUACg http://www.globalsources.com/?WT.mc_id=1001007&WT.srch=1...
- jkimmel 14y ago
  The rise and plateau of the Japanese economy is one of the most interesting case studies on macroeconomics I've come across. There's a great review of it in "New Ideas from Dead Economists" [1]. It's fascinating to look into why the "inevitable," didn't come to pass. Likewise with many of the doomsday predictions we see here, the pivots that prevented many from occurring (arguably, fall of the USSR, massive public health efforts, sheer luck)are sweet spots in history. It'd be interesting to do some kind of meta-analysis of future predictions and these little events that seemingly held back the fates. I can almost groan about trying to assess the qualitative data now... [1] http://www.amazon.com/New-Ideas-Dead-Economists-Introduction/dp/0452288444 http://www.amazon.com/New-Ideas-Dead-Economists-Introduction...
tjmc 14y ago
The threat of nuclear conflict was very real during the Cold War. I remember my teacher asking the class (in 1984) who thought that a nuclear war was "likely in the next 10 years" and virtually every hand going up. Some teenage angst there perhaps, but it was as high in the collective conscious then as climate change is now.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  I was lucky enough to grow up a few miles from an Air Force Base. When we did the "duck and cover" training thing, our science teacher told us it wouldn't matter because we'd turn to ash almost instantly anyway. Recently there was mention of a poll of evangelical Christians and some large percentage thought the rapture would happen in their lifetime. Honestly, that's pretty much literally the same psychology at work as those who believed in impending nuclear holocaust then and imminent climate doom now.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - brc 14y ago
    There's been a bunch of mini-dooms along the way as well, everything from y2k causing planes to drop from the sky to terrorists attacking cities more frequently. I think it's in peoples nature to mentally take trend lines straight up, or even exponentially up. So, if there were x nuclear warheads in 1987, then they assumed it would be 100 * x in 2012. The same pattern is at work with the climate now, as you've pointed out. Those who speak of the largest catastrophes get the most airtime, and it's a self-reinforcing cycle. Any room full of teenagers will inevitably predict the world will be uninhabitable by their 40th birthday, when in reality it will probably be much the same.
- Auguste 14y ago
  That's true, I completely forgot about the Cold War. I grew up in the 90s, so I guess I'm lucky to have never had that looming over my head.
- arethuza 14y ago
brc 14y ago
It's human nature to see the future in a bleak manner. I don't know why this is - it obviously leads to doomsday cults. Perhaps it's an ego thing - people can't believe that they aren't the crowning generation of the human race. They want to believe that their life is as good as anyones will get, because future people just won't be as fortunate/gifted/special as they are. The truth of the matter is that each generation has led a better quality of life than the last for a long time going back. This is both technology related but also, as slow as it happens, lessons do get learned. It's funny to see all the doom and gloom about resources running out, when that's no closer now than it was in 1987. This should be a lesson for the rank pessimists around us now. It's actually very difficult to predict the future, because of unexpected events that change history. Everyone in this group thinks Japan is going to take over the world - they were 2 years away from the bursting of their bubble, which has never re-inflated. They also think that Russia is going to continue to be the foe, when itself was only 3 or so years away from falling apart as the USSR. Nobody could see the rise of Islamic terrorism and the massive pivot that it would create.
- Kronopath 14y ago
  > It's human nature to see the future in a bleak manner. I don't know why this is. I got a different impression - they were either very pessimistic about the future, or unrealistically optimistic. Either a dystopia or a utopia. I suspect that this is because both of these viewpoints were interesting. The most boring viewpoint would be mediocrity, especially to science fiction writers. Yet, mediocrity is probably the best bet for the future. Some things will get better, others worse, human nature will stay the same as it's always been, and barring catastrophes like worldwide nuclear war, life will go on.
mtgx 14y ago
I think humans usually tend to be a lot more pessimistic about the future than it will really be.

I was surprised at how pessimistic they were. Did the future really look that bleak 25 years ago?

by Auguste 14y ago

I was surprised at how pessimistic they were. Did the future really look that bleak 25 years ago?

You mean it doesn't now ? :-) Only half joking. It is easier to see what could happen that would be bad, and believe it will come to pass, than it is to see something that is going to make everything good. That said, there were a number of very hopeful letters in there too. In 1987 none of these writers had any real insight into the changes the Internet would bring. "The World is Flat" [1] wouldn't come out for nearly 20 years. Although engineers were getting a pretty good grasp of what would be different 10 years later in '97. I clearly remember showing my parents Java when they came to visit at Christmas in 1994 and they thought it was 'interesting' but really didn't believe that everyone in the world would be affected by it. The next year (Christmas '95) and at my sister's house in Utah I pointed out a web site on a car ad and asked her if she knew what it was. Nope, I told her that soon it would be the only way to get information on anything. She didn't believe me. We've not made nearly the strides in delivered medicine that we might have, that is in part due to regulatory delays, although mechanical things (titanium inserts, replacement joins, heart valves, etc) did quite well. And world politics were clearly difficult to predict. I too saw the juggernaut of Japanese manufacturing excellence and thought "Gee, if we don't get our game on we're dead meat!" but never ever imagined a world with web sites like Global Sources [2] where you fill out a form, wire some money, and have a Chinese factory working on widgets for you before the end of the week. [1] http://www.amazon.com/The-World-Is-Flat-Twenty-first/dp/0374292884 http://www.amazon.com/The-World-Is-Flat-Twenty-first/dp/0374... [2] http://www.globalsources.com/?WT.mc_id=1001007&WT.srch=1&gclid=COv-m63nuLECFYUaQgodKFUACg http://www.globalsources.com/?WT.mc_id=1001007&WT.srch=1...

jkimmel 14y ago
The rise and plateau of the Japanese economy is one of the most interesting case studies on macroeconomics I've come across. There's a great review of it in "New Ideas from Dead Economists" [1]. It's fascinating to look into why the "inevitable," didn't come to pass. Likewise with many of the doomsday predictions we see here, the pivots that prevented many from occurring (arguably, fall of the USSR, massive public health efforts, sheer luck)are sweet spots in history. It'd be interesting to do some kind of meta-analysis of future predictions and these little events that seemingly held back the fates. I can almost groan about trying to assess the qualitative data now... [1] http://www.amazon.com/New-Ideas-Dead-Economists-Introduction/dp/0452288444 http://www.amazon.com/New-Ideas-Dead-Economists-Introduction...

tjmc 14y ago

The threat of nuclear conflict was very real during the Cold War. I remember my teacher asking the class (in 1984) who thought that a nuclear war was "likely in the next 10 years" and virtually every hand going up. Some teenage angst there perhaps, but it was as high in the collective conscious then as climate change is now.

waterlesscloud 14y ago
I was lucky enough to grow up a few miles from an Air Force Base. When we did the "duck and cover" training thing, our science teacher told us it wouldn't matter because we'd turn to ash almost instantly anyway. Recently there was mention of a poll of evangelical Christians and some large percentage thought the rapture would happen in their lifetime. Honestly, that's pretty much literally the same psychology at work as those who believed in impending nuclear holocaust then and imminent climate doom now.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- brc 14y ago
  There's been a bunch of mini-dooms along the way as well, everything from y2k causing planes to drop from the sky to terrorists attacking cities more frequently. I think it's in peoples nature to mentally take trend lines straight up, or even exponentially up. So, if there were x nuclear warheads in 1987, then they assumed it would be 100 * x in 2012. The same pattern is at work with the climate now, as you've pointed out. Those who speak of the largest catastrophes get the most airtime, and it's a self-reinforcing cycle. Any room full of teenagers will inevitably predict the world will be uninhabitable by their 40th birthday, when in reality it will probably be much the same.
Auguste 14y ago
That's true, I completely forgot about the Cold War. I grew up in the 90s, so I guess I'm lucky to have never had that looming over my head.
arethuza 14y ago

brc 14y ago

It's human nature to see the future in a bleak manner. I don't know why this is - it obviously leads to doomsday cults. Perhaps it's an ego thing - people can't believe that they aren't the crowning generation of the human race. They want to believe that their life is as good as anyones will get, because future people just won't be as fortunate/gifted/special as they are. The truth of the matter is that each generation has led a better quality of life than the last for a long time going back. This is both technology related but also, as slow as it happens, lessons do get learned. It's funny to see all the doom and gloom about resources running out, when that's no closer now than it was in 1987. This should be a lesson for the rank pessimists around us now. It's actually very difficult to predict the future, because of unexpected events that change history. Everyone in this group thinks Japan is going to take over the world - they were 2 years away from the bursting of their bubble, which has never re-inflated. They also think that Russia is going to continue to be the foe, when itself was only 3 or so years away from falling apart as the USSR. Nobody could see the rise of Islamic terrorism and the massive pivot that it would create.

Kronopath 14y ago
> It's human nature to see the future in a bleak manner. I don't know why this is. I got a different impression - they were either very pessimistic about the future, or unrealistically optimistic. Either a dystopia or a utopia. I suspect that this is because both of these viewpoints were interesting. The most boring viewpoint would be mediocrity, especially to science fiction writers. Yet, mediocrity is probably the best bet for the future. Some things will get better, others worse, human nature will stay the same as it's always been, and barring catastrophes like worldwide nuclear war, life will go on.

mtgx 14y ago

I think humans usually tend to be a lot more pessimistic about the future than it will really be.