Tom's Life Bits

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I have always enjoyed these looks into the future and how wrong they usually are.

**40 Years in the Future**

//By James R. Berry//

IT’S 8 a.m., Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008, and you are headed for 
    a business appointment 300 mi. away. You slide into your 
    sleek, two-passenger air-cushion car, press a sequence of 
    buttons and the national traffic computer notes your 
    destination, figures out the current traffic situation and 
    signals your car to slide out of the garage. Hands free, you 
    sit back and begin to read the morning paper—which is 
    flashed on a flat TV screen over the car’s dashboard. 
    Tapping a button changes the page.

The car accelerates to 150 mph in the city’s suburbs, then 
    hits 250 mph in less built-up areas, gliding over the smooth 
    plastic road. You whizz past a string of cities, many of 
    them covered by the new domes that keep them evenly 
    climatized year round. Traffic is heavy, typically, but 
    there’s no need to worry. The traffic computer, which feeds 
    and receives signals to and from all cars in transit between 
    cities, keeps vehicles at least 50 yds. apart. There hasn’t 
    been an accident since the system was inaugurated. Suddenly 
    your TV phone buzzes. A business associate wants a sketch of 
    a new kind of impeller your firm is putting out for sports 
    boats. You reach for your attache case and draw the diagram 
    with a pencil-thin infrared flashlight on what looks like a 
    TV screen lining the back of the case. The diagram is 
    relayed to a similar screen in your associate’s office, 200 
    mi. away. He jabs a button and a fixed copy of the sketch 
    rolls out of the device. He wishes you good luck at the 
    coming meeting and signs off.

Ninety minutes after leaving your home, you slide beneath 
    the dome of your destination city. Your car decelerates and 
    heads for an outer-core office building where you’ll meet 
    your colleagues. After you get out, the vehicle parks itself 
    in a convenient municipal garage to await your return. 
    Private cars are banned inside most city cores. Moving 
    sidewalks and electrams carry the public from one location 
    to another.

With the U.S. population having soared to 350 million, 2008 
    transportation is among the most important factors keeping 
    the economy running smoothly. Giant transportation hubs 
    called modemixers are located anywhere from 15 to 50 mi. 
    outside all major urban centers. Tube trains, pushed through 
    bores by compressed air, make the trip between modemixer and 
    central city in 10 to 15 minutes.

A major feature of most modemixers is the launching pad from 
    which 200-passenger rockets blast off for other continents. 
    For less well-heeled travelers there are SST and hypersonic 
    planes that carry 200 to 300 passengers at speeds up to 
    4,000 mph. Short trips— between cities less than 1,000 mi. 
    apart—are handled by slower jumbo jets.

Homes in Mi’s 80th year are practically self-maintaining. 
    Electrostatic precipitators clean the air and climatizers 
    maintain the temperature and humidity at optimum levels. 
    Robots are available to do housework and other simple 
    chores. New materials for siding and interiors are self-
    cleaning and never peel, chip or crack.

Dwellings for the most part are assembled from prefabricated 
    modules, which can be attached speedily in the configuration 
    that best suits the homeowner. Once the foundation is laid, 
    attaching the modules to make up a two- or three-bedroom 
    house is a job that doesn’t take more than a day. Such 
    modular homes easily can be expanded to accommodate a 
    growing family. A typical wedding present for the 21st 
    century newlyweds is a fully equipped bedroom, kitchen or 
    living room module.

Other conveniences ease kitchenwork. The housewife simply 
    determines in advance her menus for the week, then slips 
    prepackaged meals into the freezer and lets the automatic 
    food utility do the rest. At preset times, each meal slides 
    into the microwave oven and is cooked or thawed. The meal 
    then is served on disposable plastic plates. These plates, 
    as well as knives, forks and spoons of the same material, 
    are so inexpensive they can be discarded after use.

The single most important item in 2008 households is the 
    computer. These electronic brains govern everything from 
    meal preparation and waking up the household to assembling 
    shopping lists and keeping track of the bank balance. 
    Sensors in kitchen appliances, climatizing units, 
    communicators, power supply and other household utilities 
    warn the computer when the item is likely to fail. A 
    repairman will show up even before any obvious breakdown 
    occurs.

Computers also handle travel reservations, relay telephone 
    messages, keep track of birthdays and anniversaries, compute 
    taxes and even figure the monthly bills for electricity, 
    water, telephone and other utilities. Not every family has 
    its private computer. Many families reserve time on a city 
    or regional computer to serve their needs. The machine 
    tallies up its own services and submits a bill, just as it 
    does with other utilities.

Money has all but disappeared. Employers deposit salary 
    checks directly into their employees’ accounts. Credit cards 
    are used for paying all bills. Each time you buy something, 
    the card’s number is fed into the store’s computer station. 
    A master computer then deducts the charge from your bank 
    balance.

Computers not only keep track of money, they make spending 
    it easier. TV-telephone shopping is common. To shop, you 
    simply press the numbered code of a giant shopping center. 
    You press another combination to zero in on the department 
    and the merchandise in which you are interested. When you 
    see what you want, you press a number that signifies “buy,” 
    and the household computer takes over, places the order, 
    notifies the store of the home address and subtracts the 
    purchase price from your bank balance. Much of the family 
    shopping is done this way. Instead of being jostled by 
    crowds, shoppers electronically browse through the 
    merchandise of any number of stores.

People have more time for leisure activities in the year 
    2008. The average work day is about four hours. But the 
    extra time isn’t totally free. The pace of technological 
    advance is such that a certain amount of a jobholder’s spare 
    time is used in keeping up with the new developments—on the 
    average, about two hours of home study a day.

Most of this study is in the form of programmed TV courses, 
    which can be rented or borrowed from tape _ * libraries. In 
    fact most schooling—from first grade through 
    college—consists of programmed TV courses or lectures via 
    closed circuit. Students visit a campus once or twice a week 
    for personal consultations or for lab work that has to be 
    done on site. Progress of each student is followed by 
    computer, which assigns end term marks on the basis of tests 
    given throughout the term.

Besides school lessons, other educational material is 
    available for TV viewing. You simply press a combination of 
    buttons and the pages flash on your home screen. The world’s 
    information is available to you almost instantaneously.

TV screens cover an entire wall in most homes and show most 
    subjects other than straight text matter in color and three 
    dimensions. In addition to programmed TV and the 
    multiplicity of commercial fare, you can see top Broadway 
    shows, hit movies and current nightclub acts for a nominal 
    charge. Best-selling books are on TV tape and can be 
    borrowed or rented from tape libraries.

A typical vacation in 2008 is to spend a week at an undersea 
    resort, where your hotel room window looks out on a tropical 
    underwater reef, a sunken ship or an ancient, excavated 
    city. Available to guests are two- and three-person 
    submarines in which you can cruise well-marked underwater 
    trails.

Another vacation is a stay < on a hotel satellite. The 
    rocket ride to the satellite and back, plus the vistas of 
    earth and moon, make a memorable vacation jaunt.

While city life in 2008 has changed greatly, the farm has 
    altered even more. Farmers are business executives running 
    operations as automated as factories. TV scanners monitor 
    tractors and other equipment computer programmed to plow, 
    harrow and harvest. Wires imbedded in the ground send 
    control signals to the machines. Computers also keep track 
    of yields-, fertilization, soil composition and other 
    factors influencing crops. At the beginning of each year, a 
    print-out tells the farmer what to plant where, how much to 
    fertilize and how much yield he can expect.

Farming isn't confined to land. Mariculturists have turned 
    areas of the sea into beds of protein-rich seaweed and 
    algae. This raw material is processed into food that looks 
    and tastes like steak and other meats. It also is cheap; 
    families can have steak-like meals twice a day without 
    feeling a budget pinch. Areas in bays or close to shore have 
    been turned into shrimp, lobster, clam and other shellfish 
    ranches, like the cattle spreads of yesteryear.

Medical research has guaranteed that most babies born in the 
    21st century will live long and healthy lives. Heart disease 
    has virtually been eliminated by drugs and diet. If hearts 
    or other major organs do give trouble, they can be replaced 
    with artificial organs.

Medical examinations are a matter of sitting in a diagnostic 
    chair for a minute or two, then receiving a full health 
    report. Ultrasensitive microphones and electronic sensors in 
    the chair's headrest, back and armrests pick up heartbeat, 
    pulse, breathing rate, galvanic skin response, blood 
    pressure, nerve reflexes and other medical signs. A computer 
    attached to the chair digests these responses, compares them 
    to the normal standard and prints out a full medical report.

No need to worry about failing memory or intelligence 
    either. The intelligence pill is another 21st century 
    commodity. Slow learners or people struck with forgetful-
    ness are given pills which increase the production of 
    enzymes controlling production of the chemicals known to 
    control learning and memory. Everyone is able to use his 
    full mental potential.

Despite the fact that the year 2008 is only 40 years away—as far ahead as 1928 is in the past—it will be a world as strange to us as our time (1968) would be to the pilgrims.

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