50 Years Later: Remembering How the Future Looked in 1974

Retrofuturism is always fun. In a similar vein, I&#x27;d like to recommend <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;paleofuture.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;paleofuture.com&#x2F;</a>.

I remember being a child in 1974 and I was really looking forward to the future. It was going to be amazing in every way! We did get better toys, but in every other respect the actual future has been very disappointing.

Not mentioned in the article, but one common prediction was that we would all be working less thanks to increased productivity.<p>Well, the increased productivity part was right. The working less part not so much.<p>An explanation I&#x27;ve heard and find intuitively plausible is that as productivity increased, so did available credit. Private debt has increased substantially so that all of the extra wealth just goes to debt servicing. If you look at what has happened to the FIRE industries, this tracks.<p>TLDR; Extra productivity is captured by those with capital to lend.

Could they ever imagine that the expectation in 2024 would be that, in general, people would get poorer?

&quot;Sakharov also predicted telescopes set up in space, though he seemed to think they’d be installed in “space laboratories.&quot;<p>Everybody seems to have failed to anticipate how much we would automate, and how fast that tech would progress. People on Mars and select asteroids? No, robots.

Public predictions like this are less about the future than about the social condition and zeitgeist of the present. They project to the future whatever they think will make them look good.