crystal ball

Predicting the future is impossible, unless you're Nostradamus, Jeane Dixon, or some other suitably vague hack. (There will be a cataclysm... somewhere... in April... mark my words!) But that doesn't stop people from trying. For a moment's amusement, check out a retro-futuristic flight of imagination at Harper's. How was the year 3000 shaping up in 1856?

Awakened in the year 3000; Paris destroyed, America magnaminous in its victory over China; Transit by cannon; The state of economic competition; The specialization of the human body; The adjustment of the nose; Urban planning; A monkey that can calculate the eclipse; The fortunate elimination of liberty; Dining out on water; Tobacco eliminated; Babies raised in containers; Training in Thibetan; Beef day; Remarkable cutlery; The introduction of a dandy; Painting the clouds; Dowries and courtship; The infinite newspaper; Literary observations; Observing a lady; Bedtime enforced

What of that "infinite newspaper?"

And he touched a spring, on which a queer looking mechanism slid along the wall until it reached our level. It appeared to be composed of an infinite number of rollers, round which a band of printed paper revolved incessantly, like the strips used in the old Morse telegraph.

“This is the great newspaper,” said my friend. “It's name, as you perceive, is the Everlasting World.”

“A daily, I presume?”

“Pardon me, it never ceases to appear. It is printed by a peculiar press on endless bands of paper, which are wound on rollers, and penetrate into the house of every subscriber. It is adapted to every taste, and in politics devotes a page or two to each separate party. In this way, you have only to look at the head of the column to perceive the articles which are intended for you. The rest you neglect; you can do so with the less regret, as the World prints exactly three miles of reading matter every twenty-four hours.”

No matter how hard we try to imagine the future, we extend the present either too much or too little. Although it's past 2000, we have no freeways in the sky--but our infinite newspaper doesn't require a shred of paper.

Prognostication aside, how will we get to the future? With education, of course.