It's super interesting that transatlantic flight is slower in 2020 than it was in 1960. Approximately 0/100 people would have predicted this at the start of the Jet Age, just like none of us thought in 2000 we'd end up using slower computers with less memoryhttps://twitter.com/jonostrower/status/1401586209873305602 …
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I gave a whole talk on this once (https://idlewords.com/talks/web_design_first_100_years.htm …). If you'd like me to give more talks, buy me a ticket (on a fast plane) and I'll go talk again. I enjoy writing these things
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In 1960 you had a strong basis to believe we were heading for routine space travel, the eradication of disease, and either world government or nuclear war. How none of these came to pass and we got Pepe memes instead is a testament to the power of the future to remain surprising
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People's imagination is completely shackled by what they saw in living memory. I will be comparing stuff to the Brezhnev era and Usenet far past the time when I am an upload on somebody's Zune II
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Similarly, everyone's boldest fantasies of the future right now are based on bad sci-fi they read as young people, most of that written by aging men with their own imagination stunted by experience. Whatever optimism I have about the future is rooted in that dearth of imagination
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