When I was a kid (eons ago) there was a TV show that no one
talks about today. It was called The 21st Century and was
hosted by TV news legend Walter Cronkite. Myself, being a science fiction fan, I
watched it when I could. I was then like nine years old, I knew the big
newscasters: Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, but I was not a fan of the news.
It was boring – mostly about the war in Viet Nam, or some protests somewhere. I
was more into sitcoms or cartoons. But when an important news man like Cronkite
started doing a show that was tantamount to science fiction, I took notice.
But it was not treated like science fiction. There were no
woo-woo special effects or outlandish statements. It was treated more like a
news show, which is not surprising since it was produced by CBS News. It was actually a follow-up show to the
documentary series The Twentieth Century and ran from 1967 to 1970. The
show took current trends in design, engineering, and social architecture and
projected them into the future. It was a realistic variation on the trope of
predicting the future. It was a look long ahead to the year 2001 where there might be computers in every home, robots, and modular housing.
The turn of the 21st Century is more than twenty
years behind us now, and it is easy for us to laugh at predictions made in the
1960’s. Some of this show’s predictions were off (steam cars never made a
comeback). And there were some things that came about that they would have had
no way of knowing (the internet was not even in anyone’s imagination yet). But sometimes the trends that Cronkite tells us
are eerily prescient. On the episode about cars, he talks about electric cars,
and even demonstrates a prototype hybrid car that generates electricity when
applying the brakes, car air bags, antilock breaking systems, video
surveillance, computerized navigation systems.
Then there are the things that didn’t quite
make it by the turn of
the 21st Century, but are here now (or nearly here) Self-driving
cars, fuel cells, 3-D TVs, working remotely. And sometimes the show was asking
questions that were themselves cautionary. Do we want cities built around cars?
Do we want Urban sprawl?
Some of the episodes are available on YouTube. I encourage
you to check them out. It is always interesting to see where we have been and
where we thought we were going.
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