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What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008? (Nov, 1968)<br>
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<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/03/24/what-will-life-be-like-in-the-year-2008/">http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/03/24/what-will-life-be-like-in-the-year-2008/</a><br>
<br>
Filed under: Sign of the Times — @ 12:16 am<br>
Source: Mechanix Illustrated<br>
Issue: Nov, 1968<br>
More articles from this issue<br>
<br>
Well, we do have flat-screen computers you can write on that fit in a
briefcase, but I’m still waiting to take my 250 MPH car to a business
meeting in another domed city. Perhaps by the end of the year.<br>
<br>
-------------------<br>
<br>
40 Years in the Future<br>
<br>
By James R. Berry<br>
<br>
IT’S 8 a.m., Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008, and you are headed for a business
appointment 300 mi. away. You slide into your sleek, two-passenger
air-cushion car, press a sequence of buttons and the national traffic
computer notes your destination, figures out the current traffic
situation and signals your car to slide out of the garage. Hands free,
you sit back and begin to read the morning paper—which is flashed on a
flat TV screen over the car’s dashboard. Tapping a button changes the
page.<br>
<br>
The car accelerates to 150 mph in the city’s suburbs, then hits 250 mph
in less built-up areas, gliding over the smooth plastic road. You whizz
past a string of cities, many of them covered by the new domes that
keep them evenly climatized year round. Traffic is heavy, typically,
but there’s no need to worry. The traffic computer, which feeds and
receives signals to and from all cars in transit between cities, keeps
vehicles at least 50 yds. apart. There hasn’t been an accident since
the system was inaugurated. Suddenly your TV phone buzzes. A business
associate wants a sketch of a new kind of impeller your firm is putting
out for sports boats. You reach for your attache case and draw the
diagram with a pencil-thin infrared flashlight on what looks like a TV
screen lining the back of the case. The diagram is relayed to a similar
screen in your associate’s office, 200 mi. away. He jabs a button and a
fixed copy of the sketch rolls out of the device. He wishes you good
luck at the coming meeting and signs off.<br>
<br>
Ninety minutes after leaving your home, you slide beneath the dome of
your destination city. Your car decelerates and heads for an outer-core
office building where you’ll meet your colleagues. After you get out,
the vehicle parks itself in a convenient municipal garage to await your
return. Private cars are banned inside most city cores. Moving
sidewalks and electrams carry the public from one location to another.<br>
<br>
With the U.S. population having soared to 350 million, 2008
transportation is among the most important factors keeping the economy
running smoothly. Giant transportation hubs called modemixers are
located anywhere from 15 to 50 mi. outside all major urban centers.
Tube trains, pushed through bores by compressed air, make the trip
between modemixer and central city in 10 to 15 minutes.<br>
<br>
A major feature of most modemixers is the launching pad from which
200-passenger rockets blast off for other continents. For less
well-heeled travelers there are SST and hypersonic planes that carry
200 to 300 passengers at speeds up to 4,000 mph. Short trips— between
cities less than 1,000 mi. apart—are handled by slower jumbo jets.<br>
<br>
Homes in Mi’s 80th year are practically self-maintaining. Electrostatic
precipitators clean the air and climatizers maintain the temperature
and humidity at optimum levels. Robots are available to do housework
and other simple chores. New materials for siding and interiors are
self-cleaning and never peel, chip or crack.<br>
<br>
Dwellings for the most part are assembled from prefabricated modules,
which can be attached speedily in the configuration that best suits the
homeowner. Once the foundation is laid, attaching the modules to make
up a two- or three-bedroom house is a job that doesn’t take more than a
day. Such modular homes easily can be expanded to accommodate a growing
family. A typical wedding present for the 21st century newlyweds is a
fully equipped bedroom, kitchen or living room module.<br>
<br>
Other conveniences ease kitchenwork. The housewife simply determines in
advance her menus for the week, then slips prepackaged meals into the
freezer and lets the automatic food utility do the rest. At preset
times, each meal slides into the microwave oven and is cooked or
thawed. The meal then is served on disposable plastic plates. These
plates, as well as knives, forks and spoons of the same material, are
so inexpensive they can be discarded after use.<br>
<br>
The single most important item in 2008 households is the computer.
These electronic brains govern everything from meal preparation and
waking up the household to assembling shopping lists and keeping track
of the bank balance. Sensors in kitchen appliances, climatizing units,
communicators, power supply and other household utilities warn the
computer when the item is likely to fail. A repairman will show up even
before any obvious breakdown occurs.<br>
<br>
Computers also handle travel reservations, relay telephone messages,
keep track of birthdays and anniversaries, compute taxes and even
figure the monthly bills for electricity, water, telephone and other
utilities. Not every family has its private computer. Many families
reserve time on a city or regional computer to serve their needs. The
machine tallies up its own services and submits a bill, just as it does
with other utilities.<br>
<br>
Money has all but disappeared. Employers deposit salary checks directly
into their employees’ accounts. Credit cards are used for paying all
bills. Each time you buy something, the card’s number is fed into the
store’s computer station. A master computer then deducts the charge
from your bank balance.<br>
<br>
Computers not only keep track of money, they make spending it easier.
TV-telephone shopping is common. To shop, you simply press the numbered
code of a giant shopping center. You press another combination to zero
in on the department and the merchandise in which you are interested.
When you see what you want, you press a number that signifies “buy,”
and the household computer takes over, places the order, notifies the
store of the home address and subtracts the purchase price from your
bank balance. Much of the family shopping is done this way. Instead of
being jostled by crowds, shoppers electronically browse through the
merchandise of any number of stores.<br>
<br>
People have more time for leisure activities in the year 2008. The
average work day is about four hours. But the extra time isn’t totally
free. The pace of technological advance is such that a certain amount
of a jobholder’s spare time is used in keeping up with the new
developments—on the average, about two hours of home study a day.<br>
<br>
Most of this study is in the form of programmed TV courses, which can
be rented or borrowed from tape _ * libraries. In fact most
schooling—from first grade through college—consists of programmed TV
courses or lectures via closed circuit. Students visit a campus once or
twice a week for personal consultations or for lab work that has to be
done on site. Progress of each student is followed by computer, which
assigns end term marks on the basis of tests given throughout the term.<br>
<br>
Besides school lessons, other educational material is available for TV
viewing. You simply press a combination of buttons and the pages flash
on your home screen. The world’s information is available to you almost
instantaneously.<br>
<br>
TV screens cover an entire wall in most homes and show most subjects
other than straight text matter in color and three dimensions. In
addition to programmed TV and the multiplicity of commercial fare, you
can see top Broadway shows, hit movies and current nightclub acts for a
nominal charge. Best-selling books are on TV tape and can be borrowed
or rented from tape libraries.<br>
<br>
A typical vacation in 2008 is to spend a week at an undersea resort,
where your hotel room window looks out on a tropical underwater reef, a
sunken ship or an ancient, excavated city. Available to guests are two-
and three-person submarines in which you can cruise well-marked
underwater trails.<br>
<br>
Another vacation is a stay < on a hotel satellite. The rocket ride
to the satellite and back, plus the vistas of earth and moon, make a
memorable vacation jaunt.<br>
<br>
While city life in 2008 has changed greatly, the farm has altered even
more. Farmers are business executives running operations as automated
as factories. TV scanners monitor tractors and other equipment computer
programmed to plow, harrow and harvest. Wires imbedded in the ground
send control signals to the machines. Computers also keep track of
yields-, fertilization, soil composition and other factors influencing
crops. At the beginning of each year, a print-out tells the farmer what
to plant where, how much to fertilize and how much yield he can expect.<br>
<br>
Farming isn't confined to land. Mariculturists have turned areas of the
sea into beds of protein-rich seaweed and algae. This raw material is
processed into food that looks and tastes like steak and other meats.
It also is cheap; families can have steak-like meals twice a day
without feeling a budget pinch. Areas in bays or close to shore have
been turned into shrimp, lobster, clam and other shellfish ranches,
like the cattle spreads of yesteryear.<br>
<br>
Medical research has guaranteed that most babies born in the 21st
century will live long and healthy lives. Heart disease has virtually
been eliminated by drugs and diet. If hearts or other major organs do
give trouble, they can be replaced with artificial organs.<br>
<br>
Medical examinations are a matter of sitting in a diagnostic chair for
a minute or two, then receiving a full health report. Ultrasensitive
microphones and electronic sensors in the chair's headrest, back and
armrests pick up heartbeat, pulse, breathing rate, galvanic skin
response, blood pressure, nerve reflexes and other medical signs. A
computer attached to the chair digests these responses, compares them
to the normal standard and prints out a full medical report.<br>
<br>
No need to worry about failing memory or intelligence either. The
intelligence pill is another 21st century commodity. Slow learners or
people struck with forgetful-ness are given pills which increase the
production of enzymes controlling production of the chemicals known to
control learning and memory. Everyone is able to use his full mental
potential.<br>
<br>
Despite the fact that the year 2008 is only 40 years away—as far ahead
as 1928 is in the past—it will be a world as strange to us as our time
(1968) would be to the pilgrims. •<br>
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