{"id":14880,"date":"2023-02-11T17:53:40","date_gmt":"2023-02-11T17:53:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=14880"},"modified":"2023-02-11T17:53:42","modified_gmt":"2023-02-11T17:53:42","slug":"blogathon-11-23-tales-of-future-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=14880","title":{"rendered":"Blogathon 11\/23: Tales of Future Past"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(one for the Moody Blues fans there)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One hundred years ago a bunch of creative minds were asked what they thought the year 2023 would look like. Before I launch into a too-brief synopsis of their thoughts, it’s worth looking back 100 years and refreshing our memories as to what the world looked like back then. In 1923 the BBC broadcast the first OB. In fact that year was when the BBC were granted a broadcast license for the first time. Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Tutankhamun. The Matrimonial Causes Act established equal rights in divorce giving women the mechanism to divorce their husbands for adultery. Ivor Cutler was born. So was Dora Bryan. And John Mortimer. Eric Sykes too. And you’d be driving an Alvis 12\/50, or a Triumph 10\/2- just like this one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So back to those creative minds and their forecast of Things To Come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

English physicist, engineer and inventor Archibald M. Low predicted great strides for 2023. A typical London businessman, he said, would use a communication device to simplify work. “In a hundred years’ time he will be able to chat in comfort over a telephone that can be used in his car, his house, or his train,” Low noted. “He will not hear a squeaky voice saying ‘What?’ every few minutes. “Probably it will be possible for him to see the person to whom he is talking, and if he desires to make notes that will be read immediately in a book situated miles away.” Doesn\u2019t it sound like a smartphone? I’d give this guy today’s Racing Post and ask him to give me a couple of runners and riders. Archibald (I’m attached to him, my maternal grandfather was an Archie) also said “Our watches will be kept in time by wireless, and by the same agency we shall be roused at whatever hour we desire to get up. MMotor cars will all be enclosed and by a meter device may pick up their power from government stations. An air service will land people from all parts of the world – not at some point six miles away from the city, but straight onto the top of a hotel in a roofed arcade street. The speed of tube trains will be increased while aeroplanes will be so much quicker that our efforts of today will seem like those of the old stagecoach. In a hundred years we shall certainly have the Channel Tunnel for an island cannot live easily in the race of progress.” He was super switched on, eh?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, at the other end of the fortune-telling spectrum William F Ogburn, (Professor of Political Economy at Columbia University, USA) said that the population of New York City would swell to 100 million by 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Birth control advocate Margaret Sanger imagined happier lives and longer honeymoons in 2023. “Birth control will have become a part of education in health and hygiene,” she predicted. “Women especially will be keen in demanding it. They will realise that it is a foundation of freedom and intellectual development for them. Sanger said the result would be happier homes, greater mutual respect between husband and wife and honeymoons lasting two or three years before children arrived. She was right in most of the world, let’s just not look at America too closely in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On an equally sombre note New York journalist George Edward Lyndon Jr wrote that war would be more catastrophic than ever. “Death swifter than light, silent and stealthy as the shadow of a thought, will ride on the wings of radio to destroy nations in the space of a single breath.” Sadly, so true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wonder what the world in general, and what remains of this country in particular will look like in 2123?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(one for the Moody Blues fans there) Ahem. One hundred years ago a bunch of creative minds were asked what they thought the year 2023<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14880\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}