It’s been almost ten years since I updated Retrofuture.com. It seems like a good time to relaunch the concept as a blog. The Retrofuture looks at fantastic plans from the past that never happened. Some of those plans are still be working on and, with the launching of this blog, I will attempt to update readers with recent developments.
My primary research into the topics I’m covering began in the mid-1990s In 1999, I began writing a series of columns for AOL’s “Countdown to the Millennium” called Retro Future (I will archive those old articles on this blog as things develop) in which I wrote about flying cars, jet packs, and other dreams of the imaginary year 2000.
I wrote 50 weekly installments of the series before the countdown clock began ticking down to those final seconds of 1999 and…and…
And nothing. January 1, 2000 arrived, the world did not end, computers worked and we moved on. It was just another year. Or so it seemed until a real Y2K crisis began in Florida. We all know the story after that.
The Retrofuture, to me, is a mindset. Optimistic at heart, it’s also cautionary, filled with the tales of irrational exuberance that lead to hubris. We’ve had a lot of hubris in the last eight years but not a lot of optimism. There’s a sense that dreaming of a better futures no longer seems so far-fetched. Let’s hope it’s a trend.
Professor Retro 1/16/09
