# Would people in the 50s be disappointed in "the future"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 1, 2009, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588 "2009-12-01T15:23:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/101 "2009-12-10T01:41:15Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > What’s the mechanical/analog version of a Nintendo Wii? [A wind-up mechanical shooting gallery?](http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-SHOOTING-GALLERY-CIRCUS-OHIO-ART-TOY_W0QQitemZ390123399460QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item5ad52aa924) Actually, for something like the Wii, where a lot of the games are digital versions of sports and such, I’d say possibly soccer balls, footballs, baseballs, bowling balls, boxing gloves, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/102 "2009-12-10T01:49:02Z")
They’d be delighted by the technology but they’d also be disgusted and disappointed in many areas. Our post-modern hedonistic culture would shock people from this gentle time and so would be the general legalization and approval of various practices that were appalling to people of '59. As for who is right in this regard, I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/103 "2009-12-10T01:54:06Z")
“Gentle time”? People who lived through World War II, prohibition and Jim Crow? ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/104 "2009-12-10T02:00:44Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > What’s the mechanical/analog version of a Nintendo Wii? Any of number of games suitable for playing indoors. I can just picture Mr. Drysdale in his bank’s executive suite playing one of of those office putting games. In fact, the whole concept of the [rec room](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreation_room)–the Wii is basically a rec room in a box, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/105 "2009-12-10T02:05:21Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > “Gentle time”? People who lived through World War II, prohibition and Jim Crow? Gentle I meant in the matter of manners and such things. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/106 "2009-12-10T02:14:33Z")
Doubtful. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/107 "2009-12-10T02:46:47Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Gentle I meant in the matter of manners and such things. Well, as long as you were white and Christian, anyway. I’ll bet there are a whole lot of blacks and Jews who were alive in that era who could tell you just how “gentle” the manners were. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/108 "2009-12-10T03:07:07Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Well, as long as you were white and Christian, anyway. I’ll bet there are a whole lot of blacks and Jews who were alive in that era who could tell you just how “gentle” the manners were. That doesn’t mean that the reaction of (say) a white Christian brought forward to the 2000’s would be somehow invalid in response to the OP’s scenario. The OP didn’t ask, “a person from the 50s be disappointed in ‘the future’, _speaking from a strictly minority viewpoint, thankyouverymuch_.” ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/109 "2009-12-10T04:14:15Z")
One thing most predictions from that era seem blind to: availability of critical resources to the mass of the population. Industrial production had increased the availability of goods and services so quickly, and the promise of nuclear power made it seem like all such ‘old’ problems had pretty much been solved. Progress would fix everything. IIRC, physicist Edward Teller once advocated reshaping the floors of harbors by detonating nuclear devices. The charmingly optimistic assumption that fallout could eventually be ‘designed out’ of nukes made that idea less insane than it now sounds. To be fair, things like jet packs and flying cars would be more than just laboratory curiosities if we had cold fusion reactors in our homes. Nobody was predicting wars over energy and water. I also think people from that era would be stunned at changes in sex roles, and relations among racial and ethnic groups. Middle-class and above males who were used to patting the derriere of every attractive woman would probably be pining for the good old days. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/110 "2009-12-10T04:22:49Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > That doesn’t mean that the reaction of (say) a white Christian brought forward to the 2000’s would be somehow invalid in response to the OP’s scenario. The OP didn’t ask, “a person from the 50s be disappointed in ‘the future’, _speaking from a strictly minority viewpoint, thankyouverymuch_.” No, but it would be a bit odd to assume that the generic human is a white Christian. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/111 "2009-12-10T04:36:50Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > No, but it would be a bit odd to assume that the generic human is a white Christian. If it’s the kind of person (presumably American) who would have been reading Popular Mechanics and dreaming of flying cars in the 1950s, then no, it isn’t. White Christians of the 1950s were bad, bad, bad people, we get it. But unfortunately they did constitute the majority of Americans then. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/112 "2009-12-10T04:40:06Z")
The OP didn’t specify Americans, or Popular Mechanics readers. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/113 "2009-12-10T04:45:31Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The OP didn’t specify Americans . . . Who else would have been dreaming of flying cars back then? Everyone else would have been trying to avoid being shot by revolutionaries and/or debating whether to boil their boots for dinner. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/114 "2009-12-10T05:18:32Z")
Well, certainly they weren’t much thinking about moon bases even here, considering that the US space program essentially did not exist until post-Sputnik. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/115 "2009-12-10T10:00:57Z")
I don’t know about the “kinder and gentler” aspect of things, but I think most folks in the 50’s would have been absolutely aghast if you showed them Grand Theft Auto IV, which was recently rated one of the top ten video games of all times. A game played by teenagers, centered around killing cops and innocent bystanders, and featuring prostitutes, strippers, and lots of profanity. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2009, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/116 "2009-12-10T14:07:05Z")
The OP stated that this was about people in 1959. 1959 was post-Sputnik, and the U.S. space program had already started. For that matter, there were already articles in U.S. magazines years before Sputnik about our wonderful future in space. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/117 "2009-12-11T02:04:09Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > If it’s the kind of person (presumably American) who would have been reading Popular Mechanics and dreaming of flying cars in the 1950s, then no, it isn’t. White Christians of the 1950s were bad, bad, bad people, we get it. But unfortunately they did constitute the majority of Americans then. Why were the average men of the 50s bad, bad people? They were not a monolithic bloc and most were fairly genial and liberal folks who unlike most people today also liked some decency. I prefer the '50s (minus the racism and technology) to today since we were not as infected by post-modernism and ultra-environmentalism as now. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/118 "2009-12-11T02:18:03Z")
Darn that environmentalism! Who wants to breathe clean air or drink water that won’t turn your insides to glowing ooze, anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/119 "2009-12-11T03:08:00Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Why were the average men of the 50s bad, bad people? They were not a monolithic bloc and most were fairly genial and liberal folks who unlike most people today also liked some decency. I prefer the '50s (minus the racism and technology) to today since we were not as infected by post-modernism and ultra-environmentalism as now. Paging **Starving Artist** - you can cancel the amber alert, 'cause I found your kid. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Shmendrik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Shmendrik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shmendrik)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588/120 "2009-12-11T07:38:01Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Well, certainly they weren’t much thinking about moon bases even here, considering that the US space program essentially did not exist until post-Sputnik. Why did the US space program need to exist for people to think about moon bases? [QUOTE=Air and Space Magazine] The cover of the March 22, 1952 issue of Collier’s magazine made an audacious promise. “Man Will Conquer Space Soon,” blared the headline, above a painting of a multi-stage rocket with engines blazing, bound for orbit. [/QUOTE] [http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/How-the-Spaceship-Got-Its-Shape.html](http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/How-the-Spaceship-Got-Its-Shape.html) Some more interesting stuff at [this website](http://www.blogcatalog.com/blog/paleo-future/52ee48ccab9d4c5077ab14da00c45094). Lots of futuristic predictions from the 1950’s: > [@](#): > > This painting by Leslie Carr, based on a drawing by R.A. Smith, appears in the 1951 book The Exploration of Space by Arthur C. Clarke. Eighteen years before Man would set foot on the moon, the image depicts a Martian colony of the future, similar to those which would show up later in the 1957 Disneyland TV episode, Mars and Beyond. Here’s an interesting [set of predictions](http://www.blogcatalog.com/blog/paleo-future/52ee48ccab9d4c5077ab14da00c45094), not space related. I think it’s safe to say Dr McDaniel would be quite disappointed. > [@](#): > > Dr. Lowry H. McDaniel of Tyronza, Ark., was a very optimistic doctor, though his ideas were certainly in line with medical futurists’ thinking of that era. The June 9, 1955 Charleston Gazette (Charleston, WV) lays out his vision of the year 1999, which includes a 150 year life span, a cancer vaccine, and the complete eradication of infectious disease. You can read his 10 predictions for the year 1999 below: > > A man 90 years old will be considered “young,” a man of 135 “more mature” and there will be “a minimum of senility because the heavy cholesterol which determines the age of our arteries will be absent.” > “Our women, thanks to proper hormone medication, would stay young, beautiful and shapely indefinitely.” > The Salk killed-virus vaccine “which is doing a tremendous job now” will be replaced in a few years by a living modified virus vaccine. > All human infectious disease, including rheumatic heart disease and venereal disease, will be eradicated. > Cancer will be “successfully treated by a virus vaccine or radioactive compounds.” > The common cold and “even the more serious respiratory virus infections will be only a memory.” > “Even greater victories await the highly-trained surgeon” of the future. Eye surgeons will restore vision to today’s hopeless cases. > Synthetic foodstuff will bring an end forever to famine and starvation. > Electronic devices will enable deaf mutes to “speak.” Initial research is underway by the Radio Corporation of America. > Insulin will be given in tablet form for the control of diabetes. Medical science will discover an “effective treatment” against the blood, heart and degenerative diseases of old age. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-people-in-the-50s-be-disappointed-in-the-future/519588.md?page=7)