Predictions from 1965

At an anti-war teach-in the other day I attended a talk on the Obama presidency and what is to be expected from it.

The speaker stated 'I don't like making predictions' and drew attention to the fact that analysts have found that commentators' accuracy at predicting the future is dubious at best. He then used the analogy:

'Who in 1965 would have predicted that the Republican party would become dominated by evangelical Christians?'

So what would predictions for politics in the 00s from 1965 look like?
 
"We are all dead in a nuclear war by 1980" :mad:

"Computers are going to keep getting bigger and more expensive" :rolleyes:

"Flying cars for everyone" :eek:

"Moon base by 1995" :rolleyes:
 
Detent holds and nuclear disarmament has become a reality. The world of 2000 is one where power and influence in the world is defined by whether or not a country (or group of countries) has an active presence in space.
 
I don't know if anyone here ever watched any of the old Gerry Anderson puppet dramas like Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet, but maybe that's an idea lol. They were set in the 21st century.

The only thing that thinking of that that comes to mind is: a lot more space travel and a lot fewer computers. Which sounds a likely contemporary prediction come to think of it.
 
I don't know about 1965, but in the 50's it was widely believed that half the world would starve to death because food production could not keep up with the exponential world population increase.
 
The Great Society will bring about a new era of prosparity and social justice.

After the Barry Goldwater debacle, the Republican Party will become more moderate. Nevertheless, we shall not see a Republican President again for many decades.

The Soviet Union will survive well into the 21st Century.

Ronald Reagan will be defeated in his race for Governor of California next year.

We shall have things well in hand in Vietnam.
 
A pessimistic POV:

-The world will starve due to the "population bomb"
-A radical will be elected President and invade North Vietnam starting World War 3
-Johnson will be reelected in '69 and change election laws limiting his terms so he can keep running
 
- The Great Society will eliminate poverty from the United States as we know it. Full employment will be the norm, and full civil rights will come about in a peaceful manner.
- LBJ will easily be re-elected in 1968 over a moderate (or even liberal) Republican, like Nelson Rockefeller. I would bet on a race between RFK and another moderate Republican in '72.
- The GOP is going to jump to the center and do their best to rid themselves of the Goldwaterites. Prominent Goldwater supporters are done, politically. Especially vocal guys like Ronald Reagan. Maybe the Goldwaterites will form a classical liberal party, or something?
- Vietnam is going to be dealt with peacefully. There will never be any sort of escalation into Vietnam, as we have the upper hand.
 
I don't know about 1965, but in the 50's it was widely believed that half the world would starve to death because food production could not keep up with the exponential world population increase.

Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb in 1968. The next year, environmental awareness started to take hold, culminating in Earth Day in April, 1970.

But in 1965, starvation and pollution were not the words of the day. I would describe the predictions as:

More space travel, given the Gemini program started in 1965.
Certainly, a moon base before the year 2000.
The large, room-sized or building-sized computer of the sixties in use everywhere.
Picture telephones.

One of the most [politically] astounding predictions from the early sixties I heard came from the cartoon show The Jetsons. Aired in late 1962 at the height of US-Soviet tensions, it was laughably absurd at the time. As it goes:

Schoolboy Elroy: Mom, we are going on a field trip.
Mother Jane: Where are you going?
Elroy: Siberia; we are studying the tundra today.
Jane: OK, now Elroy, don't get into fights with any of the Russian boys, now.

She said "Russian," not "Soviet."
 
I'll take a stab at this, lets see the conflict in Vietnam will only get worse and within a few years the U.S. will be in the same predictament the French were in back in 1954.

I will agree with Rev. King and Bobby Kennedy and that we will have a black president elected in 40 to 50 years hence.

As a result of the result of the recent fallout beetween Red China and the Soviet Union the ice will begin to thraw between the U.S. and Red China and by the end of the 1970's full diplomatic relations will be established between the two countries. Taiwan will continue be under the authoritarian rule of Chiang Kaisek until his death sometime during the next decade who in turn will be succeded by his son Chiang Ching-Kao who in turn will be succeded by his son when dies or retires, thus ensuring Taiwan under the rule of the Chiang dynasty well into the 21st century.

And finally, Richard Nixon will not only run for the GOP nomiantion in 68 but will get the nomination and be a formidable presidential contender against LBJ or Hubert Humphrey. I know I'm going out on a limb with this for conventional wisdaom says that odds are very great against Nixon of making a comback of this sort.
 
The 60s was a period of spectacular American economic growth. That fueled the expectations of the public. Everything from LBJ's "Great Society" to the exuberant pop culture was the result of economic surplus. People therefore had a very optimistic outlook on the future. Star Trek after all is a product of this period. I think the closest thing to this period would be the second half of 1990s, or maybe Europe before WWI.

The Jetsons probably wasn't that far fetched from what people thought the year 2000 would look like. We would have household robot servants to do all our cooking and cleaning. TV phones in every house. Teenagers would cruise around in flying cars. Families would travel to vacation resorts in orbit. Walking would almost be obsolete with converter belts on every sidewalk. All of this was expected by the magical year 2000.

The emerging pop culture at the time was expected to be more permanent. So they thought dress and music would be basically a variation of the radically new trends of that time. What we think of as a fad was taken for granted as the dawn of a new classical age.
 
In the 1960s there was a promotion for a futuristic "Kitchen computer" for the typical housewife of the era:

kitchecomputer%2002.jpg


And don't forget that we were supposed to have bases on the Moon by now...:(
 
Nelson Rockefeller becomes President sometime in the 1970's.

The Conservative faction of the GOP slowly dies out, keeping the moderate Nixonites and liberal Rockefeller faction the strongest groups.

Ted Kennedy becomes President sometime in the 1980's.

There is heated political debate over the cost of colonizing the Solar system with Orion rockets and the upkeep of the Lunar and Martian bases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
http://www.oriondrive.com/
 
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