How People from the Past Thought we Would be Living Now

As innovation and technology improved, optimistic people from the past made predictions about the futuristic lifestyle we would be living in during the 21st century.

1. Flying cars

Flying cars was a very popular prediction that people made about how transportation would work in the future. Benefits of flying cars include getting to places faster and avoiding ground traffic. Flying taxis specifically have been discussed, but it seems like it will be awhile before cars will have the ability to be lifted off of the ground. Plus, if we had air car traffic, who knows what kind of systems that would have to be implemented in order to keep civilians safe. There would have to be some coordination with the cars and airplanes, there would have to be flying substitutes for traffic lights, and more runways so cars would be able to take off whenever the driver needs to.

2. Personal Transportation

People predicted that we would have single person vehicles in order to take up less space on the streets when traveling alone. These seem super similar to the chairs that were used on the spaceship in the Pixar film WALL-E, except the people got to sit instead of stand.

3. Waterproof Furniture

It was predicted that the furniture in homes would be waterproof in order for people to easily clean it with a hose. Although at first it seems practical, this would not be a good idea unless the house was sloped so the water would go towards the drain.

4. Transportable Towns

Somehow, we would be able to transport whole buildings from one area to another. The image above describes a potential way this could be done, by having the buildings built on the back of a train on a railroad ready to be moved at any instant.

5. Space Colonization

Many people predicted that we would have colonized some of space, whether that means The Moon or even Mars. People from the past thought that we would have outposts and civilizations in places other than Earth by now, while for us that seems it would happen too far in our future.

6. Easy Architecture

This image shows a man in a box operating a bunch of heavy machinery with the controls inside of this box in order to design and build this particular building he is working on without having to do manual labor himself.

7. Roofed Cities

Interestingly enough, people thought that we would have some sort of roof over the top of the cities in order to keep rain, snow, hail, and other weather patterns away from the people. However, this would block out the natural sunlight and our main light source would have to be artificial.

8. Helicopter Lookouts

The image above shows a security lookout man who works for a prison keeping tabs on the prison's security in a helicopter, or in this case, a flying basket with a propeller.

9. Robot Service

There were quite a few predictions about robots helping people get ready for the day. The top image shows a lady getting her makeup done by a robot and the image below shows some men getting haircuts at what looks to be a robot barber shop.

10. Robot Orchestra

A lot of these predictions have robots doing tasks that humans could do instead, including this one. Here, we see a conductor of an orchestra controlling the instruments with some sort of machine that has made him able to conduct the instruments.

11. Robot Chefs

Here we see a prediction that food would be generated by machine made out of chemicals, so instead of having to cook or bake, chefs would just operate machinery that would cook for them.

12. Robot Tailors

Here is yet another prediction that involves robots making a human's life more convenient. This is a machine that takes the measurements of a particular person and then creates a suit to their exact measurements.

13. Robot Maid

Here is a contraption that a human maid can control via this leash in order to sweep and scrub the floor. This is basically a 19th century Roomba, except at that point the maid is still doing work.

----

A lot of these predictions seem good at first glance, but after more thought, they are unpractical and silly. It seems like people of the past were obsessed with having robots do labor for them and being able to fly in a smaller vehicle. These outlandish theories from our past are still theories people from the present have made. Maybe one day we'll get flying cars and robot butlers, but for now, it seems like most of these ideas are not going to happen any time soon.

Read similar: Inventions that Need to be Made, Sold, And/Or Used Everywhere