How do you impress your time-traveling visitor from 1978?

In My Humble Opinion
1

They were actually aiming for the year 2000, but they misdialed the year on their cryogenic capsule. It happens. Anyhoo, they’re really eager to see all the amazing technological advances made in the last 30 years-- the personal robots, flying cars, space colonies etc.

The first thing they notice is your widescreen plasma TV. Goddamn futuristic! They are blown away when you tell them that you have your own “personal computer,” and exactly how much porn it can access. They gasp in awe at your tiny Star Trek pocket phone-- truly, this is, indeed, The Future!

And then you show them–

2

The Prius? DVD collection? YZF-R1?

3

A map showing the Russian Federation. And a unified Germany.
ETA: And when they stop gibbering about that, I will have them pick a destination using my GPS unit, and let that tell me how to get there.

4

One of the things I was thinking of with the Prius. :wink:

5

Yeah, but I’m a Neo-Luddite. My GPS isn’t integral to my car. :wink:

6

2009 Dodge Challenger, the 2009 Chevy Camaro, and the 2008 Ford Mustang. That should be sufficient to blow their minds.

ETA: Oh and take them by the gas station too.

7

Impress? I’m not sure they’d be all that impressed with anything other than a bit of technology, and pretty disappointed that we’ve regressed in a lot of ways.

I’d be begging them to take me with them to 1978 so I could go see some bands, maybe try to keep Keith Moon from dying.

8

Is this visitor someone I know? Because if it is, I think I’d impress them by how big I’ve gotten since they last seen me. I wasn’t even 3’ tall in 1978, after all…

Really, though, I think I’d show them how far we’ve advanced from pong.

9

On that widescreen plasma TV, I’d show them the all the HD channels showing the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. (I’d also have to explain that Beijing is what Peking is now called.)

10

Well, personal computers were in the air in 1978 (the Apple I was around, I believe), but mobile phones weren’t. I think the most unexpected things would be sociological, like same-sex marriage as opposed to group marriage, while at the same time fundamentalism returned.

But I’d still pull out my iPhone. :slight_smile:

11

Wikipedia.

For all it’s shortcomings, still pretty damned impressive.

12

I would show them a movie. Not recorded on video tape, no magnetic tape what so ever. No video disk, but by plugging something into my computer no bigger than his little finger, I could show Deep Throat, or Rocky Horror as many times as he wanted to see it and never rewind.

SSG Schwartz

13

I think a round of Wii golf would be in order. And I would bring him to the gas station so he could look at the price and laugh. I’d show him the non-smoking bars, non-smoking restaurants, non-smoking produce sections of grocery stores… I’d let him get blown away at the price of weed, but then I’d let them get blown away by it’s potency. I’d swing by an ATM, and by then I think he’d find that besides a few things, advances aren’t nearly as impressive as he would have hoped.

14

And I would show him they server hosting the SDMB, and he would say “Hey! That used to be in my living room!”

15

He may be saddened that G.I. Joes lost their Kung-Fu grip, but happy to know they are still in production, only smaller :slight_smile:

16

I think the Bugatti Veyron outclasses all of those weakies. :slight_smile:

17

I’m trying to remember life in 1978…

I think that, were my 1978 self transported to now, I would be most impressed with the following (in no particular order of importance):

  1. big screen TVs

  2. satellite TV (we had cable in my family in '69, but TV from space?)

  3. routine live shots from elsewhere in the world, including people who aren’t our friends.

  4. “Star Trek communicator” like cellphones, especially the internet access, text, messaging, phone book, and all those other non-phone things they do now.

  5. portable computers, laptops, Palms, etc.

  6. medical imaging

  7. routine organ transplants

  8. reattachment of limbs

  9. advances in prosthetics like cochlear implants and legs that allow amputees to run competitively and so forth.

  10. Movie special effects - the 1977 Star Wars that blew us out of the water now looks dated and feeble.

  11. Re-arrangements of the political map such as USSR fragmenting and the reunification of Germany.

  12. GPS, and software like Google maps.

  13. computer chips everywhere - cars, doorlocks, microwaves, phones, etc.

  14. Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California

  15. Gay marriage anywhere

That’s all I can think of for now.

18

I have to say iPods are pretty impressive. When I was a young adult ('80s) we put songs on cassette. I remember in the film Footloose one character asks the lead character if he’s rich, because the guy has a cassette player in his Bug. Most cassettes only held about an hour of music, and few players could seek out tracks, and I don’t think any would play the tracks randomly. My iTunes has 3,114 tracks on it. Nine days, 11 hours, six minutes, eleven seconds. It would fill about half of my three-year-old iPod. And it fits in my pocket.

19

For a Briton, I’d show them the current UK Olympic cycling medals table, and show them the liklehood we would win more, and then show them the track at Manchester - That would really amaze them considering the state of the sport back then.

Ipods and memory sticks.

Mobile phones - back then it was extremely difficult for someone in the UK to own a means of international communication, the restrictions on radio hams were pretty tight.

Most recent cars or bikes, but for a Briton stuff such as the Rocket 3 the Street Triple, but especially the Speed Triple - th elooks would be a revelation, especially for a bike industry that had died back in 1978.

I’d like them to see the south side of my home town - and compare it to 1978. Its completely differant, yes we lost lot of irreplaceable industrial history but what has been put in its place would amaze them too. Actually pretty much most of the middle of my hometown is dramtically differant, for better or worse.

Thiings like the new Wembley Stadium or many of the new soccer stadiums.

They would be impressed with the lack of rubbish, glass and litter strewn about - seriously - back then most cities were run down and scruffy compared to now.

Breakfast television - the idea of putting on the tv and not the radio as you get ready for work would be something of a revelation, not necassarily a fantastic one.

Out of town Sunday Shopping, the fact that almost everyone has a car to get there too.

LCD tv sets, it was something that was dreamed of back then, now its reality, tvs you can hang on the wall.

The balance against that would be the things that they would miss, as cities have eaten up more and more green space and reduced community spirit in close knit towns, especially the coal mining areas.

20

Sombering things. Show them the hole where the WTC used to be, and show them TSA in operation at U.S. airports… with instant X-ray displays and chemical sniffers. Wasn’t 1978 even before metal detectors were in common use?

Mountain bikes. I remember seeing them for the first time in the mid-80s and having a Mr. Toad and the Motor-car moment… :slight_smile: Similarly, modern skateboards, and inline skates.

Soft contact lenses. Disposable daily wear versions, too.

Someone from 1978 would probably have seen Star Wars: A New Hope, but nothing beyond that. They won’t know Darth Vader is really Luke’s father. :slight_smile: You can blow their minds by showing them the three prequels, then the special edition (the fixed one in which Han shoots first, of course) :slight_smile:

If they liked Battlestar Galactica and/or Doctor Who, wait until they see the 21st century versions. Also a bunch of other awesome TV shows have come and gone in the last 30 years that mostly beats the drek I recall being on back then hands-down. While showing them more recent sci-fi shows and movies, you’ll have to keep telling them, “no, we still don’t have [tech] yet, but hollywood can certainly fake it better…” :slight_smile:

*** Ponder