The year 2013, as envisioned by the LA Times in 1988

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On April 3, 1988, the Los Angeles Times Magazine pub­lished a 25-year look ahead to 2013.

 

pretty fun read.

 

http://documents.latimes.com/la-2013/

 

[Npoess]

And six years later (2019), it would look like this:

 

 

lol

 

I love retro-futurism

[Guest dese manz hatin]

I don't get the second picture. Rockets launching from the top of skyscrapers?

 

Pretty IDM imo.

[LimpyLoo]

I don't get the second picture. Rockets launching from the top of skyscrapers?

 

Pretty IDM imo.

 

bro yo gots to check out Blade Runner

 

it's all the rage

[Cryptowen]

I wonder at what point ridiculously optimistic visions of the near future stopped being a thing. Because it's been a while since I've seen anything go YEAH IN 25 YEARS WE'LL BASICALLY BE THE JETSONS with a straight face

[CharlesWatkins]

probably after 2000

[manmower]

If only the Cold War had carried on we would all have been either The Jetsons or stone-dead by now.

[zazen]

The progress has been in directions people didn't imagine.

 

If you read, say, Asimov's foundation series, he posits galaxy spanning empires and planets completely covered in buildings, but his concept of computation is still very limited. The spaceships have mechanical star maps, computation is mostly restricted to calculators.

 

In 1968, Arthur C Clarke wrote the novel version of 2001. There's a scene where someone reads a Newspad, which sounds roughly like an iPad (read the extract here http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/03/15/arthur-c-clarke-predicts-the-ipad-in-1968/ )

 

Arthur C Clarke understands communications technology, but even here, although he can imagine a planet-spanning information network, he imagines people using it to read newspapers, and people find those newspapers by entering number codes for them (via an written index on the back of the device). So, no concept of Search, no concept of an open platform where anyone can publish (blogging, twitter etc), no concept of the millions of benfits a global communications network could be used for beyond reading newspapers (we're still figuring that out ourselves, but we know theres a lot of possibilities).

 

2001, of course, also posits the HAL9000, and we're nowhere near that yet with AI.

 

But we do have Wikipedia, Anonymous, lolcats, Twitter, watmm, Kahn Academy, TED, youtube. We can search most human knowledge in seconds, then publish what we think about it to everyone else. These things were unimaginable to sci-fi writers before the 90s. Linking everyone together with communications brings a paradigm shift that you can't really imagine until you've started to see it happen.

 

Even now, we have little idea how far its going to go. The internet is about 7000 days old, its already completely changed media and commerce, how we socialise is being transformed, the next big shift is probably in education (which thus far has been based on the idea that you need to get people into a room together if you want to disseminate knowledge efficiently). Ultimately, I think its going to change the way we think as well.

 

This is all no less mindblowing than flying cars and jetpacks, its just that we're inside it already so we dont notice so much.

[BobDobalina]

This is all no less mindblowing than flying cars and jetpacks

 

Agreed! It is an amazing thing to be witnessing; if you haven't already, check out The Information by James Glieck, very good read. I do find public perception of the future to still be quite naive, especially when it comes to things like space travel/colonization that are prohibitively impractical. It's like people have gotten used to the idea that the seemingly impossible can (and will eventually) be achieved through ingenuitity (e.g., the moon landing), however I see there being truly intractable obsticles in the universe (astronomical distances, speed of light, fraility of earthen life in environments outside our biosphere, etc.) that we're just going to have to come to terms with. I'd love to be proven wrong (for the lulz), but there will be no wormhole to Earth 2: Electric Boogaloo.

 

paradigm shift

 

Do you also sell vmware to leverage cross-platform enterprise synergy?

[Guest RadarJammer]

those future retro visions first problem is that for everything to look so hyper modern everything old has to be torn down first. maybe one day people will all go into temporary inflatable housing while robots and nanobots recycle the old cities into something more technologically advanced. I think those visions are still appropriate but the second problem with them is that people cling to the past, how can you get people to agree to such massive reformation?

[Guest apeterlives]

The ending is weird... what caused the fire in Bill's house?

[joshuatxuk]

I love retro-futurism artwork, some of my favorites were of late 80s era concept art for military aircraft that never materialized (thanks end of cold war/inflation!) - I remember checking the book out in my school library that had these.

 

 

This one came true (mostly):

 

As for cities, I think most of America is closer to this in the near future:

 

[ambermonk]

JoshuaTX - I don't suppose you're familiar with the SR-71 Blackbird?

Also, I don't want to believe that Idiocracy is becoming an increasingly accurate prophecy, but in some ways Mike Judge's theory isn't unsound.

[Guest pixelives]

Yeah. All this stuff is totally tied to Cold War false exceptionalism.

 

And yes, the "Future" (capital F) most likely ended on 9/11 in my opinion.

 

Our "future" is simultaneously much stranger, normal and quotidian than they could have ever imagined.

 

Lots of small gestures, less big ones.

[Guest pixelives]

Or as Fredric Jameson said, "Science Fiction is nostalgia for the present."

[joshuatxuk]

JoshuaTX - I don't suppose you're familiar with the SR-71 Blackbird?

 

Also, I don't want to believe that Idiocracy is becoming an increasingly accurate prophecy, but in some ways Mike Judge's theory isn't unsound.

 

Oh believe me I am familiar with the SR-71 and the A-12 Oxcart project, the X-15 and alleged existence of the Aurora and TR-3A and "F-19" among others. I always enjoy reading about the concept aircraft that never reached production and black projects as well.

 

I really don't want to Idiocracy to "come true" either, though honestly the few sets they had (Costco being the main one) look a lot like the oft vacant and run-down mini malls and shopping centers that exist all over American metropolitan areas, especially Texas.

[ambermonk]

 

JoshuaTX - I don't suppose you're familiar with the SR-71 Blackbird?

 

Also, I don't want to believe that Idiocracy is becoming an increasingly accurate prophecy, but in some ways Mike Judge's theory isn't unsound.

 

Oh believe me I am familiar with the SR-71 and the A-12 Oxcart project, the X-15 and alleged existence of the Aurora and TR-3A and "F-19" among others. I always enjoy reading about the concept aircraft that never reached production and black projects as well.

 

I really don't want to Idiocracy to "come true" either, though honestly the few sets they had (Costco being the main one) look a lot like the oft vacant and run-down mini malls and shopping centers that exist all over American metropolitan areas, especially Texas.

 

I take you grew up an "air force brat" as well?

Some of my favorite aircraft include the F-177A, the A-10, and the Harrier. Although not a fan of war in itself, I was often impressed by aircraft like these growing up. I still see F-22s in a regular basis. While they look cool, it seems like they're mostly for show.

 

I don't go to Costco often, but every time I do I think about the greeter from the movie. "Welcome to Costco. I love you."

[Guest chunky]

Read this. It will scare you because of it's brutally old Christian world type of theme.

 

From Nightmare 1995 to My Utopian 2050.

 

 

The triumph of the Recovery was marked most clearly by the burning of the Episcopal bishop of Maine.

She was not a particularly bad bishop. She was, in fact, quite typical of Episcopal bishops of the first quarter of the 21st century: agnostic, compulsively political and radical, and given to placing a small idol of Isis on the altar when she said the Communion service. By 2037, when she was tried for heresy, convicted, and burned, she had outlived her era. By that time only a handful of Episcopalians still recognized female clergy, and it would have been easy enough to let the old fool rant out her final years in obscurity. But we are a people who do our duty.

I well remember the crowd that gathered for the execution, solemn but not sad, relieved that at last, after so many years of humiliation, the majority had taken back the culture. Civilization had recovered its nerve. The flames that soared above the lawn before the Maine statehouse that August afternoon were, as the bishopess herself might have said, liberating.

In this Year of Our Lord 2050 we Victorians have the blessed good fortune to live once again in an age of accomplishment and decency. Most of the nations that cover the territory of the former United States are starting to get things working again. The cultural revival we began is spreading outward from our rocky New England soil, displacing savagery with civilization a second time.

I am writing this down so you never forget, not you, nor your children, nor their children. You did not go through the war, though you have suffered its consequences. Your children will have grown up in a well-ordered and prosperous country, and that can be dangerously comforting. Here, they will at least read what happens when a people forget who they are.

Was the dissolution of the United States inevitable? Probably. Right up to the end the coins carried the motto E Pluribus Unu, just as the last dreadnought of the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian navy was the Viribus Unitis. But the reality for both empires was Ex Uno, Plura.

. . . It's funny how clearly the American century is marked: 1865 to 1965. The first Civil War made us one nation. After 1965 and another war, we disunited -- deconstructed -- with equal speed into Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, womyn, gays, victims, oppressors, left-handed albinos, you name it. In three decades we covered the distance that had taken Rome three centuries. As recently as the early 1960s -- God, it's hard to believe -- America was still the greatest nation on earth, the most powerful, the most productive, the freest, a place of safe homes, dutiful children in good schools, strong families and a hot lunch for orphans. By the 1990s the place had the stench of a Third World country. The cities were ravaged by punks, beggars, and bums. Law applied only to the law-abiding. Schools had become daytime holding pens for illiterate, young savages. Television brought the decadence of Weimar Berlin into every home.

. . . Then the hammer blows fell. First, the currency collapsed. Inflation had been jerking upward for years because the only way the government could manage its massive debt was to pay it off in inflated dollars. People had adjusted as they did in other Third World countries, opening foreign currency accounts, bartering, burying gold in the back yard. Then, in the spring of 2001, a new administration really opened the valve. By that summer, inflation was running 40 percent per month; by fall, 400 percent. Financial Weimar had followed cultural Weimar. The middle class was wiped out.

By the year 2005, it was obvious that AIDS was spreading fast. Everyone had friends, relatives, neighbors who suddenly were stricken. But the government still pumped out the same old line. Terrified of the gay lobby, officials conspired to reassure the public that there was no cause for alarm, that "homophobia" was the real problem.

In fact, the government suppressed evidence to the contrary, fearing to cause panic. They were right. When the Los Angeles Times broke the story that it was spreading by unknown means, the cities emptied. Most people came back, because they had to go to work or starve, though they left the children in the country if they could. People demanded the quarantine of anyone diagnosed as HIV positive. Instead, the government classified the infected as "disabled," which made any preventive measures illegal discrimination.

In the spring of 2009 the blacks of Newark rose and took over the city . . . On May 3, Gov. Ephraim Logan of Vermont told the legislature that the federal government no longer represented the people of his state and asked for a vote of secession. Vermont became a republic the next day.

The first Civil War was, on the whole, a gentlemanly affair; the second one wasn't. Here in northern New England we were lucky. Because we didn't have many ethnic divisions, or cults, or Deep Greeners, we didn't have militias shelling the cities and ravaging the suburbs. Elsewhere, it was what Lebanon and Yugoslavia and the former Russian empire saw in the late 20th century. The Reconquista drove the Anglos out of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Southern California; the Anglos drove the Hispanics out of what was left of the American West. Blacks and Hispanics in L.A. turned on each other, but there were a lot more Hispanics. Korean marines landed in Long Beach to get their people out.

. . . Elsewhere, it took about 10 years for the hate caused by decades of illegitimate government to work itself out. Not much was left of the cities or the people who had lived there, but most folks in the countryside at least had been able to eat. By 2017, the South had a second Confederacy going. Southern culture had stayed pretty strong, outside the cities anyway. Florida was a mess, of course, but otherwise Dixie didn't see much fighting.

But it is our New England history that concerns me. We were the luckiest. Maine and New Hampshire quickly followed Vermont into secession, and upstate New York came in too -- after ceding New York City to Puerto Rico. We knew we were all in this together, so we formed the Northern Confederation in 2010. Massachusetts was not invited, but in 2011 New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland joined (Canada didn't survive into the 21st century). We had some tough economic times, but nobody starved . . .

But it was what happened on the cultural front that really made the difference for us. The Retroculture Movement had been growing quietly since the mid-1990s. It wasn't political, just individuals and families deciding to live again in the old ways. By the early 2000s there were Retroculture books, magazines, clubs, even special communities for people who wanted to discover how Americans used to live and how to bring back the old ways. Some people liked one period, some another, but gradually more and more found themselves looking to the Victorian era as the model. The Victorians in England and America had been an astoundingly productive bunch, building, inventing, creating, conquering -- all the things we needed to do again if we were to be civilized people.

The family was the first Victorian institution to make a comeback. With everything else falling apart, people saw pretty quickly how important a family is. That would have happened without Retroculture, but the Retro Movement helped us see how to make families work. We dug out the many books (most written by women) the Victorians had published on how to make a good home, raise children and live together happily (the secret was sacrificing the late 20th century's god, the self).

. . . The schools came next. We tossed out the vast accretion of �professional� educators and found ordinary men and women who knew their subjects and were dedicated to passing on the culture to a new generation. The kids learned to read with Mr. McGaffey's readers. . . They learned the difference between right and wrong or got their bottoms fanned until they did.

We deconstructed most of the universities. After all, they had started this �multiculturalism� hysteria that ended up with millions of people dead in the wars that followed. The ideologues gone, real scholars emerged from hiding and began offering Greek and Latin and the great books of Western civilization to anyone who wanted to learn.

. . . As the Victorian spirit spread, standards were revived. Communities decided that some things were acceptable and some weren't. Crime wasn't; with justice locally controlled and the lawyers digging potatoes, somebody who mugged on Tuesday hanged on Wednesday.

Entertainment was expected to be decent. In a world that had grown ugly enough, there was small desire for ugliness in art and music as well. The Victorian entertainments were revived, and young people in particular went in heavily for choral singing. The last rock concert was held in 2013 in the Cleveland arena.

. . . By the mid-2020s, people had started to speak of the Recovery. Things were starting to work again, at least for us up north. And it was obvious why: The Victorian spirit, and Victorian practices, were making them work.

. . . In gratitude to our Victorian exemplars, the Northern Confederation became, in the year 2035 A.D., the nation of Victoria.

. . . And so it was that in 2037 we burned the bishopess. We knew this act would close and seal the old book, the book that had seen us go from decay to dissolution to Recovery. The auto-da-fe was symbolic; the Recovery was in fact already on solid ground or we wouldn't have had the moral fiber to torch the old girl.

We are hopeful as we look to the future, and not only here in Victoria. Victorian parties are growing fast in other nations in North America, in the Confederacy and in Trans-Mississippi. Only in Nueva Espana, where California's old Hispanic Party is locked in bitter warfare with the Indian revivalist Aztec Alliance does it look hopeless. Elsewhere, there is even talk of some kind of a new union, much looser, of course, built on shared values and culture, not a shared public trough.

But there will never be another Washington. We have learned, after all, some lessons from history.

[delet...]

 

On April 3, 1988, the Los Angeles Times Magazine pub­lished a 25-year look ahead to 2013.

 

pretty fun read.

 

http://documents.latimes.com/la-2013/

 

 

Just from looking at that picture and not even going into the article yet. May i suggest that where they went wrong was thinking that any american government/corporation, would spend a dime on infrastructure between '88 and 2013. heh ..

[delet...]

wow. they got Syd Mead to illustrate.

[delet...]

those future retro visions first problem is that for everything to look so hyper modern everything old has to be torn down first. maybe one day people will all go into temporary inflatable housing while robots and nanobots recycle the old cities into something more technologically advanced. I think those visions are still appropriate but the second problem with them is that people cling to the past, how can you get people to agree to such massive reformation?

 

LA is waiting on a very big earth quake, so there's your reset button. Don't expect everything to get rebuilt all shiny like though.

 

Also, what's wrong with architechtural history?