Tomorrow Today
By Cal Creek, Ashley Marriott, and Jessaca Massey, Jayplay writers
For past generations, the 21st century represented untapped potential and promise as well as ominous unseen dangers. The predictions they made still affect our ways of life today.
The dawn of the Millennium has come and gone without promised flying cars and meal pills that were so highly touted pre-Y2K. What did happen to all those futuristic inventions and ideas that were supposed to have been unveiled four years ago?
Writer Eric Lefcowitz says that many of these ideas were more of space-age optimism. "When 2000 came around, the future was already retro," says Lefcowitz. Lefcowitz did his research on the myths of the future era and brought us www.retrofuture.com, a Website devoted entirely to exploring and demystifying those burning "retro future" questions.
He says that the future was more than just zany technology and ideas that we only see in the movies. The future meant a different way of life. "The future was either perceived to be the best of times or the worst of times," he says. "People were trying to push for a better world." Lefcowitz says that many of the future ideas that companies came up with marketing tools. Here's just a few great, but far-fetched future ideas:
The Plastic House
You come home from work and the dog has left paw prints on your new couch. No problem, you tell yourself as you get out the gardening hose and spray off the furniture. By the 1950s plastics were gaining popularity in the home. According to Yesterday's Tomorrows, a book by Joseph J. Corn and Brian Horrigan, Disneyland
images courtesy: Smithsonian Institution
built a "House of the Future" in 1957 that consisted of all plastic. People believed by the year 2000, houses would be built after this model and there would be a drain in each room so a housewife could clean with a hose. She could also wash the dishes down the drain because they were made of dissolvable plastic and she could take her used nylons to a chemical factory to be converted into candy. Hungry, anyone?
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