How the Space Age Imagined 2014: Asimov's Predictions, Revisited

How the Space Age Imagined 2014: Asimov's Predictions, Revisited(theappendix.net)

65 points by idleworx 10 years ago | 10 comments

peter303 10 years ago |

Disney's evolution of Tomorrowland/EPCOT reflect the three phases of futurism since Asimov's essay. In the early 20th century the future was about more fantastic machines- rockets, super-cars, better home appliance. The Tomorrowland Rocket to Mars ride embodied this. But young people became disenchanted with the pollution and militarism of hard engineering in the 1960s and turned their attention to the biological sciences on Earth Day 1970. The future was about ecology, sustainable living, commune type socialization, etc. The EPCOT dome ride embodied this vision of the future. Then came personal computers, video games, special effects movies, the internet and mobile. The future shifted to an information rich world. Now younsee lots of computer screen exhibits in Tomorrowland.

antjanus 10 years ago | |

I've always wanted to put my finger on how futurism evolved. This summarizes it pretty well.

I wonder what the next shift will be?

toyg 10 years ago | | |

The generation that witnessed the birth of the internet clearly put techno-utopia back on the map: private space flights, talk of getting to Moon again and Mars... The info-dense views parent suggests have come and gone (cyberpunk), in part because we got there faster than expected.

Our children will actually have to deal with the problems we're creating today (copyright maximalism, the failure of representative democracy, legislation scaling to worldwide dimensions etc) so I guess their futuristic visions will be again focused on how to get along on this little planet.

jacquesm 10 years ago |

One of the best inspirations you can get for what you could build to score a home-run is to read science fiction. The older the better in a way, because those ideas may be just viable today. In general reading is a great source of inspiration but SF has a special place in that it is forward looking by definition and has/had some pretty creative people doing all the groundwork.

M2Ys4U 10 years ago | |

Indeed. To aptly quote Asimov: "Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all."

essayist 10 years ago | |

Ruth Ellen Miller's dissertation, Enhancing impact assessment with extrapolative fiction[1], explored the use of science fiction for projecting technology scenarios. For instance, she found SF stories that described the kind of social/class disconnects that contributed to the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown.

Disclaimer: she's a friend and former instructor of mine.

[1] http://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/816/

romanhn 10 years ago |

Prior discussions:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6287340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6995644

xiaoma 10 years ago | |

Just under the article title, there's a link called "past" that shows previous discussions.

romanhn 10 years ago | | |

Neat! Although this seems to be URL-based, linking to mostly empty threads, unlike the discussions I referenced.

smegel 10 years ago |

I wish Art Deco was still a thing.