Which predictions of the futurists of the 1950s have already come true, and which will come true soon: distance learning, drones, etc

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-10 02:10

Futurology is a very interesting teaching that is at the intersection of science, art and common sense. It has nothing to do with predictions, since futurologists always carefully follow technical innovations and try to guess the vector of human development. Sometimes it turns out well, and then we admire their insight, sometimes the trends are guessed incorrectly, and in this case it looks funny. Not so long ago, another direction has become fashionable - retrofuturism - the study of predictions made 50-100 years ago. Let's check together what from the comics of the famous American futurist artist Arthur Radebeau has come true today.

Arthur Radebeau worked in advertising for many years, until in 1958 he found his own unique direction - he began to draw bright, optimistic comics telling about life in the near future. For five years, these illustrations were published as a separate heading by the Chicago Tribune media syndicate. The column title, Closer Than We Think, became prophetic. Of course, not all of them, but many of these predictions have really come true, less than a hundred years have passed, some are likely to become reality in the near future. Today the name of Arthur Radebeau is again popular - users of the World Wide Web are happy to share his "predictions from the past", discussing what else might come true.

For a long time, a phone with video calling seemed to be close, but difficult to implement. Technically, people could have done this for a long time, the question was probably the cost. Today, many opportunities are realized thanks to the Internet, but, unfortunately, none of the futurists of that time predicted it.

The ability to instantly change the color of your favorite car according to your mood may seem attractive, but has not yet been realized. Today, even changing the color of your nails takes longer than painting the car in this picture. Similar technologies, by the way, were encountered a couple of times in semi-fantastic spy films, where changing the color of the car could help the agents hide from enemies.

But UAVs and electric vehicles can rightfully be considered come true predictions. It is expected that in the near future our roads will be filled with them. True, the highway connecting Russia and Alaska, as in the picture below, has not even been designed yet.

Many "predictions" of Arthur Radebeau related to the home environment and everyday life - this topic is close to people, and modern household appliances are really developing rapidly, so here the artist's imagination unfolded to its fullest. Something he guessed correctly: today, for example, you will not surprise anyone with huge TVs. It remains to be hoped that multifunctional housewife robots are also somewhere on the way for developers.

The house itself should in the near future, according to the artist, be under a hood, and in the literal sense - it is raining outside, and in your micro-universe it is dry and warm, it's time to mow the lawn.

Probably, by 2020, according to people from the 50s, humanity should have conquered most diseases, and in the event of injuries, it should have been able to simply "assemble" a person from spare parts, i.e. organs. It cannot be said that this forecast looks stupid today. Diseases, of course, come, but organ transplantation has already been practiced for a long time. In laboratories, attempts are being made to actually grow "spare parts" for humans.

And, of course, the artist could not keep silent about the main dream of mankind. In his future, people fly with small personal helicopters. Something like this, of course, already exists, it remains to wait until mini-flying vehicles come into use, and it will be possible to consider that the future has come.

The next few predictions can also rightfully be considered come true.