Churchill tries to predict 1981

Winston Churchill, in 1931, tries to predict the technology of 1981. Among his wildly optimistic predictions:

• Accelerating pace of innovation
• Nuclear power
• Fusion power
• Super materials 30x stronger than steel
• Super engines with 600 hp weighing 20 lbs and carrying 1,000 hours of fuel in a fountain-pen-sized tank
• Wireless phones
• Wireless TV
• Telecommuting
• Population flight away from cities
• Lab-grown meat
• Underground farming
• Artificial wombs
• Bioengineering of humans
• Nation-destroying weaponry
• Greater capabilities of governments to control their citizens
• And lastly: governments unsuited to handle these new technologies

What’s striking to me is how the technological aspirations of 1931 are not too unrecognizable from our own aspirations today. Nearly 100 years later, we’re still in the same paradigm.