WEBVTT - Predictions Are Hard! 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.840 Forward Thinking. Hey that everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:17.120 the podcast that looks at the future and says, at 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:19.760 once I awoke to a futuristic world that were flying 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:23.400 cars and gigantic metal bugs on Jonathan Strickland and I'm 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.880 Lauren volc obam Our third co host, Joe McCormick is 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:31.080 out today, so we are we are forging bravely ahead 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:33.320 into the future alone. I have a feeling he's going 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:36.360 to be very upset with us when he comes back 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:39.000 and finds out what this topic is, because I'm sure 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:40.599 he would have wanted to have been a part of this, 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:42.839 actually that that had occurred to me. He's going to 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.600 be touts unhappy. But maybe that just means that we 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:49.519 can do a sequel episode. There's there's no shortage of 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.960 what we're about to talk about, which is bad predictions 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:56.560 about the future. See, this show is all about talking 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.600 about the future and kind of extrapolating from what we 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:01.920 know out and guessing what is going to come in 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:04.000 the future. But as it turns out, that's really tough 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:07.839 to do, and history is filled with examples of people 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:14.160 making bold, unfounded predictions that they're they're beautiful in their 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:17.319 scope and ridiculousness. Yeah, now we've got we've got a 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:19.520 bunch of those listed that we're going to talk about. 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:22.720 Some of them actually either come close to the truth 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:25.840 or you can understand why they were wrong at the 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.160 time that the prediction was made, because the conditions were 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:31.200 so very different at that time and you could not 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:34.800 have necessarily anticipated the changes that would make our reality 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:37.480 as we know it possible. Sure, and some of them 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:41.440 are founded in a pure misunderstanding of things like physics. 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:44.600 That's true. So first, before we even start off, I 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:47.119 want to give a huge shout out. There's an amazing 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:51.280 blog called Paleo Future, which researches, collects, and presents a 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:56.040 rich assortment of predictions, both accurate and hilariously off target. 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:59.000 So you can just go to paleo future dot com 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:01.919 and they have the blogs there. That was incredibly helpful 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.200 because it's all divided up by decade if you really 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:06.720 want to go decade by decade. Most of the ones 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:09.960 that I have for the early predictions came from there, 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:11.640 not all of them, but a lot of them. Uh, 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.800 the later predictions came from multiple places, because you'll discover 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:20.800 that inaccurate predictions about the future are not limited to say, 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:25.240 the late nineteenth century. We're still doing them today, Lauren 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:28.480 and I actually do them annually because on our other 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.560 show Tex stuff we make at the beginning of the year, 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:34.640 we make a predictions episode where we predict what will 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.160 happen in the following twelve months, and then at the 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:40.480 very end of the year we come back and rate ourselves. 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:43.560 This this it's always a sliding scale. This past year 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:46.920 was squid basses last year. But you never know. I 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.880 mean it's look, I just I just follow the instructions 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.280 that get slid under my door along with some weird 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:57.880 sticky smoke stuff. I don't I don't question it. So yeah, 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:00.360 every every year we're pretty wrong. We liked make that 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:03.240 annual tradition, so more in good company we are. We 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:06.680 are in such good companies. Starting back in eighteen seventy six. Yeah, 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:09.560 so this is a prediction from Sir William Priest, who 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:13.320 was of the British Post Office, who said the Americans 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:16.160 have need of the telephone, but we do not. We 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.400 have plenty of messenger boys. How's that working out for 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:22.280 you England? Yeah, good job. I bet those messenger boys 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.960 are awful busy swimming across the Atlantic to deliver the 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.160 missives over here for people who want to make those 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:32.280 long distance messenger boy calls. Oh yeah, Um, one of 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:36.120 those moments where someone saw a technology and saw no 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:40.920 practical use for it whatsoever and just snootily lifted his, well, 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:45.960 his his noble English proboscis into the air. Also, being 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:48.680 that he was, you know, affiliated with the post office, 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:50.160 it could be that there was a little bit of 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:52.640 a you know, a little a little little bit of 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:56.520 a bias. Share absolutely and next one also from eighteen 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:59.040 seventy six, and also with a little bit of a bias. 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:02.880 The quote is this telephone has too many shortcomings to 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:06.680 be seriously considered as a means of communication. Um. That 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.360 was from a memo within Western Union. Yeah, also a 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.800 little conflict there. Western Union definitely didn't really care if 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.240 the telephone. In fact did not want the telephone to 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:19.240 to succeed. Uh. Spoiler alert for those who had not 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:24.720 been keeping up with news, the telephones wildly popular. One 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:28.200 could say Western Unions send it's less telegram back in 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:32.159 two thousand and six, so just saying eighty nine a 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:36.000 Cornhill University professor named Dr Thurston said that steam engines 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.920 would remain the most important technology for centuries, and the 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:43.600 gas engines and electricity would only be used for small industries, 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:46.919 not great ones, and that steam would even drive the 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:51.600 engines of quote flying trains end quote that could cross 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.920 the continent in two days. And that's one of those 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:58.599 basic misunderstandings of physics. I think, I I don't. I 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:01.080 don't think that that's how steamed. Well. I think Cornell 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:03.680 University professor he might have had a good grip on 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:06.039 on physics, but just thought that you would be able 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:11.200 to constantly scale up steam power, which is not the truth. 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.440 You can't constantly scale it up unless you were able 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:18.480 to generate incredible amounts of heat that would melt anything 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:23.159 closely resembling a steam engine. And I suppose to be fair, 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:28.000 most forms of electricity are are still based around steam power. 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:31.960 It's all. It's all turbines burning stuff to make steam 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.440 to turn turbines. Yeah. So I guess, if you want 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:39.200 to be really um, I guess technical, it's kind of 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:42.679 steam ish, But yeah, it's not steam engines the way 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.960 that he was he was envisioning now to be fair. Also, 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.719 at the time, gas engines were not terribly safe or 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.960 productive there. This was right around the time that the 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:57.520 carburetor was being designed, and before the carburetor had really 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:02.440 taken form. Gasoline engines were more dangerous than useful. So 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:06.840 when you spark really flammable liquid, yeah, stuff burns, as 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.040 it turns out, So unless you've got the right mix 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:12.200 of air and fuel, you stand the chance of burning 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.600 down whatever it is you're trying to power. So it's understandable, 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.799 but it still was a very wrong prediction. In fact, 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:23.800 steam power would fade from prominence rapidly after the the 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:29.120 late nineteenth century and gasoline would take over. Um, So yeah, 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:31.880 that was that one was pretty wrong. Eighte we have 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:35.560 the Newark Daily Advocate, which had four journalists make predictions 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.480 for what the year n three would look like, and 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:41.599 one of the highlights was saying that Chicago would be 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:45.320 the greatest city in the United States, that out of 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:48.960 all the cities, Chicago would be number one, and that 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:50.840 if you were to go out west, there would be 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.640 many grand cities, but none so grand as Salt Lake City, 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.039 which would be the most beautiful and extensive city in 0:06:57.120 --> 0:06:59.960 all of the West and that Denver would end up 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:04.120 being as large as New York City. I pulled the 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:09.120 census from the nineteen nineties and by Chicago was down 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:11.360 to being the third largest city in the US, having 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:16.400 fallen behind Los Angeles, and Denver was in twenty sixth place, 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:20.120 with six point four percent of the population of New 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:22.520 York City. So at the end of the nineteenth century, 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:24.440 I think the idea was that there was going to 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:29.000 be this explosion of population growth in the West, not 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:31.360 the West coast, but as far as Denver, that that 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:33.440 was just an area of opportunity that was going to 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:37.240 really catch on. And it just, uh, you know, it grew. 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:40.640 It just didn't grow exponentially the way they had anticipated. 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:42.720 Sure in other cities. I mean I don't think that 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:46.280 anyone really anticipated that suburbs of San Francisco We're going 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:48.280 to grow the way that they did. Well yeah, yeah, 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:50.760 before Silicon Valley, no one would have imagined that San 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:54.240 Francisco would have been what it is today. I mean, 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:57.920 today it's one of the most expensive areas in the 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:00.440 world to live in, if not the most to do. 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.000 Like San Francisco Paris, like they're there are a couple 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:05.240 of cities that are that are rivaling each other for 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:09.400 a most expensive city ever. Uh. Meanwhile, right around the 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:13.440 year nineteen hundred UM exactly when is somewhat of a 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:16.240 mystery because we don't have the actual dates on the illustrations. 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:20.640 A French illustrated by the name Albert Robida created a 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:23.440 lithograph depicting what it would be like to travel to 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.760 the opera in the year two thousand, because clearly traveling 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:28.600 to the opera is still going to be at the 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.440 top of everyone's list of things to do. You know, 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:35.360 the Atlanta Opera Company wonderful organization, but I don't make 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:38.960 it out there nearly as frequently as I think Albert 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.400 would prefer. But in this lithograph you see the well 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:47.920 to do all wearing late nineteenth century French clothing because 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:50.800 clothing apparently doesn't change in a hundred years. Although to 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:52.520 be fair, if I had the option to, I would 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:56.520 wear late nineteenth century French clothing everywhere. I'd go for 0:08:56.760 --> 0:09:00.520 late uh, late probably eighteenth century, because that like the 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:04.480 really tall weeks. But then after that they board flying 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:07.720 busses and personal vehicles, flying personal vehicles that looked like 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:12.120 something out of uh the Jewels Vernish tomorrow Land stuff. 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.160 So if you've been to Disneyland and seeing like the 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.320 the rockets that look like they came straight off a 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.080 Jewels Verne novel, that's kind of what these things look like. 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.520 They were pretty infatuated with with flying vehicles right around 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:25.719 that time. Yeah, I've got another one I can't wait 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:28.080 to talk about a little bit later, but I'm not 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:30.960 going to spoil it. So also around nineteen hundred, this 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.480 is a big one. So there's a civil engineer named 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:36.800 John Watkins, and he wrote an article for the Ladies 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:40.160 Home Journal that had a host of predictions in it. 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.360 I mean, it's a huge, huge article and I will 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:46.120 link it when we we put this podcast out because 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:49.520 it's worth the read. There there's some predictions that were 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.480 pretty good. There are other predictions that were completely wrong. 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:56.440 For example, he thought that within a hundred years this 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:58.559 this was supposed to be by the year two thousand, 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:01.920 we with a limit the letters C, X, and Q 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:05.320 from the alphabet can just get rid of them. They're 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.720 not doing anyone any good. He clearly underestimated the impact 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:11.960 that low cats would happen. The letter X Yeah, text speak. 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:15.679 As it turns out, really needs that X letter there 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:18.720 so C and Q al right, yeah, sure, who needs them? 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:20.840 But that X you can you can do you can 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.600 do that with a k people. Yeah. So he also 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:28.040 predicted that all animals everywhere, with the possible exception of Menagerie's, 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:33.000 would go extinct, would be eradicated in fact, like including bugs. Yeah, 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:35.680 he said that flies and mosquitoes are unnecessary. Therefore we 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.800 would actually take the take the end cockroaches, we'd take 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:43.120 the effort to completely extinguish all forms of them. We 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:45.679 would kill all of them. But this if you think 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:48.520 this is a crazy idea that mankind would just get 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:52.880 rid of all animals, it was incredibly prevalent at this time. 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.520 Actually I didn't include every instance of it because it 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.440 just one it got depressing, and two and two it 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:00.400 was just you know, you really only have to mentioned 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:03.080 at once. But he was not the only person to say, oh, 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:05.319 in the future, we're not even gonna have animals, because 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.079 what use are animals? They don't have any useful purpose. 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.000 Therefore we could just we don't even need to They're 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:14.440 they're not even a consideration. I'm just ever here cringing, 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:17.080 which I'm which is playing really well. On radio, I'm sure, 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:21.760 but ye, yeah, it's it was pretty pretty rough. He 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:25.320 also said all cities would be free of noise because 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:28.600 vehicles would move on cushioned wheels, street cars would not 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:31.840 exist in major cities, and trains would either be high 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:34.719 above ground or below it as a subway. That is 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:38.720 a beautiful dream. Yeah. Yeah, anyone who's listened very carefully 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:42.520 to our podcasts knows that that dream has not become 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:45.880 a reality. Our our podcast room is on the eleventh 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:50.520 floor of a building and faces out towards a busy street. Uh, 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.560 you could say the busy street in Atlanta, because it 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:56.959 is Peachtree and occasionally you might hear some some noises 0:11:56.960 --> 0:11:59.679 from there. So not so not so free of noise 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.959 after But some of the predictions that he did get right, Okay, 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:06.080 So he predicted that we would have climate controls for homes, 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:08.600 which was not something that was common back in the 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:12.839 but it's pretty common these days. Yeah. He he thought 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:15.400 of it as spigots that would have either hot air 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:17.520 or cold air delivered to your home, So you would 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.480 actually turn the spigot on and would fill your home 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.679 either with cool air or hot air. Now, obviously that's 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.400 not accurate to how climate control like h VAC units 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:30.040 work today. But that but the concept is there. Yeah, 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:33.440 he saw a technology that would allow us to be 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.840 more comfortable inside, and in fact, that has happened. He 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:39.560 also predicted that we'd be able to buy ready cooked 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.960 meals at establishments without a problem to be reheated at home, 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:45.440 so you could go to He he thought of it 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:47.840 as like a bakery where you would go and pick 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.920 up something that had already been cooked and you would 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.000 just you would take it home and that would save 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.360 you the trouble of having to cook a meal yourself. Honestly, 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:59.200 if this didn't exist, I would only eat about one 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:03.320 out of seven days. If it didn't exist, college students 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.240 would be extinct, is really what it comes down to. 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:08.880 There would not be such a creature as the college 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:13.560 student were it not for pre cooked meals. Um. I 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:16.840 say that as a former college student. I remember. So. 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:20.840 He also predicted that photographs will be telegraphed, so that 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.160 if something happens in China, you'd see the photos of 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:25.400 it an hour later in the United States. He says 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:28.439 this by two thousand, so he does. He foresees a 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:31.880 time where we are able to transmit information as in 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:36.839 the information and a photograph over radio lines essentially, and 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:39.400 so that was a very good prediction, and in fact, 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:46.840 that's exactly what we can do now, but because telegraphs 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.200 pretty quickly. But it's pretty cool. Yeah, So anyway, I'll, 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:52.320 like I said, I'll include a list of all his predictions, 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:54.600 because trust me, there are a ton more, and I 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:56.959 wanted to include lots of them, but I knew that 0:13:57.080 --> 0:13:58.960 if I did that, it would just be a podcast 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.200 about his predictions, which I guess we could have done, 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:02.679 but it would have been better if we had been 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:04.839 able to do that back in two thousand, the year 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.160 when those predictions would have either been true or false 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.480 for the first time, because it was one years. Hence, well, 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:13.400 in the next fifty years, when we actually create that 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.280 way back machine, well then we can go back and 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:20.240 our next episode will actually be recorded years before how 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:22.760 Stuff Works was really a thing in our lives. So 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:25.960 that'll be exciting. Nineteen o one, we have a French 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:31.080 illustrator apparently named Monier based upon the Ormonier, I should say, 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:36.240 based upon the signature on the art. However, the only illustrator, 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.080 French illustrator I know whose name is Monier is Henree 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:43.600 Monier who passed away about three decades before nineteen o one, 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:46.720 so it's clearly not him. But anyway, there's some sketches 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:51.000 of people using personal flying devices, you know, like jet packs, 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:55.239 except they're not jet packs. They were wings and propellers. 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:58.760 Like imagine a gentleman in a suit coat, a long 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.880 suit coat, obvious he's got he's got wings on his back, 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:04.280 and a propeller is sticking out of the bottom of 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:07.280 the suit coat allowing him to fly through the air, 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:09.120 so it looks like he's got a propeller coming out 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:13.160 of his posterior. Same thing with ladies, except out of 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:16.520 the bottom of their dresses. Their dresses also outfitted with 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:21.440 very stylish Edison style lightbulbs to light the way, because 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:24.200 you don't want to fly in the dark. Um and 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:29.480 uh yeah, they because they're French illustrations. One of them 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:33.560 shows a lady flying off and a gentleman flying right 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:37.400 behind her, his hand over his heart. Clearly he's infatuated 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:41.080 with her, and it essentially the little message underneath says 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.080 how a man will follow a lady in the future. 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:48.560 We have a New Zealand Star article that was called 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:52.040 the morning Tub a hundred years hence, which I thought 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:56.080 was a truly charming title for an article. It predicted 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:58.480 that by two thousand six, we would all be so 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:02.640 eager to spend our leisure moments pursuing various activities that 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:04.840 we would invent a tub that would get us clean 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.760 much faster than the traditional bathtub. So it would use 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:14.000 oxygenated water propelled against us to replace scrubbing. Um. You 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:16.720 wouldn't have to do any kind of physical scrubb because 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.080 the water does it for you. There'd be a drying cabinet. 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:22.200 You'd step into the drying cabinet and it would mechanically 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.320 use little soft brushes to dry the skin, and then 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:29.440 it would invigorate your skin, possibly using electricity, so that 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:34.600 you were full of them and vigor in the morning. Yeah, 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:37.480 I figured nothing. Nothing really gets the blood going like 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:41.040 electroshock therapy. Also, another thing I didn't really include with 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:44.200 these predictions, but is very true of this particular time, 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.560 the early early twentieth century, was that a lot of 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:51.400 people held magical beliefs about electricity. They thought electricity could 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:56.000 cure everything from mental disease to obesity. Uh. They thought that, 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:59.440 you know, they saw that electricity could have power over 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.880 where things like it can make a dead muscle contract. 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.120 They also knew that there were some electrical impulses going 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:07.480 on with the brain, and that if you were to 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:10.920 encounter electrical impulses that could totally short circuit you. So 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:14.400 some of their beliefs were understandable because it was based 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.320 upon a lack of information. But yeah, this is just 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.760 one example of an idea of using electricity for quote 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:24.800 unquote magical purposes. So after you get all that, you know, 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:28.960 showering done or bathing done and drying and electricity through 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:33.359 your skin, then you could take an elevator down to breakfast, right, 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:35.600 because no one in the future has time for stairs. No, 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:38.640 there's a lot of moving sidewalks in these predictions too, 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:42.040 but I skipped those because come on anyway, and then 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.680 you know, take your news. You either read a newspaper 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:50.000 or perhaps even use a device that talks to you 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:56.359 and speaks the day's news into your ear. That's that's wild. Actually, 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:59.440 at the time, that was pretty wild. I was relatively wild. Um. 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:02.720 The for news radio broadcast is believed to not have 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:08.200 happened until in Detroit. Public broadcasting itself began as early 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.440 as just four years after this prediction in nineteen ten, 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:16.040 when tenor Enrico Caruso sang from the Metropolitan Opera House 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:18.600 in New York to various receivers throughout the city, and 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:22.400 in fact, a lot of other interesting uh predictions said 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:28.840 that radio would allow in an unparalleled era of culture 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:31.680 because you would be able to listen to the world's 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:36.240 most famous artists performing music, singing opera, this sort of 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:38.879 stuff by going to a place that has a radio 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:40.240 and being able to hear it, and it would be 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:43.160 just as good as if you were there. The idea 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:45.480 being that the technology itself would improve to the point 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:47.560 where you would listen to it from a radio and 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:49.520 it would be as if you were standing in the 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:53.560 venue itself. That was and again another way that people 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:56.520 were kind of projecting forward based upon the technology of 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.600 the time, How could this improve? What would it be 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:01.359 like in the future, And a lot of them were saying, well, 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:03.239 in a hundred years, you'll be able to listen to 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:06.080 anybody anywhere doing whatever it is you want to hear 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:09.800 through the radio, because again that their minds were limited 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:12.200 by what they already Sure, sure, no one back then 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:16.679 was really imagining YouTube right. No, not even even the 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:20.280 YouTube founder, as we'll find out, had his doubts much 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:25.679 much later than New York Tribune included a sobering warning 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:28.120 about all those flying machines that are going to be everywhere, 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.080 pointing out that burglars would soon find a way to 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:34.600 fly aircraft silently and thus land on rooftops to rob 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:39.520 people blind. Nineteen eleven. Okay, so, Thomas Edison was asked 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.639 to write a little bit about what he thought the 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:44.520 future would be like, what the world would be like 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:49.639 a hundred years from nineteen eleven. Yeah, and uh yeah 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:53.080 he he had a lot of interesting predictions, some of 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.040 which were a little off the mark. For example, he 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:58.560 said that bars of gold would become as cheap and 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:02.879 plentiful as bars of iron or steel by because he 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:06.000 thought we were on the brink of discovering the secret 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:12.520 of transmutation like alchemy. Yeah, we're talking, you know, sixteenth 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:15.880 century ideas of being able to transform one material into 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:19.920 another through some form physical or chemical process. How is Edison? 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:22.080 I'm disappointed in you. He had to take a break 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:25.359 between electrocuting elephants to death to come up with some 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.280 other ideas so you know, we all know that was 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:33.199 an Edison who literally did that. No, he just condoned it. Uh. 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.360 Also that elephant was a killer, but still I think 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:40.320 deserved a full trial and not just a summary execution. 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:44.080 He also predicted that the material of home furnishings and 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:47.400 construction would be primarily steel. We would move away from 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.480 wood home furnishing steel. Yeah, like your table would be 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:52.199 made out of steel, your chairs would be made out 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.760 of steel. Cradle, baby cradle totally made out of steel. 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:59.119 And that steel itself would become lighter and stronger over time, 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:02.120 so that you could have a sideboard, was his example. 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:04.720 You could have a sideboard made up of steel that 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:07.480 would be lighter and easier to move and more rugged 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:09.880 than a wooden sideboard. So when you have to move 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:13.680 the sideboard, as I'm sure we're all familiar with, I 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:16.800 I don't even know why I bother putting a sideboard in. 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:20.240 All I do is move it, um. But you would 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:22.240 be able to do so much more easily with a 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:24.199 steel one than woulden one. So he really thought we 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:25.640 were going to move away from that. He also thought 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:29.320 that books would move away from paper pages. He thought 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:33.120 that we would start making books using leaves of nickel, 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:36.080 and those leaves and nickel would be thinner, more flexible, 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:39.280 and more durable than paper. So you could have a 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:42.800 book that's more durable than a traditional one. A two 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:46.640 inch thick book with these leaves of nickel pages would 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:49.639 have enough pages in it to hold a hundred volumes 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:55.200 in one two inch book. So because very thin metal 0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:59.520 in in congregate is obviously lighter than would pulp, well 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:02.560 might not be lighter, but it would be more compact, 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:05.200 is his argument. Um, yeah, it was. It was kind 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:06.960 of an interesting idea, the idea of being able to 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:11.160 carry a library around with you, which in fact has happened, 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:15.919 although it's happened digitally, not physically. So his all of 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:19.879 these top few revealed to me a kind of basic 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:26.040