Predictions of the Year 2000 from The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900

[Phoenix]

Re: Predictions of the Year 2000 from The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900

Prediction #7:

*There will be air-ships, but they will not successfully compete with surface cars and water vessels for passenger or freight traffic.
Miss, most people I know take a plane even if they can take a car, bus, or train. Water vessels for passengers are largely pleasure cruises.

*They will be maintained as deadly war-vessels by all military nations.
This part is true.

*Others will be used by scientists making observations at great heights above the earth.
Usually this is weather balloon stuff. Where the scientist is not in the "ship".


Prediction #8:
*Giant guns will shoot twenty-five miles or more, and will hurl anywhere within such a radius shells exploding and destroying whole cities.
Destroying whole cities makes me think of nuclear war heads. The 25 mile radius is awfully short. It does say or more but the margin of error then goes into the hundreds of percent.

*Such guns will be armed by aid of compasses when used on land or sea, and telescopes when directed from great heights.
This one betrays datedness. It reminds me of the movies of the future like 2001 where you have all these vast spaceships and gravity technologies and they they are plugging away on a monochrome screen with huge font and pixilation. It is one of the faults that show the source is from a time period and not a time traveler.

*Fleets of air-ships, hiding themselves with dense, smoky mists, thrown off by themselves
No, a miss. The Stealth Bomber does not need a cloud to hide.

* They will surprise foes below by hurling upon them deadly thunderbolts.
No

*Huge forts on wheels will dash across open spaces at the speed of express trains of to-day.
This refers to tanks, as you noted. It is the idea precursor to them and why they were made. I don't know if they get the speed of a 1900 express train. Maybe.

*They will make what are now known as cavalry charges.
Tanks don't do cavalry charges.

*Great automobile plows will dig deep entrenchments as fast as soldiers can occupy them.
No

*Rifles will use silent cartridges.
No, they are actually very loud. Perhaps louder than they need to be to help people who fire them feel manly. There is something unromantic about firing an air gun.

* Submarine boats submerged for days will be capable of wiping a whole navy off the face of the deep.
They can go for days but wiping out a NAVY is an exaggeration.

*Balloons and flying machines will carry telescopes of one-hundred-mile vision with camera attachments, photographing an enemy within that radius.
As you said sattelites. Not so much a great prediction as letting you know the ideas already existed at that time, by people working on such things.

Prediction #9/#10:
Television, Technicolor. Yes. These information predictions came to pass very well. Also Internet as you mentioned.

Prediction #11:
You ignore it. It is a miss, and a mistaken method. The drained swamps hurt the coastal communities. The chemical treatment we still do, who knows what problems we are creating now or future generation because of it.


Prediction #12:
*Peas as Large as Beets.
We could but we don't so this is a miss.
*Cane will once more be the chief source of our sugar supply.
Correct
*The milkweed will have been developed into a rubber plant. Cheap native rubber will be harvested by machinery all over this country.
No, oil took that role.
*Plants will be made proof against disease microbes just as readily as man is to-day against smallpox.

Pesticides, herbicides with like questionable results to this wish fulfillment.
*The soil will be kept enriched by plants which take their nutrition from the air and give fertility to the earth.
I wish it was plants instead of the reductionist chemicals. We would be better off.

Prediction #13:
*Strawberries as Large as Apples will be eaten by our great-great-grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence.
Miss
*Raspberries and blackberries will be as large. One will suffice for the fruit course of each person.
Miss
*Strawberries and cranberries will be grown upon tall bushes.
No
*Cranberries, gooseberries and currants will be as large as oranges.
No
*One cantaloupe will supply an entire family.
No
Considering how accurate information prediction are the agricultural predictions are falling very short.

Prediction #14:
This is another could by genetic engineering thing. I think I have seen black and blue roses too. But we certainly haven't given the pansy the perfume of the violet.

Prediction #15:
*Storekeepers who expose food to air breathed out by patrons or to the atmosphere of the busy streets will be arrested with those who sell stale or adulterated produce.
The OSHA and FDA regulations go just shy of this. I still find it a miss.
*Liquid-air refrigerators will keep great quantities of food fresh for long intervals.
Yes, this is the freezers and refrigerators we used that they were inventing at that time.​

 

[Phoenix]

Re: Predictions of the Year 2000 from The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900

Hi Phoenix,

Well, you are certainly entitled to view their predictions as "accurate" or "inaccurate", or "hit" or "miss." But since they did not seem to be passing themselves off as some sort of seer or psychic, but rather it being more imaginings and visions of the future, then I think I can interpret them with imagining and to see where many of their predictions, though not "spot on" down to the exact numbers, can be up for interpretation. Its not like we are trying to figure out the quadrants of Nostradomous. While some of the predictions were "out there", at the same time, they were not "far off." No, we do NOT have strawberries the size of our heads, but we DO have GMO, hybred foods and its not far off to image that it is possible, but for obvious reasons, we don't do it.

That being that we in this time, understand DNA, and understand that there can be repercussions of playing God. That said, we don't seem to want strawberries the size of our heads-though that doesn't mean that it can't be done. We un-seeded the watermelon-and while they didn't mention that, I'm sure that would be something they'd say would be possible in 2000.

If you want to be literal and exacting, taking the fun out of the whole thing, then by all means. It doesn't mean that I "ignored" anything, just couldn't think of anything that it could be interpreted as today. Don't be a kill joy to my fun, please, by being critical that I am pointing out predictions that weren't "accurate." Sometimes you need to think outside of the box, and just enjoy things-it is what it is.

I am not trying to kill your fun. I am having fun here to. Probably as much fun as you had. It is a fun activity. As for critical, calling people flipping serrious is a provocation that I don't mind responding to in a good hearted way. So I hope you don't misinterpret my tone. Nothing against you are what you expressed. I am just joining in.

 

[Phoenix]

Re: Predictions of the Year 2000 from The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900

Prediction #16:
This one deals with simplified spelling reforms such as proposed by Noah Webster and simple English as proposed by Odgen and his 800 words. This one did not catch on yet, but I encourage those slightly interested to read up more about this. I believe it is an area that humanity can still benefit from. To bad they did not also mention the alphabet devised by Alexander Grahm Bell's father.

Prediction #17:
*A university education will be free to every man and woman.
*Poor students will be given free board, free clothing and free books if ambitious and actually unable to meet their school and college expenses.
*Medical inspectors regularly visiting the public schools will furnish poor children free eyeglasses, free dentistry and free medical attention of every kind.
*In vacation time poor children will be taken on trips to various parts of the world.
We got cheated on these. Right wingers would call it to much of social welfare program. Sad one of the ones that could have shown mans humanity to man got reversed mid century. I believe this kind of free and mandatory education was part of the communist manifesto.

*The very poor will, when necessary, get free rides to and from school and free lunches between sessions.
This one I guess is not a social welfare program?? Well to some right wingers it is. Notices how it says the "very poor" we give it to everyone.

*Etiquette and housekeeping will be important studies in the public schools.
Housekeeping->home ec. Etiquette, um got thrown out with the bathwater by those demanding multi-culturalism and "equality".


Prediction #18:
This one so came true as the other communication predictions.


Prediction #19:
Aside from the phone being replaced by radio, prediction 19 is accurate. The last part
* The piano will be capable of changing its tone from cheerful to sad. Many devises will add to the emotional effect of music.
Synthesizers, as Risata notes in Pt 2.

Prediction #20:
*Coal will not be used for heating or cooking.
True
*It will be scarce, but not entirely exhausted.
It makes up over half of our electrical power, so I don't think we can call it scarce.
*The earth’s hard coal will last until the year 2050 or 2100; its soft-coal mines until 2200 or 2300.
I have not kept up with it but it seems accurate (still).
*Meanwhile both kinds of coal will have become more and more expensive. Man will have found electricity manufactured by waterpower to be much cheaper.
Not yet, and this is a cause of great problems for the natural environment.
*Every river or creek with any suitable fall will be equipped with water-motors, turning dynamos, making electricity. Along the seacoast will be numerous reservoirs continually filled by waves and tides washing in. Out of these the water will be constantly falling over revolving wheels. All of our restless waters, fresh and salt, will thus be harnessed to do the work which Niagara is doing today: making electricity for heat, light and fuel.
No, would this be a good thing or bad thing. Many are against damns for various environmental reason, but what has been the consequence to the environment because of the alternative of coal??

Prediction #21:
*Rising early to build the furnace fire will be a task of the olden times.
For now yes. As Risata states this is central air. But how long will it last? We really should be building our homes underground where the earth keeps things 50F.
Prediction #22:
*Store Purchases by Tube. Pneumatic tubes, instead of store wagons, will deliver packages and bundles.
This is a no.
*fast automobile vehicles will distribute purchases from house to house.
This one is a yes, UPS, FedEx.

Prediction #23:
*Ready-cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries of today. They will purchase materials in tremendous wholesale quantities and sell the cooked foods at a price much lower than the cost of individual cooking.
TV-dinners
*Food will be served hot or cold to private houses in pneumatic tubes or automobile wagons.
Nix on the tubes
*All such utensils will be washed in chemicals fatal to disease microbes. Having one’s own cook and purchasing one’s own food will be an extravagance.
Yes

Prediction #24: Vegetables Grown by Electricity.
Yes, but has this been a good thing? It is also not the norm though. Having the lights on 24/7 and pumping electricity in this manner is not the modern farm, which relies far more on chemicals and less on the power company than this farm would.
Prediction #25:
Internationally shipped food.
Correct.
Prediction #26:
A repeat of #13.
Prediction #27:
*Few drugs will be swallowed or taken into the stomach unless needed for the direct treatment of that organ itself. Drugs needed by the lungs, for instance, will be applied directly to those organs through the skin and flesh.
Considering the number of medications my mom takes in her hand to her mouth every morning I am going to say no on this one.
*Not only will it be possible for a physician to actually see a living, throbbing heart inside the chest, but he will be able to magnify and photograph any part of it. This work will be done with rays of invisible light.
Yes, and CT Scans. MRI's. PET scans. Bone density scans. Ultrasound. as Risata stated. Which might mean it was a bit limited in sight to suggest only light would be used since some of these use sound. Certainly correct in gist of prediction though.



Prediction #28:
*There will be no wild animals except in menageries.
This demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the ecosystem.

*Rats and mice will have been exterminated.
No
*The horse will have become practically extinct. A few of high breed will be kept by the rich for racing, hunting and exercise. The automobile will have driven out the horse.
No, though most horses are owned by the rich and used for pleasure purposes. Something we may not be able to do in our future. And I hope at that time we remember they have been useful to men in the past for things other than meat.
*Cattle and sheep will have no horns. They will be unable to run faster than the fattened hog of today. A century ago the wild hog could outrun a horse. Food animals will be bred to expend practically all of their life energy in producing meat, milk, wool and other by-products. Horns, bones, muscles and lungs will have been neglected.
Unfortunately yes. And some deplorable conditions we have left our "food" to grow up in. There will likely be more animal right activities that do get legislation passed in this area bore the idea of legislation on the scale we know it becomes meaningless.

Prediction #29:
We don't have these boats. Maybe like the tank they are a technology waiting to happen.

Anyways even with experts in the field there is hit and miss and it seems subject related.​