Happy New Year’s 2016!

I hope every WU-vie was a good boy or girl last nite!

Posted By: Paul - Fri Jan 01, 2016 - Comments (7)
Category: Holidays, Public Indecency

Predictions for 2016 from 1966

In 1966, Margaret Thorne, a member of the Junior Historian Club of Woodrow Wilson High School in Beckley, West Virginia, published some predictions for the year 2016 in her local paper. Here's what she envisioned for the year we've now arrived at:

The growth of suburbia: "the only land untouched by suburbia will be the national and state parks and forests, that our ancestors were foresighted enough to conserve and a few farms of enormous size in the midwest."

Work: "the vast majority of the people will be seated in front of man's ingenious invention, the computer."

Food: "People will take a pill for breakfast that will supply them with needed nourishment. Algae, a very simple plant, which can be grown in great vats and will multiply rapidly, can be made into very appetizing morsels."

Fuel: "More sources of fuels must be found and methods for bringing the natural resources to the surface. Someone must find ways to captivate the sun's radiation and make it work for us. The sun will need to be our major fuel in the years to come."

Water: "Our water supply will need to be taken from the seas as our lands get drier and drier."

Not bad, all in all. The food-in-pills and ubiquitous spread of suburbia were misses. But she scored on the increasing importance of computers, and she kind of anticipated the development of fracking and growth of solar technology, as well as the water scarcity (which is certainly true here in California).

The Raleigh Register — Apr 25, 1966

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jan 01, 2016 - Comments (5)
Category: Predictions, Yesterday’s Tomorrows, 1960s