Let's go to the World's Fair - in 2014

Isaac Asimov is unarguably one of the great science fiction writers of all time - and an incredibly prolific author, period! In 1964, he wrote an article for The NY Times about the World's Fair, of 2014. This was based on things he'd seen at the 1964/65 World's Fair and extrapolated into the future.


The article is fascinating! Some of the things he foresees are:

Subterranean living - with the surface of the planet being used for large-scale agriculture (think of our factory farms!)

Robots - still relatively crude - but used for housework (roomba anyone?) and powered by tiny computers embedded in them (microchips!)

Kitchen gadgets that can be pre-programmed the night before to have breakfast ready when you get up. (okay - at least we've got the coffee part down!)

Semi-prepared frozen meals that only need to be heated up. (Didn't they have TV dinners in 1964? heheheh...)

Automatic cars for long-distance driving (can't happen soon enough for me!)

Moving sidewalks (go to any large airport - they've got 'em!)

Sight/sound communications (care to Skype?)

Moon settlement

And, then - the dystopian side of things...

• Overpopulation
• Food shortages
• Humans as machine-tenders
• the disease of boredom

Interestingly, even though I only came across this article a couple of weeks ago, I had similar many similar gadgets and evolved transportation, etc. in my book, XVI. I wonder if things like the media, education, and the evolution of human thought cause us to come to similar conclusions about how things will be? What is it that brings us to almost identical images of how things will be? I don't know - but I will be noodling this around & continue writing the speculations thereof.


I'd love to know what you think will be in our futures!