by CHRIS MORRIS
Predicting the stock market is tough. Predicting the state of the world 100 years in the future? That’s a lot tougher.
Paul Fairie, a researcher at the University of Calgary, has been doing deep dives into old, often very old, newspapers for an upcoming book looking at arguments that come up again and again, society’s need to blame its ills on pop culture and inanimate objects, and more. As part of that research, he posted some predictions found in newspapers from 1924 about the year 2024.
As you might imagine, they got a lot wrong—often hilariously. But the futurists of the Roaring ’20s did come fairly close on a few prognostications. Here’s a look at what they got kind-of right and what they got very, very wrong.
The semi-right
Apartments and subways – One prediction foresaw apartment buildings that were 100 stories tall. “We’ll climb to a hundred stories in air. And we’ll burrow below to pay homeward fare,” the prediction reads. “Our city a hive, with a huge population, will swallow the farms of a fifth of the nation.”
Granted there aren’t many of those super-tall skyscrapers today, but more than 20 buildings around the world meet or exceed that height.
Home movies – “There is going to be a movie in every home,” one forecaster mentioned. “Trains, which will be traveling twice or three times as fast as they do now, will have film theaters on board. Families will make their albums in motion pictures.”
…
The wrong
NYC’s population – The five boroughs have never been particularly suited for people looking for elbow room, but the prediction by real estate baron J. P. Day that the city would have a population of 30 million—and no transit problems? That was a bit overly optimistic. (NYC has a population of 8.5 million today.)
MSN for more