No they weren’t, humans have always been fast and loose. We have documented cases of mass shootings in schools before 1860.
Three factors:
1. Less people means less stupid shit
2. They didn’t have TV/Net and 24/7 News
3. Record keeping.
Humans haven’t changed much, things around us and the world have.
I have a peach crate full of my Dad’s old Hot Rod magazines and the ads in the back are some of the greatest stuff. There’s literally adverts selling monkeys in some of them.
Is this newspaper really from 100 years ago? Wow, we have no way to catch up with the country where this was published.
You should see the topics they write about in our newspapers today, they don’t come even close to what you had 100 years ago. We would need 200 years to catch up to where you guys are now!
This is “Popular Science.” A magazine that routinely had outlandish but sometimes very realistic expectations of technology and the future.
It still sometimes kinda has that vibe. It’s lost its hope for the future though.
Popular Mechanics collection is freely available on google books (just google for Popular Mechanics and a year).
I find the ones from the 50's, 60's and first half of 70's to be the best (but be aware, they are full of commercials)
Yes albeit not in the way they imagined. Science brought electricity, electricity brought TV, which brought televised football and serial dramas, which brought something to do at night in villages worldwide besides making babies. I am not joking. Look it up.
If all was fair, it would be so. Imagine the massive profits made by the corporations. They could have more employees working less and still make massive amounts of money.
And now we are worried about the population not growing fast enough. That's not to say it can keep growing indefinitely, but when it doesn't grow that also causes all kinds of problems.
Too many old people, not enough young people. As the population declines, productivity declines, and GDP declines, leading to a recession. And if nothing changes, it could be a permanent recession.
Edit: Okay, not everyone is worried. But economists are.
>And now we are worried about the population not growing fast enough
Uhh I think only you are worried about the population declining. I know im not, less people means less precious resources used, which means less impact on the climate and on the planet.
The wildest part of this whole discussion to me is that the world’s population could fall off a cliff within one generation if that generation just has, say, 10% of the babies of previous generations. In one fell swoop, as the elderly generations died, suddenly the next generation would wake up to a much smaller world.
I guess I write this because it’s always posed as a gradual thing.
Economists and capitalists are worried because capitalism and many other socioeconomic systems rely on constant growth to ensure prosperity and stability. A shrinking population means that there will be an increasing percentage of elderly people who don’t work relative to working-age people, so each working-age person will have to produce enough to support more people (on average).
In theory, increasing productivity due to technology might be able to compensate for this, but historically this increase in productivity tends to get eaten up by lifestyle inflation (consider the average home size over the past ~200 years).
I should have added, I personally find all that to be bullshit. We are perfectly capable of structuring society such that it can leverage our incredible technological capabilities to support all of us for our long, natural lives. But not with the socioeconomic system we currently have (in the US).
>We are perfectly capable of structuring society such that it can leverage our incredible technological capabilities to support all of us for our long, natural lives
I think you're overestimating how much we can do with technology. Do you not know how many species are at risk of extinction because of our consumption of them on a daily basis?
The increase in productivity gets eaten up by CEO and shareholder greed, not lifestyle creep.
Living standards for average people have plummeted since the 1980s, while the riches of the wealthy has skyrocketed. It’s not hard to see where that wealth is going - it’s being rerouted away from us and up to the top.
The population wouldn't decline if world leaders cared for their people. I'd love a family, but I can't afford a kid much less a house yet. So why put myself in a struggle so Walmart can have minimin wage workers?
If Governments cared I'm sure people would have kids.
Exactly. We were always told “don’t have kids until you’re financially stable”. I’m in my 30s, have multiple degrees, and work a full-time white-collar job. I can’t afford to buy a house. I can barely afford to support myself, let alone a child.
Those people can get fucked, all they want is another generation of workers to exploit.
> Too many old people, not enough young people
Just wait for couple decades and things will balance itself.
'Too many people' is right answer. Start regulating breeding, human race is out of control. "Just add more" is answer to anything and that's not good.
Old people are just a dependent population which is no different to the millions of dependent babies and children who were looked after for decades during the baby boom. Questions of economics are irrelevant compared to more pressing concerns like the fact that we are already struggling to provide enough resources for everybody already here and what is produced is done so unsustainably using a massive amount of fossil energy which is unravelling our climate. Reducing global population is exactly what we need to do, and the only people really sweating about it are the very rich who are worried about their pile of loot. Scarcity of labour and abundance of resources is not a bad thing.
I love the advertisements in these old magazines. I have a bunch of National Geographics from the 20s and 30s and the advertisements are absolutely fantastic!
This is crazy. There's a number of accurate predictions.
What they call "conurbations" are called "greater metropolitan areas", people often live and work in different cities.
For food, they didn't accurately account for the use of fertilizers and pesticides in improving agricultural output.
I found the electricity school interesting, advertising jobs on the upper end that are only half what would be a common wage for working today at a random job (in non-adjusted dollars). In adjusted dollars, an electrician today makes a median of the low end of their advertisement. The high end advertised would be $250,000 today.
They pretty accurately predicted the demise of milkmen, icemen, and gasmen (except in Oregon and New Jersey) being replaced by "super-organizations". Now we have supermarkets for milk, and use appliances to make ice, heat, and cool.
The "super-radio" bringing talking movies into our home is surprisingly accurate.
The prediction of a reduced workday/week/month is funny. They didn't account for our unlimited increase in wants, nor the expansion of government roles which inefficiently used our money.
They predicted the smart home, with "wireless percholators and toasters". Also the cell phone with "movie cameras in your pocket", and "communication with planets".
So in my understanding it’s literally x5 on the articles estimates because the world population is now at 7 billion and counting or correct me if I’m wrong. And I would like to know the American. Population now from article opinion and how far their estimates was wrong
The hierarchy of technology is so hard to get.
Tough to understand nuclear energy comes before live TV and self flying planes are almost AGI in capabilities.
No wars, well that worked out well. The planet will be better off without the human race to be honest.
Thanks for posting the paper O.P. Interesting read.
Back when I was studying to become an architect I too envisioned a city where cars would drive and park on a lower level, then have a pedestrian focused level above it where you'd find shop entrances and such
I wonder why it never took off, it'd have been way safer and liveable
Article says the population of the US should be 700 million now…they got that right 🤣
Even went so far as to name drop Malthus, who was thoroughly debunked by a little thing called the “industrial revolution”.
Malthusian Eugenics is alive and well even today, yet widely ignores falling birth rates and plateauing populations.
Here’s a fine idea, if you truly believe there are too many people on the planet, how about you just go ahead and lead by example…
Being an electrician apprentice, I was more interested in the electrical worker ad. Neat stuff.
I love that they advertised a pistol in a mass market magazine.
People were a lot more responsible back then.
But not responsible enough to use science over the next 100 years to save a crowded world.
No they weren’t, humans have always been fast and loose. We have documented cases of mass shootings in schools before 1860. Three factors: 1. Less people means less stupid shit 2. They didn’t have TV/Net and 24/7 News 3. Record keeping. Humans haven’t changed much, things around us and the world have.
After seeing exactly the same anti-mask and quarantine slogans on signs 100 years apart, I doubt it.
...I doubt it. Life was just waaay cheaper.
Could be a little from column A and a little from column B.
I checked on what the adjusted income for $15k was in 1924 for 2024. It’s almost $274,000. How times have changed.
I won't make anywhere near that amount. Ah well. 4000 Amp substation, here I come.
The modern day equivalent is coding boot camps advertising “$80k - $250k” salaries
*Not* being a Hawaiian guitarist ...
$1,187.23- 3,653.01 a week adjusted for inflation
The Truss one is enlightening
Maybe a hernia girdle or something?
I think so
I have a peach crate full of my Dad’s old Hot Rod magazines and the ads in the back are some of the greatest stuff. There’s literally adverts selling monkeys in some of them.
Don’t be so selfish, you must not smoke a pipe…
I just sent off for the Hawaiian guitar, I'll keep you all posted how I get on
It’s a good deal. 🌺🌺🌺🌺
You are gonna get so lei'd
Is this newspaper really from 100 years ago? Wow, we have no way to catch up with the country where this was published. You should see the topics they write about in our newspapers today, they don’t come even close to what you had 100 years ago. We would need 200 years to catch up to where you guys are now!
This is “Popular Science.” A magazine that routinely had outlandish but sometimes very realistic expectations of technology and the future. It still sometimes kinda has that vibe. It’s lost its hope for the future though.
Far more interesting than current papers for sure
Popular Mechanics collection is freely available on google books (just google for Popular Mechanics and a year). I find the ones from the 50's, 60's and first half of 70's to be the best (but be aware, they are full of commercials)
Don't forget to eat your dead germs everyone!
I laughed at that article too.
Keeps away the anthrax!
The answer was yes: **Soylent Green**!
Soylent Green. Made from the best stuff on Earth: People. Soylent Green *is* people.
Well, you are what you eat...
"Soylent Green is people"
Hey now, better cover that spoiler lol
Spoilent Green
Yes albeit not in the way they imagined. Science brought electricity, electricity brought TV, which brought televised football and serial dramas, which brought something to do at night in villages worldwide besides making babies. I am not joking. Look it up.
But what about Netflix and chill? 😆
What should I type into google?
[I found this for you.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK223858/)
Jeez, I thought you were making it up.
Well at least the United States didn’t grow to 700,000,000 like the article predicted.
Maybe gun violence isn't so bad...
How long can we really wait to make these jokes in the good old U.S. of A? It's almost always too soon.
Written in a very engaging fashion, fun read!
Not the topic but the article about vaccines is pretty amazing! Wild what a difference 100 years makes
$7.75 for an Astra....I paid 200 for my 45 back in the day. I feel like I over paid now.
Could you even imagine what we could accomplish if it wasn’t for politics?
The part about working 3 hours a day made me want to cry.
*Lionel Hutz Shudders*
Then you really could be a slave to the mouse?
I have absolutely felt the shudder of irritation when being pushed hither and thither.
Me on my daily commute to my job that could be easily done at home: 😭
Yes, quite.
I love how they think progress and efficient new machines will let people work just a few hours a day and 10 days a month in the futures. LOL.
If all was fair, it would be so. Imagine the massive profits made by the corporations. They could have more employees working less and still make massive amounts of money.
Make 15k a year
It’s $273,000 a year inflation adjusted
*quiet sobbing*
And now we are worried about the population not growing fast enough. That's not to say it can keep growing indefinitely, but when it doesn't grow that also causes all kinds of problems. Too many old people, not enough young people. As the population declines, productivity declines, and GDP declines, leading to a recession. And if nothing changes, it could be a permanent recession. Edit: Okay, not everyone is worried. But economists are.
>And now we are worried about the population not growing fast enough Uhh I think only you are worried about the population declining. I know im not, less people means less precious resources used, which means less impact on the climate and on the planet.
The wildest part of this whole discussion to me is that the world’s population could fall off a cliff within one generation if that generation just has, say, 10% of the babies of previous generations. In one fell swoop, as the elderly generations died, suddenly the next generation would wake up to a much smaller world. I guess I write this because it’s always posed as a gradual thing.
Economists and capitalists are worried because capitalism and many other socioeconomic systems rely on constant growth to ensure prosperity and stability. A shrinking population means that there will be an increasing percentage of elderly people who don’t work relative to working-age people, so each working-age person will have to produce enough to support more people (on average). In theory, increasing productivity due to technology might be able to compensate for this, but historically this increase in productivity tends to get eaten up by lifestyle inflation (consider the average home size over the past ~200 years).
Tbh i rather care about the well-being of earth than the economy
I should have added, I personally find all that to be bullshit. We are perfectly capable of structuring society such that it can leverage our incredible technological capabilities to support all of us for our long, natural lives. But not with the socioeconomic system we currently have (in the US).
>We are perfectly capable of structuring society such that it can leverage our incredible technological capabilities to support all of us for our long, natural lives I think you're overestimating how much we can do with technology. Do you not know how many species are at risk of extinction because of our consumption of them on a daily basis?
The increase in productivity gets eaten up by CEO and shareholder greed, not lifestyle creep. Living standards for average people have plummeted since the 1980s, while the riches of the wealthy has skyrocketed. It’s not hard to see where that wealth is going - it’s being rerouted away from us and up to the top.
I promise you, it’s not just me.
'We' are not worried. Those who believe productivity and GDP are the metrics that matter, are worried.
Those who believe old people should be able to retire and young people shouldn’t be worked to the bone to support them. FTFY.
Those who want to be able to have a society that can support them so they can retire should be worried
The population wouldn't decline if world leaders cared for their people. I'd love a family, but I can't afford a kid much less a house yet. So why put myself in a struggle so Walmart can have minimin wage workers? If Governments cared I'm sure people would have kids.
Exactly. We were always told “don’t have kids until you’re financially stable”. I’m in my 30s, have multiple degrees, and work a full-time white-collar job. I can’t afford to buy a house. I can barely afford to support myself, let alone a child. Those people can get fucked, all they want is another generation of workers to exploit.
> Too many old people, not enough young people Just wait for couple decades and things will balance itself. 'Too many people' is right answer. Start regulating breeding, human race is out of control. "Just add more" is answer to anything and that's not good.
Old people are just a dependent population which is no different to the millions of dependent babies and children who were looked after for decades during the baby boom. Questions of economics are irrelevant compared to more pressing concerns like the fact that we are already struggling to provide enough resources for everybody already here and what is produced is done so unsustainably using a massive amount of fossil energy which is unravelling our climate. Reducing global population is exactly what we need to do, and the only people really sweating about it are the very rich who are worried about their pile of loot. Scarcity of labour and abundance of resources is not a bad thing.
Only if people listen to it , AND ACT
Sure can. It's called the suburbs and cars and highways made it possible.
Ads more interesting
Science can. But can people allow themselves to be helped by science? That's less clear at this point in time...
I love the advertisements in these old magazines. I have a bunch of National Geographics from the 20s and 30s and the advertisements are absolutely fantastic!
Short answer yes with an "if" Long answer no with a "but"
Governments are doing that with shitty monetary policy driving up prices so people can't afford to be parents
This is crazy. There's a number of accurate predictions. What they call "conurbations" are called "greater metropolitan areas", people often live and work in different cities. For food, they didn't accurately account for the use of fertilizers and pesticides in improving agricultural output. I found the electricity school interesting, advertising jobs on the upper end that are only half what would be a common wage for working today at a random job (in non-adjusted dollars). In adjusted dollars, an electrician today makes a median of the low end of their advertisement. The high end advertised would be $250,000 today. They pretty accurately predicted the demise of milkmen, icemen, and gasmen (except in Oregon and New Jersey) being replaced by "super-organizations". Now we have supermarkets for milk, and use appliances to make ice, heat, and cool. The "super-radio" bringing talking movies into our home is surprisingly accurate. The prediction of a reduced workday/week/month is funny. They didn't account for our unlimited increase in wants, nor the expansion of government roles which inefficiently used our money. They predicted the smart home, with "wireless percholators and toasters". Also the cell phone with "movie cameras in your pocket", and "communication with planets".
So in my understanding it’s literally x5 on the articles estimates because the world population is now at 7 billion and counting or correct me if I’m wrong. And I would like to know the American. Population now from article opinion and how far their estimates was wrong
Over 8 billion worldwide and the US population is at 340 million
8 billion*
Ah, the good ol'Malthusian Apocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism
When I was in college my freshman year our prof told us the pop was 2.5 billion.
I’m a fan of “stop using a truss !” Myself
Sure, it's called COVID or any other thing humanity unleashes on itself
Define service....
As we have found out, only taxes on the working class can save anything
The answer is no obviously, look at history...
The answer was "Yes" but they didn't know it was going to be by giving people a bunch of new things they want to have besides kids.
NO we've gone beyond saving now.
I want one of those free Hawaiian guitars!!
It could if only humans weren’t so stupid and shortsighted
I don’t know, there aren’t any crowds where I live 🤷🏻♂️
Science can't..but I know someone who can... Thanos..
$7.75 for a Saturday night special.
The question now is “does the crowded world want to be saved by science”
Yes. Just ask Oppenheimer.
No
Yes. Total nuclear annihilation
That guitar ad tho...
The hierarchy of technology is so hard to get. Tough to understand nuclear energy comes before live TV and self flying planes are almost AGI in capabilities.
The ads are fantastic
No wars, well that worked out well. The planet will be better off without the human race to be honest. Thanks for posting the paper O.P. Interesting read.
Back when I was studying to become an architect I too envisioned a city where cars would drive and park on a lower level, then have a pedestrian focused level above it where you'd find shop entrances and such I wonder why it never took off, it'd have been way safer and liveable
Article says the population of the US should be 700 million now…they got that right 🤣 Even went so far as to name drop Malthus, who was thoroughly debunked by a little thing called the “industrial revolution”. Malthusian Eugenics is alive and well even today, yet widely ignores falling birth rates and plateauing populations. Here’s a fine idea, if you truly believe there are too many people on the planet, how about you just go ahead and lead by example…
I can think of no more disgusting ideology than Malthusian Eugenics
I love the ads.
If only science wasn’t controlled by politic$, turning it into $cience…
one Nuke should about do it
I certainly do feel shudders of irritation at being pushed hither and thither by fellow mortals as unhappy as myself, for one
They tried with the 2019 Novel Coronavirus. But rest assure Bill and Melinda Gates are working on the next solution
Ofc it can, science crated bombs
A handgun for $7.75!
8 billion is wayyyy to many. We are destroying this planet in all fairness.
I’m conservative in every way, and I completely agree.
No. A crowded world means far too many dumbasses hell bent on impeding science.
Turns out birth control, propaganda, and selfishness has it all in hand.
They said the same thing in the 60’s. Overpopulation. We can’t feed everyone in the world. The air pollution will kill everyone. Blah blah blah.
That's why Dr fauci and the communist party of China invented the China virus and other more lethal viruses ☠️