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Obviously any accounting like this is open to debate but, for the most part, I tried to judge by the spirit of the prediction and was generous if the exact mech

Obviously any accounting like this is open to debate but, for the most part, I tried to judge by the spirit of the prediction and was generous if the exact mechanism was a little bit off. * automeals: It's less about the specific items that can be cooked and more about the proliferation of single-purpose kitchen devices and the general trend towards easier cooking. Stuff like microwave bacon cookers, slap chops, pasta cooking containers and other infomercialware * Life expectancy hasn't quite hit 85 but it's close enough to count. And while education and healthy eating has contributed to it, undoubtably as well, so has pacemakers and dialysis machines. * Birth control: I agree with you but I still think this is directionally right. We have more birth control today than 50 years ago, even if it isn't the main thrust right now. * Satellites: The mechanism may be wrong but we can, indeed, direct dial any place on earth right now. * Lucky few: I interpreted this to mean the elimination of "good blue collar jobs" and the bifurcation of society into the educated few with "good" jobs and the underclass working commodity service jobs.

dalke 13y ago
The difficulty in judging any prediction is to the extent that it was true at the time it was made. For example, someone in the 1990s who predicts that there would be self-driving vehicles by 2015 would be correct, because there were self-driving vehicles already in the 1980s. It's very hard for me to judge the 1960s, but that was the era of the TV-dinners and Swanson frozen food delivery trucks. Certainly my grandmother had single-purpose kitchen devices, like a pressure cooker, sausage maker, and gelatin molds that I haven't seen in most modern kitchens, along with a mechanical knife grinder/can opener and grapefruit spoons, which I only rarely see these days. Also, my parents received two fondue sets for their wedding - apparently fondue dinners were the in-thing then. My rough sense is that there's no increasing trend towards gadgets, but only a change in the details. Which is why I conclude that Asimov meant something more than a bunch of kitchen gadgets and a more diverse selection of TV dinners. FWIW, I do think that the life expectancy in Japan definitely counts. I just don't think that pacemakers and dialysis machines contribute enough to be notable. What's amazing about satellite phones is actually how wrong the prediction was, despite being 100% correct. While it's completely correct that sat phones can reach everywhere on earth, the economics behind Iridium failed because it turns out to be easier to set up cell phone towers and lay down transoceanic fiber connections. People generally don't want to direct dial "any place on earth" but rather "any place on the earth where other people live". It's also possible to provide cell service underground, like subway stations, where satellites can't reach. I think your "lucky few" interpretation is valid. Really I'm complaining more about the vagueness of the prediction. It could equally well have been made 100 years previous.

dalke 13y ago

The difficulty in judging any prediction is to the extent that it was true at the time it was made. For example, someone in the 1990s who predicts that there would be self-driving vehicles by 2015 would be correct, because there were self-driving vehicles already in the 1980s. It's very hard for me to judge the 1960s, but that was the era of the TV-dinners and Swanson frozen food delivery trucks. Certainly my grandmother had single-purpose kitchen devices, like a pressure cooker, sausage maker, and gelatin molds that I haven't seen in most modern kitchens, along with a mechanical knife grinder/can opener and grapefruit spoons, which I only rarely see these days. Also, my parents received two fondue sets for their wedding - apparently fondue dinners were the in-thing then. My rough sense is that there's no increasing trend towards gadgets, but only a change in the details. Which is why I conclude that Asimov meant something more than a bunch of kitchen gadgets and a more diverse selection of TV dinners. FWIW, I do think that the life expectancy in Japan definitely counts. I just don't think that pacemakers and dialysis machines contribute enough to be notable. What's amazing about satellite phones is actually how wrong the prediction was, despite being 100% correct. While it's completely correct that sat phones can reach everywhere on earth, the economics behind Iridium failed because it turns out to be easier to set up cell phone towers and lay down transoceanic fiber connections. People generally don't want to direct dial "any place on earth" but rather "any place on the earth where other people live". It's also possible to provide cell service underground, like subway stations, where satellites can't reach. I think your "lucky few" interpretation is valid. Really I'm complaining more about the vagueness of the prediction. It could equally well have been made 100 years previous.