This is What The 1940's Thought 2011 Would Look Like

[jimmy olsen]

Wacky pics can be found here.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/124753-This-is-What-The-1940s-Thought-2011-Would-Look-Like

This is What The 1940's Thought 2011 Would Look Like
Steven Bogos | 9 June 2013 11:01 am

Some of the predictions from the Showa-era Japanese newspaper are surprisingly accurate, while others are hilariously wrong.

These photos surfaced recently on the Vipper forums, and give an insight into what the people of Showa-era Japan thought the future would look like. Some of the predictions are actually pretty spot-on, while others are hilarious Jetsons level fallacies.

In the photo to the right, we can see "2011" Tokyo, where tutus are the most fashionable form of clothing, cars are both capable of flight and disappointment, and video-screens show space colonization efforts. However, if you look off into the distance, you can see some planes utilizing vertical take-off, technology that has actually been invented since.

Another photo shows a classroom, featuring discipline robots that smack kids with a red ball on a stick when they make a mistake. Touch-screen computers are in use in the classroom (something that is now happening) and the teacher has been replaced with a slideshow.

Other photos accurately predict sprinkler systems, automated fire alarms, Roombas, 3-D televisions, and teleconferencing, but also make some bold claims on mobile tables that bring dinner to you, automatic clothes irons, and more wacky fashion statements.

[Syt]

I mentioned before, but there's a 1910 book recently re-released: "Die Welt in 100 Jahren", i.e. "The World in 100 Years", with essays from a number of thinkers of the time (no idea if there's an English translation).

It predicted that everyone would carry a mobile telephone for wireless communication with anyone anwhere. And that weapons would be so powerful that a push of the button might annihilate the world.

It also predicted wars to be fought by giant armadas of aluminium airships, floating homes in colonies (to be safe from uprisings), and colonies where criminals would live separately from society, after they've been sterilized, and some rather dystopian art/psychology predictions.

[Syt]

Also, some of the illustrations in the article look more like from the 60s than from the 40s.

[jimmy olsen]

I mentioned before, but there's a 1910 book recently re-released: "Die Welt in 100 Jahren", i.e. "The World in 100 Years", with essays from a number of thinkers of the time (no idea if there's an English translation).

It predicted that everyone would carry a mobile telephone for wireless communication with anyone anwhere. And that weapons would be so powerful that a push of the button might annihilate the world.

It also predicted wars to be fought by giant armadas of aluminium airships, floating homes in colonies (to be safe from uprisings), and colonies where criminals would live separately from society, after they've been sterilized, and some rather dystopian art/psychology predictions.

Sounds like an awesome book!

[Ideologue]

floating homes in colonies (to be safe from uprisings)

They won't be safe.

[DontSayBanana]

The snorkel fire truck's surprisingly accurate, since they weren't invented until Chicago started using them in '58.

[mongers]

I'm not buying the idea that those illustrations date from the 1940s, I have a hard time believing a Japan at war on in the immediate reconstruction aftermath could afford to publish full colour magazines.

Why use the appellation Showa, which could mean anytime from the 1930s to 1980s, rather than something more specific; I'm with Syt, looks late 50s to early 60s to my uneducated eye.

[Brazen]

I see they predicted the rise of the Onesie in panel 4.

Here's PopSci's version:
http://www.popsci.com/science/gallery/2013-04/7-images-future-1947

And a couple of centuries' worth from the Beeb:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20913249