This month I’d like to recommend two books. Something old and something new.
First lets look at Author C Clark’s Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible [archive.org link] was published in 1962. This book is great, not just because Clark is an amazing author, but its interesting to see how his predictions help up. Of course, he didn’t get everything right but its interesting how spot on some of his predictions are. See the image below; taken from my copy. The 70’s gave us our first Skylab and a manned lunar landing. We didn’t get fusion in the 90’s but we did land a probe on mars and cellphones (personal radiophones). There are many examples of automated mining equipment from the 2010s. However Clark kinda missed on the weather control prediction, even if you grant cloud seeding as weather control, the science is out on how affective it is. His 1970 to 2010 score is 5 of 7. How do you think his 2030 to 2100 predictions will fair?
Number 2. I received Amy Webb’s The Signals are Talking last week. Even having only read a quarter of the book, I recommend it. Amy definitely takes some of her examples to an ideological limit but this is part of the fun. The framework in this book will fit well in any futurists took kit.
An interesting note is that these books discuss moving sidewalks/walkways. Yes, Clark wrote that with the right technology and materials moving side walks could revolutionize how humans travel. Conversely Web discusses how the original idea for moving sidewalks, patented in the late 1800’s and first constructed at the 1893 Words Exposition in Chicago, was largely a fad and not a trend. While both books discuss how the limited technology and materials kept moving walkways in the realm of interesting but not practical. Webb stops short of discussing how improved technology and materials would make moving walkways practical and common place.