I love looking back at people who were looking forward. These images are from French artists and were used as postcards or used in “cigarette/cigar boxes” back in 1899, 1900, 1901, and 1910. Check out a few of these awesome, flawed projections of the “future” (that’s now fifteen years behind us) and join me for a brief discussion of what these images represent.
Funny stuff, right?
I love predictions likes this because they seem ridiculous at first, but they turn out to actually be logical assumptions of what the artists’ future would have looked like had technology continued to increase incrementally in the same trajectory. Incremental progress, day-in and day-out growth, is the mainstay of our personal and societal experience, but they are those times when growth becomes immediate or exponential. Let me put it this way:
Never assume that you, your situation, or society will just keep getting better.
Too many people assume that progress is always incremental, when, in reality, progress is mostly incremental.
But then, there are those moments when progress leaps forward. This might be harder to see in your personal life, though I bet a friend or relative could point out to you a moment when you seemed to have a “growth spurt” in your character or in some area of giftedness. However, these leaps are relatively easy to see in the area of technology.
Think about this oft-quoted line from then president of IMB:
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Thomas Watson, 1943
Let’s not spend a lot of time mocking Watson; he was only making a comment based upon what he could see: massive thinking machines powered by vacuum tubes. He was assuming that technology would improve incrementally. He couldn’t see the leaps coming.
Most of us can’t see the leaps coming. Whether that’s in technology, the Church, or our own lives. We can’t see the leaps before they come.
But maybe we should start expecting them?
That’s enough heavy thinking for now! Enjoy the rest of these funny future-casts from late 19th/early 20th century France.
[Via the Public Domain Review]
Jared Massey says
I love how the artist assumed shifts in technology but not in fashion.
Phil Schneider says
I know, right? It’s hilarious. Technology will improve, but it will not—I repeat NOT—affect any area of our lives outside of the benefits we expect to receive from it.
Eric Dye says
These are amazing.
Flying firemen? LOL
Phil Schneider says
🙂 One of the ones I didn’t include was a whole series of underwater adventures: the whale bus, croquet, and fishing for sea gulls. They are unbelievable.