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Too much people + pollution.

But I do think he hit the idea of microwavable meals - least that is what it sounds like he is talking about.

From the article:
“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.”

See, I can predict the future as well.

Arrington at #14 is right. And the answer to fixing America’s health care problem is to expose the American Health care system to more market forces. We should eliminate the tax incentives which currently exist to tie health insurance to employers, while offering everyone a tax free medical health savings account that they or their employer can contribute too. Then that should be supplemented with a very high deductible insurance plan as a backup. Then, consumers will have to start caring how much each treatment costs and doctors will have to provide menus of services with prices. The system is so screwy now that patients or doctors rarely have any idea what services cost, which only serves to inflate prices and encourage people to be less-than-frugal with healthcare services.

I think the healthcare-prediction demonstrates most clearly how we tend to think of technology (Barry-style optimism; universality and access would naturally follow from technological availability) and how it often turns out to be (those with cash benefit and the rest are left even further behind). While the health-care example reveals a gap even within the US, almost any other field of technology is similarly stratified when we look at rich and poor countries.

Barry didn’t predict open source movement, but that and similar socio-technological innovations are needed to make those dreams true. By 2028?

Good stuff. These old-school tech predictions always impress me.

Spelling patrol: earily ==> eerily.

Cheers,

Ben

“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.”

If reading newsfeeds, learning new software and playing with new websites counts as “keeping up with the new developments”, two hours a day is a about right for me.

Michael - how much of your time is spent learning about new things?

@danimal, yeah, a lot can happen in eight months. Who knows what will be introduced over the next eight months. I’d sure like an affordable robot that cleans my house and something far more advanced than the Roomba; but it’s a start in the right direction.

And to throw in my two-cents on #8, Mike, that’s exactly the problem, its access and denial of services or insurance companies deciding not to pay for services even when you are insured. Not technological advances in medicine. Great work is being done on that front. Universal health care is still a pipe dream in my opinion because there’s far too much greed and profit in the system.

the modern mechanix is indeed a very interesting blog. While I tried to aggregate future ideas in http://10yearsfromnow.com

We have a situation today where people without insurance can’t afford doctors at all, and people with insurance are routinely denied the best medical help because of the structure of their HMOs.