Nostradamus 0, Nostalgia 1

• Technological strides were made in electromagnetism and wireless communication that led to the invention of the telephone and radio during the latter decades of the 19th century, so naturally a machine that transcribe would be part of their imagination. 

  
• Another card shows video calls imagined from the technology of the day. Apple Facetime? Zoom?

  
• Other types of advances in projection were expected as well, allowing microscope or telescope images to be much more visible. Today we have monitors.

  
• In light of the Industrial revolution that occurred in France in the early part of the 19th century, automation would have been rife with possibilities. Robot barbers.

  
• For women, the vision was more extensive, including an all-in-one robotic make-up artist and hairdresser:

  
• a robotic tailor

  
• One card shows all the instruments of an orchestra being controlled by the conductor, which isn’t too far off from the robotic instruments designed by Festo:

  
• We still can't have a machine build an entire house, but recent advances in 3D printing almost beg for houses and other buildings to be printed out, if the technology could be worked out.

  
• Agriculture? Robots on farms are on the rise, as bots have been developed to milk cows, pick only ripe strawberries, and even kill weeds.

  
• While it may seem a bit to Matrix-like to become a reality, one could argue that this is fundamentally what an audiobook is or what the Internet does with information.

  
• The rise of molecular gastronomy in fine dining has made food chemistry a modern reality. It may seem like food science has its limitations, but one only needs to consider efforts to grow meat in a laboratory to see how far technology may go.

  
• Considering that powered gliders were in development during the 1890s, the first Zeppelin was being constructed in 1900, and the Wright brothers made their historic flight in 1903, flight was not such a big leap.  

  
• This was their imagination of airtravel.

  
• Many were inspired by 200,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Sadly, we haven't progressed far underwater. Perhaps Google’s efforts to allow underwater exploration in Google Maps will begin to help

  
• Some, we already know are bad ideas, such as rapid biological development of eggs into chicks

  
• Radium to heat houses, another dangerous idea.

  
• Starting in 1899, a commercial artist named Jean-Marc Côté and other artists were hired by a toy or cigarette manufacturer to create a series of picture cards as inserts. Sadly, they were never actually distributed. However, the only known set of cards to exist was discovered by Isaac Asimov, who wrote a book in 1986 called “Futuredays” in which he presented the illustrations with commentary.
• Majority of young people


  Agreed with the statement that "humanity is doomed"
• Feelings about climate change

  • Very or extremely worried (59%)
  • At least moderately worried (84%)
  • Sad
  • Anxious
  • Angry
  • Powerless
  • Helpless
  • Guilty
• Over 45% of respondents


  Said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning
• Many respondents reported a high number of negative thoughts about climate change
• Respondents rated the governmental response to climate change

  Negatively
• Respondents reported greater feelings

  Of betrayal than of reassurance
• In his seminal Foundation series, science fiction author Isaac Asimov introduced the world to the concept of psychohistory: the ability to predict the future using existing data. It is a concept born from science fiction and may now become a reality thanks to big data
• Three areas of inter-related psychohistorical research

  • History of Childhood
  • Psychobiography
  • Group Psychology
• Psychobiography


  Understanding individual historical actors and their motivations; involves reconstruction of a person’s emotional development
• Group Psychology


  Influenced by emotion, fantasies, and unconscious complexes; patterns of shared culture and child-rearing give rise to common attitudes, fantasies, beliefs, and values

  
  

  There is no collective mind existing independently of the individuals who make up the group

  
  

  Different groups support and oppose wars, revolutions, genocides, and other large scale historical projects
• Political elites manipulate and are influenced by mass psychology

  Connects the psychobiography of leaders with group psychology
• Shared patterns of child rearing shape group identities
• Macro-historical traumas such as slavery, wars, and genocides shape group identities
• Intergenerational transmission of trauma

  Links psychobiography with group psychology
• Kalev Leetaru: '“Well in 2011, I published a paper called Culturomics 2.0 that showed that by data mining 100 million news articles and focusing not on the physical things there, but on the latent dimensions, things like the emotional undercurrents of that content, what locations were being talked about and in what context and how, it turns out that we were able to forecast the Arab Spring and give ourselves Bin Laden's location to within 200km of where he was actually found."'
• Leetaru published a paper called Culturomics 2.0 inthe year

  2011
• Leetaru founded the Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone (GDELT)in the year...

  2013
• GDELT is a breathtakingly ambitious big data project
• GDELT compiles data from 1979 to the present
• Data at a daily level of detail is available from 2013 onwards
• Example of GDELT's insights

  • Refugee crisis
• GDELT

  Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone
• GDELT

  • Tracks where refugees are going
  • Tracks how refugees are moving
  • Tracks reactions to refugees
  • Tracks changes in attitudes towards refugees