Klose but no ssigar - Prediktions from 1900

[REVz]

Predictions of the Year 2000

from The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900

 

predictions

 

Predictions of the year 2000 made in the year 1900. Spelling of topic per prediction #16.

 

Some are amazing, some are humorous, I wonder how well we would do?

 

Would you like to make a prediktion?

[jb11GSA]

cool :-)

 

Joe

 

04 R1150RT

[Ken H.]

Fascinating. Those lucky few who have experienced both 1900 and 2000 saw a multitude of changes, if not exactly all the ones listed! Wonder if in 2000 any one did a similar thing for 2100?

[ltljohn]

Fascinating. Those lucky few who have experienced both 1900 and 2000 saw a multitude of changes, if not exactly all the ones listed! Wonder if in 2000 any one did a similar thing for 2100?

 

Google it there are lots of them out there.

[smiller]

I predict that in 2100 someone will post a link to the 'Hitler got the wrong bike' video.

[Dave McReynolds]

Most of the predictions were the usual "bigger, better, faster," comparing the things we had yesterday with the things we have today, and extrapolating on out into the future.

 

I noticed only two predictions of behavior changes: that everyone in 2000 would practice gymnastics (and other forms of physical exercise, I guess) to a much greater degree than in 1900, and that shopkeepers would be arrested if they let shoppers breathe on the food they had out for sale.

 

Do people generally choose to ignore future behavioral changes, or was that just a part of the 1900 mindset? These were Ladies Home Journal predictions, and there was nothing about womens' suffrage, women moving into men's jobs, changes in views on abortion and other women's health issues, changes in views on sexuality and homosexuality, marriage, divorce, and family relationships, just to pick a few women's issues that emerged during the 20th century.

 

There was mention of improvements in weapons, but no notion of the great wars of the 20th century, and their lingering effects on society. Perhaps mercifully, no notion that untold millions would be murdered on various ideological alters that may have only had a tangental relationship to any war.

 

The predictions that were made weren't as far off the mark as I would have guessed. More interesting to me are the areas of life where no predictions of any changes were made.

 

And perhaps most sadly of all, no inkling that by the end of the 20th century, we would still be suffering from final drive failures, which is, after all, a problem resulting from what is essentially 19th century technology.