Future from the Past

They promised me jet packs and robot housemaids.  So my vision of what a future should look like is framed by what childhood popular culture abounded.  Results in a primary colored pop world of the 80s and 90s.

Wondering out loud -- when so much of the vision of the future was presented as dystopian to Gen X and Y, is it no surprise that their graphics are dark and stoic?  My Batman wasn't nearly as goth as my kid's Dark Knight.

A roundabout way to this new nugget -- how much of today's networked world was foretold in some report from 1982.  My first cynical question is: how many other reports that said we'd see a blossoming of craft printing are forgotten.

Still, a lot of where we are is correct as the Pew Research folks point out.  How close?

“Electronic home information systems…create classes of people based on interests, skills, and even specialized languages. As it becomes easier to link with various others of these classes, to establish relationships with members of these classes, to identify with them, ties with traditional peer group members may break down.”

Or, as the kids say, social cra-cra friends.

Another moment to plug my favorite single book and my favorite quote.