On 2006-02-25, Tom Conner wrote:
You haven't seen anything yet. Because of the advances in computing,
communications, and genetic engineering, society in 40 more years will be
completely different than today. Assuming the stupid people don't destroy
everything first.

A couple of months ago, there was soemthing on the radio about Britain's
oldest man dying (he was 109, IIRC it was especially notable because I
think he was the last WWI vet in Britain).

Consider this. He was born in 1896, and as a child in the early 1900s,
his household would probably NOT have had:
- a car
- central heating
- washing machines or vacuum cleaners
- electricity
- an inside toilet
Television wasn't invented. Recorded music was a strange thing and was
so poor quality it really wasn't worthwhile. The first transistor was
still 50 years away. Aeroplanes hadn't been invented.

In 1956, this man was of pensionable age. The transistor was a brand new
invention, and the idea of an integrated circuit still hadn't been had.
The world had already massively changed: most people had cars or
motorcycles, hot water, indoor toilets, at least a radio and possibly a
television. Everyone had electricity, city streets were brightly lit by
low pressure sodium streetlights. Most people had telephones - but long
distance dialing was still done by calling an operator who connected
trunk calls manually.

When he died in 2005, anyone could cheaply publish music, writing,
photographs and video on the Internet. Supersonic passenger travel had
been and gone. Computers had gone from gigantic house sized things
stuffed with vacuum tubes to something you could put in your pocket.
Your telephone was now something you could put in your pocket, too, and
use all over the world, and you could do things like send photographs.
Travel across the Atlantic was cheap enough that a working class person
in Britain could afford a trip to Disneyland with the family. The Soviet
Union had risen and fallen. Between hitting retirement age and passing
away, entire generations of jet aircraft had come and gone. Even as an
old man, he saw tremendous change.

The changes this man saw in his lifetime were tremendous.

Now think of where we are now. Where will we be when you are 109?

--
Dylan Smith, Port St Mary, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de
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