Will life be worth living in 2000 AD? from Weekend Magazine July 22, 1961

posted by Richard Wolfe on Monday, July 18, 2011 at 9:00am ·

PublicFriendsFriends except AcquaintancesOnly MeCustomClose FriendsFamilySee all lists...notablesSpeedo picsInner circleSpeedo Calendar PicsSpeedo ClanbsWay Too Much to ListyesEdmonton AreaAcquaintancesGo Back

July 22, 1961, Weekend Magazine

 A checklist .. I think we may be behind schedule on a few things. Probably because all the engineers are on fb or youtube.   RTW

Will life be worth living in 2000 AD?  from Weekend Magazine July 22, 1961

What sort of life will you be living 39 years from now? Scientists have looked into the future and they can tell you.

1. It looks as if everything will be so easy that people will probably die from sheer boredom. Nope
2. You will be whisked around in monorail vehicles at 200 miles an hour and you will think nothing of taking a fortnight's holiday in outer space. Nope
3. Your house will probably have air walls, and a floating roof, adjustable to the angle of the sun.Nope
4. Doors will open automatically, and clothing will be put away by remote control. The heating and cooling systems will be built into the furniture and rugs. in our cars yes but houses nope
5. You'll have a home control room - an electronics centre, where messages will be recorded when you're away from home.  YESThis will play back when you return, and also give you up-to-the minute world news, and transcribe your latest mail.
6. You'll have wall-to-wall global TV, an indoor swimming pool, TV-telephones and room-to-room TV. Press a button and you can change the décor of a room.   TV yes more or less .. rest NO
7. The status symbol of the year 2000 will be the home computer help, which will help mother tend the children, cook the meals and issue reminders of appointments.   yes and no .. tend children yes appts yes .. cook .. NO!!
8. Cooking will be in solar ovens with microwave controls. Garbage will be refrigerated, and pressed into fertiliser pellets.  Yes on the microwaves no on the frozen garbage
9. Food won't be very different from 1961, but there will be a few new dishes - instant bread, sugar made from sawdust, foodless foods (minus nutritional properties), juice powders and synthetic tea and cocoa. Energy will come in tablet form.  Yes and No .. elements of truth .. food is very different but energy comes in burger/pizza/fast diet form
10. At work, Dad will operate on a 24 hour week.  Not in a pure Capitalist Society . but there are Rumors that Europe is better than North AmericaThe office will be air-conditioned with stimulating scents and extra oxygen - to give a physical and psychological lift.
11. Mail and newspapers will be reproduced instantly anywhere in the world by facsimile. Yes well we passed that stage but the idea is correct
12. There will be machines doing the work of clerks, shorthand writers and translators. Machines will "talk" to each other. yes
13. It will be the age of press-button transportation. Rocket belts will increase a man's stride to 30 feet, and bus-type helicopters will travel along crowded air skyways. Nawww we got a mulitplicity of Insurance companies instead.  That mixed with proliferation of  regulation in safety laws etc. means no advances in movement for at least another 100 years.There will be moving plastic-covered pavements, individual hoppicopters, and 200 m.p.h. monorail trains operating in all large cities.  
14. The family car will be soundless, vibrationless and self-propelled thermostatically. The engine will be smaller than a typewriter. CWe are maybe 30% of the way there .ars will travel overland on an 18 inch air cushion.  
15. Railways will have one central dispatcher, who will control a whole nation's traffic. Jet trains will be guided by electronic brains. Railways??  No railways are becoming obsolete
16. In commercial transportation, there will be travel at 1000 m.p.h. at a penny a mile. Hypersonic passenger planes, using solid fuels, will reach any part of the world in an hour.  about 50% there .. no solid fuel and we are down to about 6 hours if we want to be. 
17. By the year 2020, five per cent of the world's population will have emigrated into space. Many will have visited the moon and beyond.  Naw they killed the space program when Russia died .. no competition. and with the advent of the computer and the death of  dramatic tv (only reality shows survive - its 100 channels of 24 hour Jerry Springer) our kids are not reading sci fi and are not interested in science.  
18. Our children will learn from TV, recorders and teaching machines. They will get pills to make them learn faster.  They are taking the pills but the pills arent working to improve their intelligence!!We shall be healthier, too. There will be no common colds, cancer, tooth decay or mental illness.
19. Medically induced growth of amputated limbs will be possible. Rejuvenation will be in the middle stages of research, and people will live, healthily, to 85 or 100. Stem cell research goes on 
20. There's a lot more besides to make H.G. Wells and George Orwell sound like they're getting left behind.  Maybe .. they do look a bit antique .. naive maybe.. but we still havent caught up to their basic ideas. 
21. And this isn't science fiction. It's science fact - futuristic ideas, conceived by imaginative young men, whose crazy-sounding schemes have got the nod from the scientists.  the computer geeks went to Nasdaq and became venture capitalists. 

It's the way they think the world will live in the next century - if there's any world left!  Yep we are still here .. and collectively a bit safer than they were .. 

©1999 Pixelmatic