Does 2023 measure up to what you thought the future would be?

fuzzybuddy

fuzzybuddy

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It dawned on me that when we were born, today was the "future". Yup, in the 1950s &60s, the 2020s were 60 or 70 years into the future. So, time traveler, does 2023 measure up to what you thought the future would be? We don't have flying cars, but we other cool stuff. What do you think of the future?
 

I believe we felt technology would make all of our lives easier...but it just seems to have sped everything up and made it more complicated on certain levels.

But the fact that I'm typing these words for people to instantly read across the Earth's continents is an amazing thing.
 

Good question. I don't think I've ever thought about the future or what it might unfold as. The part I don't like now is remembering how much fun life has been. Thinking about the future compared to the past I don't think my kids & grand kids will enjoy the same.
 
Good question. I don't think I've ever thought about the future or what it might unfold as. The part I don't like now is remembering how much fun life has been. Thinking about the future compared to the past I don't think my kids & grand kids will enjoy the same.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
Does 2023 measure up to what you thought the future would be?
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Interesting question!

Guess I never thought much about the future, for a long time I could not imagine living to the millennium, 2000. Let alone beyond....

It doesn't feel like things have changed that much, but looking back to my life in the 60s I can see huge changes. Guess they snuck up on me.
 
Technology wise, I don't think I ever thought of it. I remember in highschool realizing I'd be 40 in the year 2000. I could not comprehend that. It's long past now.

The internet has made things better in a lot of ways. Information etc. You can get everything you want. But I find myself thinking back to the 80's when we didn't have it. We had malls. Was it simpler? I think so. Better, I don't know.
 
When I was a boy Americans were fighting on the side of China against the Japanese. They were called the Flying Tigers.

Very different today.

Malls didn't exist then. There were trolley cars on the street then. My dad's car did not have a radio.
 
I never really thought that far ahead and now Iā€™m actually scared to. The technological advances have been fabulous for us individually but not so much globally. Now we can compare each other up close and personal and spew hate and jealousy much easier. Itā€™s like 6 of one, 1/2 a dozen of the other. I never expected such open hate towards one another like we see now.

I never expected to see certain innocently written books and cartoons to be banned , certain food items be relabelled or common sense logic to be banished in favour of ā€˜not wanting to offend someone.ā€™

I never expected a huge pandemic weā€™d have to navigate our way through but did expect many species of animals to become extinct with less places for them to inhabit.
 
Who knew weā€™d be able to drop a bomb on a fellow human with a tiny flying machine? (Humans) I had to wind a rubber band up on mine and just pray it took off.
 
2023 is the present for me.

Cannot recall thinking about any future years during my active life. Too busy. Only since retiring have I given any consideration to the future. And, given my age, it's a short term look. Waking up each day is a gift and never knowing when the future will cease to exist, really don't give it much thought.

That said, I do spend a lot of time thinking about my early adult years in the '60s. Comparing the then to the now and wondering how in the heck what happened happened. And how it all came about.
 
The more our society evolves technologically the more it seems we as the human species devolves. I think I expected the future to contain less warfare and tribalism. I hoped we would have evolved to taking better care of our home planet. I would have thought there would be less division among humans based on skin color or lines drawn on a map.

I did not fully realize the consequences of so much knowledge and skills that would be lost with the passing of each generation . The easiest society to destroy is a technological one. If a global catastrophe happened today our great grandparents had the knowledge and skill to rebuild. Iā€™m not sure the same can be said of current or future generations- at least in America.
 
I expected more harmony and unity. By that standard things look dismal to me. But modern medicine saved my life twice, which would not have been possible had I been born 50 years earlier. Somethings are way better. Others are way worse.
 
Oh, I occasionally read about the terse visions of futurists, but not something I'd ever put much expectations about. Have never been one that expected advances often portrayed in film science fiction because my science knowledge quickly rejects many ideas as unlikely to ever be possible. So no comic book level stuff uneducated might expect like time travel, matter transfer across space, mind reading, no space craft going to other star systems, etc. The advance of science across decades as someone that has been up to my neck in electronic hardware and information technologies has been incredible.

What has surprised me is how awful society and culture ethics and morality has become versus the era I grew up in, flawed as that was for a minority. I greatly blame greedy Ivy League elites, Wallstreet, and financial corp types for destroying the Great Society we had that dominated the world in science, technology, and infrastructure, by their flawed global vision offshoring, outsourcing, and technology transfers we lived through with hope until the mid 90s when it all began to change. All that given their stranglehold over politics and media has created an enormous income and wealth gap between haves and have nots while letting in endless immigrants from an overpopulated world. A world now that benefits only least deserving wealthy haves while we working class folks that created it all are left holding a paper bag with a big rip in the bottom. Yeah, in 1990 I never thought it would all collapse so quickly. So sad. :cry:
 
When I was a little kid in the 50s, the future looked real bright. You know those silly Popular Science and Popular Mechanics Magazines showing all of us flying around in some sort of flying cars. Technology was suppose to solve most of our problems.

Today, the future looks black. Global warming is going to start killing off a lot of the people living in the hot countries. The rising seas will kiss goodbye to New York and Los Angeles and Vancouver.

Most of our political type of people are creeps rather than leaders that we can look up to. Crime is up. Alternative lifestyles are being promoted as the "way to go. " Wars continue, the rich get richer. The peasants are forced to watch the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Don't believe me, you unbelievers? Look at the riots happening in Paris. There is more to these riots then the murder of 1 Arab boy by 1 policeman. People are scared and they are fed up.
 
Packerjohn said:
When I was a little kid in the 50s, the future looked real bright. You know those silly Popular Science and Popular Mechanics Magazines showing all of us flying around in some sort of flying cars. Technology was suppose to solve most of our problems.

Today, the future looks black. Global warming is going to start killing off a lot of the people living in the hot countries. The rising seas will kiss goodbye to New York and Los Angeles and Vancouver.

Most of our political type of people are creeps rather than leaders that we can look up to. Crime is up. Alternative lifestyles are being promoted as the "way to go. " Wars continue, the rich get richer. The peasants are forced to watch the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Don't believe me, you unbelievers? Look at the riots happening in Paris. There is more to these riots then the murder of 1 Arab boy by 1 policeman. People are scared and they are fed up.
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Oh FGS .... !!! Have some KFC you'll feel better :ROFLMAO:
Life is great...enjoy it while you can.
 

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