That was a very interesting read. I think the psychological aspects he touched on are becoming increasingly true, namely this section: Indeed, the most somber speculation I can make about A.D. 2014 is that in a society of enforced leisure, the most glorious single word in the vocabulary will have become work! I'm not sure if it's most glorious single word, but it definitely has a weight in a time when so many people are visibly unemployed and when everyone just wants to make their money and go home.Even so, mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014. The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine.
I don't think they foresaw video games being as hugely popular or advanced but I know personally that the main reason I game so much is out of boredom. I would venture to say that many do it for this reason.
"There will be a three-hour wait in line to see the film, for some things never change." Actually, we will have watched all of the videos while getting through the front gate... on our phones. The three-hour wait will be at the Gastropavilion, but they'll text you when your table is ready.
Well. Thanks for an interesting dive down Wikipedia. Last World's Fair I could remember of merit was Expo '86; probably because it was the last one anywhere near anything close (and I saw Front Line Assembly play in a forum built for it in '97). I thought we were done with that. Turns out, anything but - it's just that it hasn't been anywhere near the US since, well, '86. And why the hell not? Oh, right, George W Bush: Kinda funny. Some stuff is right on. Some stuff is left field. Kind of Asimov in general - he got psychology but the engineering stuff was kind of over his head a lot of the time. Even he didn't predict that we'd stop wondering.This bad impression, a drive to save taxpayer money and increasing nationalism in America resulted in then-Secretary of State Colin Powell withdrawing the United States from the body governing World's Fairs, the Bureau of International Expositions, in 2001.
very haunting towards the end. as a programmer, most days I am doing one of the few truly creative jobs in this farm of cubes. yet I am at the same time, in essence, "tending to the machines."
Neat read, thanks. Interestingly, almost all of his predictions are possible in one form or another, but we haven't solved nearly enough of our world's problems to make them particularly feasible -- and in some cases he simply misjudged what humans in 2014 would want.