mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (07/13/85)
[follow-ups will go to net.sf-lovers unless you change the header, as this
isn't really a movies discussion]
Here's a topic me and some friends have been bandying about:
What things about 1985 would be most suprising to someone from 1955?
I think you have to break this into two lines of discussion, based upon
social changes versus technology.
Here's my ideas:
From a technological point of view, advances now haven't been too
suprising-- with a few notable exceptions. No one then guessed the impact
of the minaturization of computers would have; the idea of putting a
computer in a washing machine! Similarly, the space program has travelled
in a completely different direction than people expected, with the gain of
suprising knoledge about planetary and galactic astrophysics.
The two real suprises, though, are in biology and particle physics. Both of
these fields have seen the advent of whole new fields. The whole notion of
genetic engineering, for instance. Or (take a deep breath) quantum
chromodynamics.
The REALLY big changes have been social. Nobody expected the tremendous
flux in almost every aspect of society; it's not just that things are
massively different, it's that every 3 or 4 years, they are massively
different. The world political situation would be simply incomprehensible.
What we eat has changed radically; what we see on the TV even more so. So
here's my apotheosis of the 1985 man:
After pulling his "Light" gourmet frozen dinner out of the computerized
microwave, he sits down to a tape of MTV videos.
Any comments?
[By the way, videos are possibly one of the most shocking things of all.
Who would have guessed that people would pay to have Hallucinations and
other dreams beamed into their houses?]
Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe
"You mean to tell me, you built a time machine-- out of a DeLorean!?"
"Well, I figured if you were going to build a time machine into a car,
you might as well do it with some style."