The predictions for 2012 that should have been made in 1982, expressed in words then current:
- Telephones:
- Most people in the world have a pocket telephone.
- Computers:
- A public, worldwide computer network with 2 billion users.
- Pocket computers that also work as a telephone and a music player.
- Computers can play grandmaster-level chess, passable Jeopardy and can half understand spoken English. They still fail the Turing Test. No huge breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, just way more processing power (Moore’s Law).
- Portable devices that can be used to store and read thousands of books – or store and listen to thousands of songs.
- Space:
- International space station.
- Unmanned rovers on Mars.
- Space probes sent to nearly all the planets and large moons.
- Space telescope.
- Science and mathematics:
- Pluto undiscovered as a planet: it is a part of an asteroid belt beyond Neptune.
- An African Eve discovered genetically.
- Human genetic code mapped.
- Higgs boson discovered.
- Fermat’s Last Theorem proved.
- The world:
- World population doubles without a Malthusian crisis. Most people now live in cities, live to at least 69 and go to school for at least 11 years.
- Burning of oil and coal starts to melt the ice caps. Sea levels have yet to rise markedly.
- A new incurable disease kills millions.
- The fall of apartheid in South Africa.
- The fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Break up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Nuclear holocaust no longer a threat.
- Pakistan, Israel and North Korea get the bomb. Iran is close.
- Famine in Ethiopia, Somalia and North Korea.
- Genocide in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Sudan.
- Wars kill a million or more in Iran/Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Zaire.
- Nuclear meltdowns in the Soviet Union and Japan. Japan shuts down its nuclear power plants.
- Jews continue to settle the West Bank.
- Most of Western Europe uses a common currency.
- Gay marriage allowed in several countries and several American states.
- America:
- No new states.
- A black president by 2008.
- Non-Hispanic whites account for less than half of all births – and less than half of California, Texas, New Mexico, Hawaii and metro New York.
- Food is more Mexican, rap has become a main form of music but television is about as white as it ever was.
- America still runs on oil. No energy crises but two wars against Iraq.
- Muslim fanatics fly hijacked planes into the Twin Towers and destroy them. Leads to war in Afghanistan and greater government powers.
- Most households have a computer and get more than 50 television channels. Televisions are larger and flatter and no longer have antennas.
- The economy doubles in real terms but little of the growth trickles down to the masses.
- Five times more people are in prison. A cheap form of cocaine led to a drug epidemic which led to a crackdown on drug possession – aimed particularly at black men.
- Twice as many people are fat. Americans consume twice as much sugar.
- Smoking banned in most public places. Tobacco companies successfully sued for billions.
- Funny cat pictures
See also:
- The future that kind of never was – how the early 1980s imagined our times
- New words from 1983 to 2012
- How daily life has changed in the last 30 years – from 1984 to 2014.
- Back to the Future Day – the post I wrote on October 21st 2015
- the completely average person:
- Muhammad Chen – worldwide
- Jennifer Smith – in the US
- Stand on Zanzibar – written in 1968, set in 2010.
Yeah, how the people in the past were wrong.
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iseewhatyoudidthere
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There are three things I would disagree with you on this list. For one few people in the intelligence community were surprised that Pakistan, Israel and North Korea developed nuclear weapons. Or that Iran has come close to creating a nuclear device. Actually the real surprise is that there are not that many nuclear powers in the world.
From seventies to the early nineties many foreign policy experts predicted there would be at least 20 nuclear powers by the year 2000. The idea was that everybody would want a nuke. Especially poor & dark skinned people in traditionally third world countries due to the respect that possessing nuclear weapons would bring & racist stereotypes. The reality is that most of the world’s poor & dark skinned people in traditionally third world countries did not care to have a nuke.
For example South Africa after apartheid got rid of it’s small arsenal of nuclear weapons. African National Congress saw the weapons as a burden & decided to get rid of them. This is one of the biggest accomplishments of post-apartheid South Africa never gets credit for due to racism.
Also in a side note the intelligence community since late sixties has known Israel had nuclear weapons. Intelligence leaks during the Six Day War reveled their existence. Supposedly the Israelis developed them in the early sixties at the Dimona nuclear reactor with South African uranium. The South Africans & Israelis had a joint nuclear test on a South African island in 1979. It was called the Vela Incident. Both parties never acknowledge they were behind it in spite of all the damming evidence that said otherwise.
Most intelligence experts thought the Israeli nuclear weapons program consisted of one or two nuclear devices. Not a huge arsenal, but enough as an insurance policy. However, when dissident Mordechai Vanunu reveled details of Israel’s nuclear weapons to the world in 1986, it blew the experts’ minds away. The Israelis did not just have one to two nuclear devices, they instead had one hundred to two hundred nuclear devices.
So it really was not a big shock that the North Koreans & Pakistanis joined the nuclear club. Or that Iran is trying to join now. Many countries like Argentina & Egypt, Libya, & Iraq failed to join the nuclear club. The Brazilians came close to joining in 1985, but decided to do a South Africa & scrape their nuclear weapons program.
Overall, hype about nuclear weapon programs in traditionally third world countries tend to have their basis in racism. Poor & dark skinned people around the world have shown themselves capable of dealing with nuclear weapons proliferation better than the experts care to admit. Yet again racist stereotypes proven to be false. All the hype over Pakistan & North Korea getting nuclear weapons is about the fear of cold war powers like the United States & China losing nuclear privilege. The nuclear privilege of the cold war nuclear powers slowly erodes with each new nuclear power. Cold war nuclear powers also tend to be traditionally colonial powers like France, America, & Great Britain & neocolonial powers like China. With each new nation joining the nuclear club, means one less nation that can be easily exploited.
Next is the Euro. Actually having read many books from the seventies & eighties about Western European integration, the Euro was not a big shock to intelligence experts at the time. The real shock is that the Western European countries are not untied as a superpower. I remember in the late nineties & early 2000s all the hype about how the United States of Europe would take America’s place in the world. Now it seems the European Union is going to collapse taking the Euro with it.
Lastly anthropic global warming was already believed by many scientists by the early eighties. Contrary to right-wing propaganda, there was never a new ice age scare among scientists in seventies. Many psychics were predicting a new ice age during the seventies, but not scientists. Paul Ehrlich actually mentions anthropic global warming in the book “The Population Bomb” in 1968. The theory did not get any real attention until 1989 when Bill McKibben’s book “End of Nature”. Also science fiction writer David Brin wrote a novel about it the eighties. The novel was called “Earth” and he also talked about the internet in the novel. The Internet, however, was a surprise due to its’ many byproducts. Especially byproducts like internet porn & funny cat pictures.
The rest of the stuff was a surprise on list. It is an overall good list. If I was put another thing people did not expect to happen since the early eighties was the decline of leftwing violence & rise of rightwing violence around the globe. Leftwing terrorism & violence was consider a big deal still in the early eighties. However, by the nineties it had disappeared off the face of the earth. Nobody expected Muslim fanatics & White supremacist terrorists would be factor in 21th century. Most violence in the early 21th century is dominated by reactionary groups.
I like your blog Abagond.
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“For example South Africa after apartheid got rid of it’s small arsenal of nuclear weapons. African National Congress saw the weapons as a burden & decided to get rid of them. This is one of the biggest accomplishments of post-apartheid South Africa never gets credit for due to racism.”
South Africa signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty 1991, 3 years before ANC was elected, and had dismantled its arsenal by the takeover. They (the white minority) likely did so partly because they didn’t want the nukes in hands of ANC and the black majority.
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@naishee
A cool fact I did not know.
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The Euro failed because Europe failed to develop a common language. A common language means a common identity. Esperanto could have saved Europe.
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@ Lard Khan and Naishee
Though SA ratified NPT, they disarmed “voluntarily” since NPT does not compel a nation to disarm. NPT means that a nation cannot test or expand on their stockpile among other things. The disarmament took place also as a result of pressure from western powers, primarily US and UK.
Its interesting to note that they were happy with a nuked apartheid government but not with the possibility of a nuked democratic government.
I also agree that acquiring of nukes by developing countries was sometimes seen as an insurance against racists. Nigeria also entertained the idea in the mid eighties which was promptly shot down by the US. I suspect Patrice Lumumba’s DRC and Kwame Nkruma’s Ghana thought of acquiring them. DRC had Africa’s first nuclear reactor. I think its decommissioned now.
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Abagond:
In other words, another faux empire burning to the ground…History Is Real!!!
Tyrone
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Columnist, the Euro did not fail,it may fail, but it has not done so yet, it is just having problems.
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