Plastic Skyscrapers and Frozen Dinners (1945)

I don't want to miss plastic skyscrapers; frozen-food dinners in one package... wireless transmission of electricity; the chance to live energetically to the grand old age of 150 years. Screwball? Nothing of the kind. All of these things are here already in the minds of men; in scientific possibility; in materials. They just have to be put together. -- Eddie Rickenbacker, 1945

From the book Future: A Recent History by Lawrence R. Samuel.

Previously on Paleo-Future:

• Will War Drive Civilization Underground? (1942)
• Tomorrow's Kitchen (1943)
• After the War (1944)
• Space Travel to be Commonplace (1957)

Comments

[MaximusNYC]

Well, we got the frozen dinners.

1 out of 4 ain't bad, I guess.

[Bob]

Mr. Rickenbacker here was born 1890, would have been 150 in 2040, so he would have gone from the Victorians to ...2040. What a difference between eras, what change he would have seen.
But considering that he died in 1973, I think he saw a quite a bit already.

[vader]

What a difference between eras, what change he would have seen.Solar Orlando

[Ash Williams]

I don't know how our ancestor could imagined so many thing to our times, and fo all them just the half is in the market in this moment, only Kamagra has brought some years ago.

[Myself]

The thing that really made me cross my eyes was the fact that Tesla actually managed to transmit electricity wirelessly in 1899! He powered 200 lightbulbs from a distance of over 20 miles. The problem was there was no way of making a meter to track who is using it and how much, hence making it impossible to send the bill to anyone. This was the reason why J. P Morgan, Tesla's financier, pulled the funding from the project.

Just think of what we could have had today if Tesla's financiers had said 'you know what, we might not make a profit, but we have the money to spare, and these inventions could change the world for the betterment of all' and let it be.