The Future Of The Past Was Way Wrong - Just Listen For Yourself
Imagine you're say 11 in 1951 and you are obsessed with the world of science fiction. You have a ton of comic books, pulp stories, magazines, and regular books all devoted to the subject. But, your absolute favorite thing is listening to the sci-fi shows on the radio. You know, the ones that take place in the future. In years like 1986, 1993, 2001, all these crazy futuristic years that will never ever really come.
Now, fast forward to today. You're 66. And you're a grumpy, grizzled, disgruntled, and generally annoyed old man. Why? Because they lied to you. None of that stuff came true. No flying cars, no life on other planets, no space ships, no aliens, no robots, no automated houses, and definitely no time travel.
At the same time all this other stuff came along and confused you. All this stuff they never mentioned. Like VCR's, microwaves, flat screen TV's, DVD players, digital cable boxes, and these computer things. No wonder you don't know how to operate any of that stuff. You weren't prepared. A flying car, yeah, you could have flown that around, but setting the timer on a VCR? There's just no way.
I bring this up because I myself, yes I admit to it, have been listening to these very same programs of yesteryear and I tell you what people, these are the modern history lessons they never taught you at Whassamatta U.
Want to know about the past? Listen to the way they talk about the future. It's quite entertaining to listen to the way a futuristic 2004 works without computers. Oh, it's still futuristic and all, it just lacks all the modern equipment. Because to imagine the future you have to expand on what you already have. You can't think up a DVD player if you aren't aware of anything similar to it. Sure, TV's are present in the future (they're usually in 3D), but VCR's nope. Movies at home? What? Never.
As I said, no computers. Which is probably the key element to how wrong the writer's guesses and assumptions, dreams and scientifically based judgements were. I'm not saying they were stupid, in a way they are probably thrilled to death to see just how much more advanced technology has become, I'm just saying they were wrong. (No flying cars.) As we are all aware, the fax machine is not the most advanced device in our homes. Nor is it the focus, I'd say most of us have never owned one, as it tends to be in many of these shows. The daily paper tends to be "delivered" daily to this device, as well as mail, etc. We call it the internet, they called it any number of things that began with the word "tele". Telefax, teleport, telebox, telecenter, telemachine. You name it. As long as it sounded like television it was the future. (Fax machine-like devices were alive and well in the 50's.)
So, what's all the other super fancy stuff in the false future of the mid 20th century? Well, let's see now...telephone + television, yes, you can see people when you talk to them on the phone. Which I think we were all waiting for even 10 years ago, AT&T even marketed such a phone at one point, but it never really caught on. Once again we're back to computers. You get yourself a cheap webcam, tell someone else to do the same, and you are living 50 years in the future.
In all honesty, in the world of pulp science fiction of the 1950's, the future doesn't have too many fancy futuristic devices. It is more evident that it distinctly lacks them. Hell, in 2003 people are still using record players in most of these serials. Not to mention the fact that they have to look for a phone booth to call someone. How archaic. I distinctly recall one were some poor soul has a laser gun in one hand and in the other hand he is holding a "large communications device which allows him to receive the radio signals from mission base." Hmm...does it play cassettes?
We all would have been pretty pleased as punch with flying cars. But in reality we should really take a look back at the way our daily lives were envisioned to be. This is the future, in fact, it's a lot more future than it was ever expected to be.
Occasionally, the people who write their visions of the future in the form of science fiction are quite accurate. (It is rare in these radio shows, but it does happen.) Perhaps the most accurate one I've read comes from one of H.G. Wells' books from the 1880's. Before the airplane was "technically" invented, he imagined airports, complete with hotels and shops. Of course the planes were launched using a gigantic catapult mechanism, but the description of the modern airport was spot on.
What have we learned from all this? We have learned that the major boom in technology happened in the latter half of the 20th century. And that when we, the people of 2000+, imagine 50 years into the future we will probably find ourselves much in the same position as those in the 1950's imagining today. We will imagine fancier iPods, flatter televisions, better computers, and smaller cell phones. And we'll probably be right, in a way, but for the most part we'll probably be wrong because something will come along completely unforeseen and take everything off in another direction. And that other direction is what we all look forward to.
More about pulp science fiction on the radio can be found here.
You can download episodes of the following shows below. (Try to ignore the consistant mention of the atomic bomb...)
2000 Plus
X Minus 1 (A)
X Minus 1 (B)
X Minus 1 (C)
Dimension X
Beyond Tomorrow
All in all it's a couple hundred episodes.
K. Panda
