Anenome
12-23-2010, 09:54 PM
Futurist, inventor, businessman, writer, millionaire, and singulatarian Ray Kurzweil has released a report on how his predictions over the last 25 years have fared so far, as of 2010.
But before that, I want to mention something that I think a lot of people don't realize. I want you to imagine the life of a woman born in 1860.
The Civil War starts a year after her birth. When she's five years old, she remembers strongly the celebration of the end of the War, and the sadness of Lincoln's assassination.
At the age of 15, the telephone was invented. She won't actually see or use one until after 1900.
When she's 21, alternating current was demonstrated for the first time, 1881, and the lightbulb is invented, but she won't see a lightbulb in person until the turn of the century. They're not afforable yet by any means, nor does the country have an electric grid. Until then, they purchase fuel oil for use in lamps.
She's an accomplished horse and carriage rider now, as cars won't come into mass production until 1913, when she's 53 years old!
It's 1915, she's 55, WWI begins, US enters the war. She's a grandmother now, and two of her grandchildren die in the war.
In 1929 she's 69, the stock market crashes. She shrugs, still living as a farmer's wife in rural country.
It's 1941, she's 81 years old. Her husband's dead, and the US enters WWII. She moves to New York with her daughter and their family. Her daughter's husband is dead too now, they live together.
The US emerges as a world superpower. Her daughter drives her around in a car. She can't believe she has a house with working electricity and lightbulbs, heater, indoor plumping, and a kitchen with actual gas stove! What are we, millionaires?
Her eyes and mind starts to go, but she still gets up and walks.
It's 1969, she's 109 years old. Man lands on the moon. Despite her age, she's stunned, and continually tells everyone, "We landed on the moon!" until the day she dies, later that year.
---
Now, I tell you all this because there's a tendency to think that we live in an age where all of the crazy leaps out of poverty and backwardsness as a nation have already been taken and things are starting to settle down, the pace of change is calming.
This is an illusion!!!
The pace of change is accelerating and accelerating faster and faster each year!
Kurzweil's predictions:
http://c0068172.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/predictions.pdf
But before that, I want to mention something that I think a lot of people don't realize. I want you to imagine the life of a woman born in 1860.
The Civil War starts a year after her birth. When she's five years old, she remembers strongly the celebration of the end of the War, and the sadness of Lincoln's assassination.
At the age of 15, the telephone was invented. She won't actually see or use one until after 1900.
When she's 21, alternating current was demonstrated for the first time, 1881, and the lightbulb is invented, but she won't see a lightbulb in person until the turn of the century. They're not afforable yet by any means, nor does the country have an electric grid. Until then, they purchase fuel oil for use in lamps.
She's an accomplished horse and carriage rider now, as cars won't come into mass production until 1913, when she's 53 years old!
It's 1915, she's 55, WWI begins, US enters the war. She's a grandmother now, and two of her grandchildren die in the war.
In 1929 she's 69, the stock market crashes. She shrugs, still living as a farmer's wife in rural country.
It's 1941, she's 81 years old. Her husband's dead, and the US enters WWII. She moves to New York with her daughter and their family. Her daughter's husband is dead too now, they live together.
The US emerges as a world superpower. Her daughter drives her around in a car. She can't believe she has a house with working electricity and lightbulbs, heater, indoor plumping, and a kitchen with actual gas stove! What are we, millionaires?
Her eyes and mind starts to go, but she still gets up and walks.
It's 1969, she's 109 years old. Man lands on the moon. Despite her age, she's stunned, and continually tells everyone, "We landed on the moon!" until the day she dies, later that year.
---
Now, I tell you all this because there's a tendency to think that we live in an age where all of the crazy leaps out of poverty and backwardsness as a nation have already been taken and things are starting to settle down, the pace of change is calming.
This is an illusion!!!
The pace of change is accelerating and accelerating faster and faster each year!
Kurzweil's predictions:
http://c0068172.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/predictions.pdf