Misplaced Faith in the Power of Inventions

By Alejandro Mufarrege (Claudio.Ar on Flickr)

From “Why our ‘amazing’ science fiction future fizzled” by John Blake (emphasis mine):

Even then [19th-century], people had a misplaced faith in the power of inventions to make life easier, Corn [Joseph Corn, co-author of "Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future] says.

For example, the typical 19th-century American city was crowded and smelly. The problem was horses. They created traffic jams, filled the streets with their droppings and, when they died, their carcasses.

But around the turn of the 20th century, Americans were predicting that another miraculous invention would deliver them from the burden of the horse and hurried urban life — the automobile, Corn says.

“There were a lot of predictions associated with early automobiles,” Corn says. “They would help eliminate congestion in the city and the messy, unsanitary streets of the city.”

Corn says Americans’ faith in the power of technology to reshape the future is due in part to their history. Americans have never accepted a radical political transformation that would change their future. They prefer technology, not radical politics, to propel social change.

“Technology has been seen by many Americans as a way to get a better tomorrow without having to deal with revolutionary change,” Corn says.

As someone who is always looking to hack my world to solve my problems and to increase my productivity and comfort, the above gives me something to ponder.