Mark Goetz

A friend of mine pointed me towards a book called “2010 – Living in the Future” by Geoffrey Hoyle.  This book was written in 1972, with bold predictions for what the future would be like in about 40 years.  The book is recorded (probably totally violating copyright) on a blog at http://2010book.tumblr.com/.  I’m a huge fan of retrofuturism, and this book was a freaking goldmine in that regard.  And now that it actually is the year 2010, how does the book’s vision compare with the future we actually live in?

The book cover does not disappoint. That font means it's the FUTURE!

First, it’s always fun to see what predictions came true (even partially) and which ones just failed.  To be sure, there are plenty of the latter.  In Mr. Hoyle’s 2010, personal car traffic has largely been eliminated, and the few vehicles on the road are electric-powered buses, provided free of charge.  I need only to drive out to our office in the suburbs, more than an hour-long drive on clogged I-90, to prove how wrong that is.  Likewise with the idea that technology would bring us all a three-day work week, affording more time for life development – I work in technology, and I’ve had six-day work weeks!  But yet there are slivers of truth in it; Hoyle’s concept of “vision phones” to speak face-to-face with your friends, coworkers and classmates who are miles away is relatively commonplace today.  Also, I can certainly get just about anything I want delivered to me without leaving my house, from music to books to groceries, even if it is delivered through a slightly different series of tubes!

I don't think this is what Ted Stevens had in mind...

I also find it very interesting from a historical perspective – how did people see technology in 1972?  Most of Hoyle’s ideas are timesavers, things to enable you to get through your day without a single action, effort or decision that is at all unnecessary.    Yet there are no technologies to enhance your life, to entertain, to intrigue, or to make you think.  To me, this perfectly reflects the path that human-computer interaction has taken.  HCI was formed from engineering and psychology, but recently has added influences from art and design to the mix.  Don’t forget the “H” in HCI – yes, timesavers are certainly extremely helpful, but remember that humans have other needs as well!  I can also see reflections of the current fears and worries that plagued humanity in Hoyle’s inventions.  The first problem he saw was overcrowding, which he solved with enormously tall and cramped buildings (yet still with enough room for ridiculously massive fully centralized utilities for everything, including a 500,000-seat stadium – five times the size of Michigan Stadium!).  Then there were the worries over fossil fuels, pollution and the environment, hence all the electric cars in Hoyle’s future.  (And of course, in our version of 2010, almost forty years after this book, we’ve got the environment completely fixed and we’re totally off those nasty fossil fuels, right?  Right?)

It's Michigan Stadium...IN THE FUTURE!

Overall though, I appreciate this kind of retrofuturism as a sort of brake pedal to the V12 of technological advance.  As great as it is to have a far-flung vision of how awesome the future is going to be fifty, twenty, or even ten years from now, it’s essential to keep in mind that it may very well never happen.  Having the vision is one thing; understanding how the new technology will really affect people’s everyday lives is another, and being able to bring it about is yet another.  For instance, throughout the work, Geoffrey Hoyle posits immeasurably complex machines and computers as a way to enable everyone around the world to live an easier life.  But who is going to design, build, maintain and improve all those machines?  Who is going to drive the delivery trucks to send groceries around the world three hundred sixty-five days a year?  Who is going to collect the raw fruits, vegetables and meats and put them into the machines to begin with?  No matter what your vision is, you have to consider what will really come of it.

I guess the bottom line is – people in 2050 are going to laugh just as hard at our predictions of 2050 as we currently are laughing at 1970s predictions of 2010.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 17th, 2010 at 11:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.