I love old sci-fi

I love old sci-fi too, of course. But for me, what's really interesting about this for me is looking at what they guessed right about, what they got wrong. And why their wrong guesses never panned out.

It's impossible to know at any stage what the future will hold, but yeah, the previous generations guessed right about a lot -- instant electronic communication (email, etc...), libraries of television shows we can watch any time (yep), space travel (well, close to home yes, farther way, not so much), autonomous robots (maybe someday soon?) and so on.

But the things they got wrong are interesting too, as are the reasons why we still don't have them -- flying cars (really hard in reality), really far away space travel (same reason, and still not fast enough), instant food in pellets (or pills or whatever, because who would want to eat all their food that way), and so on.

What are your favorite examples of how people guessed wrong about the 2020s and why they were wrong?

3 comments

I thought this was going to be about how the picture looks like scrambled eggs.
- I mean, it can be if you want...
I love old sci-fi too, of course. But for me, what's really interesting about this for me is looking at what they guessed right about, what they got wrong. And why their wrong guesses never panned out.
It's impossible to know at any stage what the future will hold, but yeah, the previous generations guessed right about a lot -- instant electronic communication (email, etc...), libraries of television shows we can watch any time (yep), space travel (well, close to home yes, farther way, not so much), autonomous robots (maybe someday soon?) and so on.
But the things they got wrong are interesting too, as are the reasons why we still don't have them -- flying cars (really hard in reality), really far away space travel (same reason, and still not fast enough), instant food in pellets (or pills or whatever, because who would want to eat all their food that way), and so on.
What are your favorite examples of how people guessed wrong about the 2020s and why they were wrong?