Now I am back with that favourite observation of the future, written by Thomas Hobbs in 1650, who wrote “No man can have in his mind a conception of the future for the future is not yet. But of conceptions of the past, we make a future.”*
And when you look at these pictures from Adventures of the World, Mr. Hobbs is spot on.
In one sense projecting the present and past into the future is obvious, more so because we ask science to extend our knowledge and technology into the realm of what might be, on the assumption that we will just make better what we already have.
So, in 1954, James Fisher drew on atomic power stations helicopters high rise apartments and transport in the sky to offer up a vision of what would be.
And because he wasn’t stepping too far ahead, much of what he presented is now part of how we live.
The book is part history, and part science fiction and aims to show that “Man learns to work hand in hand with Nature, respecting and husbanding her resources to ensure his own welfare and happiness”.
In retrospect, we might retreat from the optimism underpinning that confident assertion in the face of Global warming, our continued inability to feed large sections of the world’s population or lift them from grinding poverty, poor medical facilities and basic schooling.
Added to which pursuit of a “fast buck” has done no favours to “Nature”.
But that said the book does offer up a fascinating glimpse of how we thought the world would be, along with the assumptions upon which that confident futuristic view was based.
Pictures; Adventure of the World, 1954
*Hobbs, Thomas, The Elements of Law, Natural and Politics, 1650
**Fisher, James, Adventure of the World, 1954
And when you look at these pictures from Adventures of the World, Mr. Hobbs is spot on.
So, in 1954, James Fisher drew on atomic power stations helicopters high rise apartments and transport in the sky to offer up a vision of what would be.
And because he wasn’t stepping too far ahead, much of what he presented is now part of how we live.
The book is part history, and part science fiction and aims to show that “Man learns to work hand in hand with Nature, respecting and husbanding her resources to ensure his own welfare and happiness”.
In retrospect, we might retreat from the optimism underpinning that confident assertion in the face of Global warming, our continued inability to feed large sections of the world’s population or lift them from grinding poverty, poor medical facilities and basic schooling.
Added to which pursuit of a “fast buck” has done no favours to “Nature”.
But that said the book does offer up a fascinating glimpse of how we thought the world would be, along with the assumptions upon which that confident futuristic view was based.
Pictures; Adventure of the World, 1954
*Hobbs, Thomas, The Elements of Law, Natural and Politics, 1650
**Fisher, James, Adventure of the World, 1954
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