Comments on: The Future Ain’t What it Used to Be

By: Josie

Josie — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:00:24 +0000

Oh, silly me … duh.

We finally have some summer here today, and I played hooky from work. It’s wonderful.

By: XUP

XUP — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:26:28 +0000

Josie – never boring. I was poking fun at your “short attention span” comment. Really, I always read all your stuff.

By: Josie

Josie — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:29:57 +0000

That’s okay. Everyone knows I tend to be rather boring… *heh*

By: XUP

XUP — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:13:13 +0000

Violetsky – Yes, optimistic is the right word. They were blissfully unaware of all that awful stuff that was to happen in the next 10-20 years.

Josie – er.. sorry, I got tired and couldn’t finish reading your comments.

By: Josie

Josie — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:03:22 +0000

My gosh, I’m amazed at how prescient you are. You may be right on all those counts.

I was reading an article in Atlantic Monthly last night where the writer said because of Google and Yahoo, and “instant research” on the Internet, people are losing the art of being able to read a book from start to finish. Their attention spans are diminished, and they read only in “sound bites”. Even then, most of the stuff is just skimmed over.

I believe he may have a point.

By: VioletSky

VioletSky — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:36:04 +0000

They were an imaginative lot back then. And optimistic, in spite of the Cold War threats.

By: XUP

XUP — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:27:22 +0000

Bob – I’m not sure about that typewriter thing either, but I reckon it was something really small & at least Zagar & Evans were looking a bit further ahead — all that stuff could still happen by 2525. But when I see 1960s movies set in 1989 and everyone is living like the Jetsons it’s hee-freakin-larious.

JB – I always think that as humans we’re much more apt to keep digging ourselves into a big nasty hole than we are to create a beautiful, futuristic nirvana. The Soylent Green world isn’t really much of a stretch considering where we’re at and which direction we’re heading — except for the women as furniture part. I don’t think that could happen.

By: JB

JB — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:22:10 +0000

“Pressing a button to change the décor of a room.”
We do have that already.
As long as the button is connected to an explosive device.

I LOVE the fact that you mentioned Soylent Green. The theories, such as they were, behind movies like Soylent Green, Silent Running (if you haven’t seen Silent Running, you should) and Logan’s Run have always fascinated me.
I think there might be many people who possibly had the end of society as we know it on the back burner amongst their thought and fears – almost getting to the point where they were thinking themselves silly for imagining it – who are now re-visiting their previous beliefs, what with the current state the world.

Doesn’t do much good to fear whether or not there will BE a future, though. Even if you’re at the point where you feel that there’s nothing you can do to change what’s to come, you might as well try to do something.
It’ll help pass the time as we hurtle toward extinction.

By: Newsguy Bob

Newsguy Bob — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:55:51 +0000

Two things:

1) What’s a typewriter?

and b) The 1960s also brought us the song “In The Year 2525″ by Zager and Evans, those one-hit wonders. Kinda deals with the same subject matter.

By: XUP

XUP — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:30:10 +0000

Kimberly – I hope I’m wrong, too, and yes I see a lot of people moving toward real food, but then I see oh so many, many more moving further and further away. The tragedy is that countries that up until now had a sensible diet are suddenly eager to jump on the junk food bandwagon because they think it makes them more “western” and sophisticated