Predicting The Future in 1900

[mitsuki lover]

I was looking through the latest issue(February 2008) of Scientific American today and they have in the Anti-Gravity column a list of predictions for the year 2000 made in the December 1900 Ladies Home Journal by one
John Elfreth Watkins,Jr.there's also a link to the full list of predictions.
For those interested the link is:
http://www.tinyurl.com/3yuaxx
Surprisingly some of them are almost accurate.Although I think the shape many Americans are in today most people could barely walk ten feet let allow the ten miles he predicts as average.

[Denimcat]

I remember getting some children's almanac thing from my grandma that was published in the 70's. It included a bunch of predictions by little kids for the year 2000 including maid robots and hover cars. I don't really get how even little kids think we'd make that much progress in just 30 years. XD

Although considering we have Roomba now, I guess we do sort of have maid robots.

[minakichan]

Haha, this is why sci fi kind of makes me roll my eyes. Giant robots by 2040? REALLY? I think Tetsuwan Atom is set in 2000 or something, too.

[Doubleshadow]

Sometimes predictions are fairly accurate and show careful consideration, other times tremendous ego and proof positive intelligence is not interchangeable with common sense.

Mosquitoes, flies and rats eliminated. Ha! But, they're fixation on horses and thoughts they would go extinct shows what they thought about most often, even if they completely forgot that people love luxury and convenience.

[bakura_fan]

wow. some of those predictions sound pretty good...some..i'm glad didn't come true. lol

[mitsuki lover]

Still waiting for those durn flying cars from the Jetsons!

[Ingemar]

But, they're fixation on horses and thoughts they would go extinct shows what they thought about most often, even if they completely forgot that people love luxury and convenience.

Not to mention what a tremendous uproar would occur if horses went extinct. What majestic animal would girls obsess over then?

*wishes it was racing season*

[mitsuki lover]

Well they could always obsess over cats!

[AsianBlossom]

Nah, too small... XD

[Righteousss]

my grandma told me around her teen years they were predicting that by 2000 our automobile industry would have been advanced and cars would be flying. Haha funnay

oh oh and dont forget the y2k bug lol

[mitsuki lover]

I don't think we will ever get to the point of having cars that actually fly,it's more likely that the closest we'll get is some form of hovercar.

[termyt]

#8 and #10 are a little spooky in their accuracy, if you take into account the 19th Century understanding of what our 21st Century stuff woud be like.

And I wish we would get rid of C, X, and Q. They don't do us any good anyhow. And kan we adopt the metrik system? Please?

[Alice]

Fascinating. Some of the things were actually right!

[mitsuki lover]

Well some are easier to guess than others.I mean if we were to predict the next 100 years we might be able to get between a 25% to 50% accuracy rating ourselves.I don't think 100% accuracy would be possible,but perhaps
as much as 50%.
For example it would be easy to predict that within the next 50 years we will have a African American President and a Woman President.The popularity among Democrats of both Obama and Hilary make this a certainty that in the near future we will have both an African American
and a Woman President,something that even twenty years ago would be
unthinkable.