…at least the future according to 1962. Here’s an interesting piece branching off from reflections on the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle; one of those fun essays where we in “the future” reflect on the predictions about jetpacks and flying cars, and lament the fact that we still don’t have them. It’s a fun read, though, as these pieces always are; giving us us a chance to reflect on how far we’ve come in some areas, and how little progress we’ve made in other areas.

My favorite bit though, is this bit about who wasn’t involved in designing 1962’s vision of the future:

Again, like most of these imperial exercises, the Seattle World’s Fair depended on its sponsors–civic boosters, corporations, and the government–to create its vision of the future. They made a conscious decision to ignore the people who had spent the most time thinking about the future, science fiction writers. Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov were both approached to pitch projects for the fair and both were rejected. Not that they would have done a lot better; despite Bob’s most earnest hopes, hot young women still do not cluster around smart guys to form polygamous communities.

I guess there’s a lesson here, and that that lesson is that while we can all make guesses as to what the future may bring, odds are that we’re going to get most of it wrong, and what we get wrong, we’ll get wrong spectacularly, and often totally miss the big developments entirely. This doesn’t make idle speculation a fruitless pursuit – one never knows when someone’s fantastical daydream will become the next great leap forward for human society or technology – and at the very least, people fifty years from now will have something to look back on and laugh about.

Though is suspect that they won’t have consumer-grade jetpacks or flying cars in 2062 either, and more’s the pity.