John C. Wright ([info]johncwright) wrote,
@ 2007-10-26 12:11:00
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My prediction for the year 2000: Your personal telephone will be small enough to carry in your handbag. Your house telephone will record messages, answer simple inquiries, and transmit vision.

Here, as a link, I offer Bad Predictions for the Future:
http://www.2spare.com/item_50221.aspx

My personal favorite from the list:
  • "Dear Mr. President: The canal system of this country is being threatened by a new form of transportation known as 'railroads' ... As you may well know, Mr. President, 'railroad' carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by 'engines' which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed. (Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York, 1830).
  • "What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?" The Quarterly Review, March edition, 1825.
  • "Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia." Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London.

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[info]jordan179
2007-10-26 06:04 pm UTC (link)
I have personally encountered claims of the impossibility of things already in service. For instance, up until the last couple of years (as late as 2005) people were still telling me (on Usenet) that energy weapons would never be deployed (several years after the US Airborne Laser System was already operational) and that there would never be any market for space tourism (after Dennis Tito had already flown). As recently as earlier this year I was told that Man would "never" return to the Moon, and I still find a lot of people who believe that there is no future for commercial space travel.

Often the result of the Obstacles Always Loom Largest When You're Close To the Breakthough effect (as one approaches the solution to a problem, one by definition must clearly outline and understand the obstacles to the solution, leading pessimists to conclude that the problem is insoluble.

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[info]johncwright
2007-10-26 06:15 pm UTC (link)
The freight container idea is in use, but I am still waiting for those cargo rockets.

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(Anonymous)
2007-10-29 12:07 am UTC (link)
I am still waiting for those freight containers a.k.a. "food dispensers." What could possible be more appetizing? In no time at all we could transform America into Dumpster Diving Nation.

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[info]juliet_winters
2007-10-26 07:09 pm UTC (link)
I wouldn't wonder if Martin Van Buren had a stake in the canal company. I know our local government got caught with that problem. Years and years to develop a canal from the western part of the state to our little 'burg, in the hopes that it would make our town a magnificent metropolis of riches.
Too bad about that iron horse.
http://www.historypoint.org/columns2.asp?column_id=971&column_type=hpfeature

The canal did make quite the wicked terrain feature during a particularly bloody battle of the Late Unpleasantness.
The railroad bridge was blown up, so I suppose the town fathers got the last albeit bitter laugh.

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Oh, man, you're breaking my heart
[info]mirtika
2007-10-30 12:04 am UTC (link)
Watching that little "futuristic" animation returned to me a bit of the feeling I had as a kid. I'm still heartbroken that I'm not living in a Jetson-ian age, with flying cars and sky-high single-family homes, all sleek and clean and space-y. I really thought as a kid that would be, er, NOW. We 9 year olds can be such big wishers.

Sigh.

Mir

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Re: Oh, man, you're breaking my heart
[info]arhyalon
2007-10-30 09:34 pm UTC (link)
The hero of John's latest novel feels just exactly the way you do. ;-)

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