46 | 2020. / 2020 If we look at the ideas that people had half a century ago when they looked longingly at the future and hoped for miracles in 2020, wewould be fully justified in saying thatwe’vedisappointed the technological prophets of the 20th century. Although we have moved closer to their ideaswithsome innovations, someof them were so bizarre that they would probably never come to life in practise... MONKEY CHAUFFEURS Some claimed that 2020would see the start of the breeding of smart animals that would be capable of working independently. As GlennT. Seaborg noted in his book A Scientist Speaks Out, every household in the 21st century will have a robot tomaintain the house, as well as amonkey to take care of the household. He alsowrote that well-trainedmonkeys wouldwork as family drivers, thus reducing the number of deaths caused bymotor accidents. It’s a good thing that no one informed our animal friends about that gruesome idea! LIFE IN FLYING HOUSES When hewrote his famous novel 2001: A Space Odyssey back in 1968, Arthur C. Clarke predicted that wewould largely live in radically di erent houses in the 21st century, i.e. that they would be in the sky. They would simply levitate, without anything connecting them to the ground. Interesting, don’t you think? COOKINGWILL DISAPPEAR If this predictionwere to be realised, most people of the 21st century would be truly grateful to scientists. Speci cally, in an article published in 1950 in themagazine Popular Mechanics, it was claimed that in the 21st century all foodwould be delivered to our homes in the formof frozen briquettes.“Cookingwill become extinct as an art formandwill live only in thememories of older people. Some of themwill still eat chicken or lamb chops, but everyone elsewill eat modern foods.” TELEPATHYANDTELEPORTATION Although he is considered a great expert in the technology industry, Michael J. Farrell, the founder of the Mobile Institute, which has existed since 1985, gave some fairly erroneous predictions. In the book Shift 2020, Farrell predicted that 2020 would be an era of nano-mobility, or that from next year onwards telepathy and teleportation would become possible, and that they would become part of our everyday lives in 2040. Oh, if only that were true! PEOPLEWILL STOP DRINKINGTEA AND COFFEE This list also contains one predictionmade by world-renowned Serb scientist Nikola Tesla. Speci cally, in 1937, speaking about the new century, he stated that tea, tobacco and co eewould no longer be fashionable. “Quite simply, it will no longer be fashionable to poison the body with harmful substances,”he said. EVERYONEWILL BEVEGETARIAN When speaking about the meat industry of the 21st century back in 1913, Gustave Bischo , the then president of the American Meat Packing Association, stated for The NewYork Times that people would mostly use vegetables. Due to a lack of meat, as he stated, vegetarians will even become multimillionaires in the 21st century. And he wasn’t that far from the truth, don’t you think? On the other side, meat-eaters don’t give up easily, so this debate is still current in 2020. We’re cheering for the vegetarians. WEWILL HAVE ROBOT THERAPISTS This prediction is perhapsmore or less true, except that instead of having robots for best friends we havemobile phones, computers and tablets. Ariane van deVen is an expert on global trends, which is why some of her predictions are also contained in the book Shift 2020. Speci cally, she stated at the time that many robots would be used as therapists, assistants and even best friends and comrades in 2020. According to her, robots will help humankind in everyday situations. If we look at how much timewe now spend holding some modern communication gadgets, we can see that Van deVenwasn’t far wrong. NOBODYWILLWORK ANDWE’LL ALL BE RICH There is probably no American in the worldwhowouldn’t like to see this 1966 prediction of Timemagazine realised. Speci cally, the article Futurists contains a prediction that almost everyone in the United States will be independent andwealthy due to the enormous production of machines. As the essay states, an average American family with nobody working would earn between $30,000 and $40,000 per year.Whenwe compare the value of money in 1966 to its worth today, that amount would equate to about $300,000. To sit at home and not do any work. Quite a nice prediction, right? u 2020. godini će biti mnogo robota koji će se koristiti kao terapeuti, asistenti, čak i kao najbolji prijatelji.. . In 2020 many robots will be used as therapists, assistants and even best friends...
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