The future past vs the future present

We certainly live very different lives from that of our fathers and grandfathers.  That is not in dispute.  But what did not happen is what many expected, though never talked about much. Assuming that we dodged the 1984, Brave New World bullet,  our future was supposed to be a sort of technocratic, atomic-powered, computer-controlled, antiseptic, space-travelling Jerusalem that would at last free us from the curse of Eden and original sin.  We expected some how, some way that we would be on the road to being freed from the human condition.  We expected a sort of bloodless, benign French Revolution with Hugo Gernsback as our Voltaire and Carl Sagan as our Robespierre.  And what did we get?  The City of Man with Tivo.

See this excellent page I stumbled upon about what we used to think the future would bring.

Posted by keli at March 2, 2005 12:12 AM |