A Backward Trip to the Future

How Little We’ve Changed

This has been on my mind for some time and it came to a boil when Trump launched the B2 missions to Iraq. I’ve been pondering for some time now how little nearly everything has changed in my lifetime compared to my parents and their parents. For instance, my grandfather still used his team of work horses in the 1950s, his home still had an outhouse, and he didn’t have a phone! So it made me wonder. What would happen if I transported people from 1960 to 2025? Could they cope?

Yes, initially an iPhone would be a challenge but the keypad and its tones are the same. Driving a car is little changed. People could easily function in today’s “modern” kitchen with its microwaves, dishwashers, refrigerators, stoves, and such. Operating a TV with remote controls is little changed. How about flying coast to coast? It’s no faster today than 1960. The first man in space was Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961. Open heart surgeries were performed in 1960. Business computers had been around for ten years by 1960. What about the many other things we did daily in 1960, would they be foreign to the point where a person transported from 1960 wouldn’t have a clue how to cope in 2025?

There have been some major changes and introductions in the past 65 years with personal computers and the Internet leading the list. But there haven’t been any real advancements that compare with what occurred from 1700 to 1960. What we’ve seen mostly in the past 65 years are improvements in tools and toys that were already invented by the year 1960!1

From 1700 to 1960 ships changed from sails to steam engines, diesel engines, gas turbines, and nuclear power. (The NS Savannah, first nuclear-powered merchant ship, was launched on July 21, 1959.) Prior to 1960 trains, automobiles, and airplanes had already displaced horse-drawn wagons, carriages, and stagecoaches that had been around for thousands of years. Communications went from personally delivered verbal or written messages to fax machines, telegraphs, telephones, teletypes, radios, televisions, walkie-talkies, CB radios, pagers, and satellites.

Energy sources have evolved significantly over time from wood, crop waste, animal fats, windmills, water wheels, and solar power—until the Industrial Revolution. Then came hydropower, coal, oil, gas, and nuclear—all introduced before 1960.

GPS navigation is one of the more modern inventions. It was inspired when Sputnick was launched into orbit in 1957. During the 1960s a U.S. military project called NAVSTAR invented GPS. It replaced celestial navigation that had been used for 5,000 years and the compass that was 2,000 years old. So it’s a 1960's idea that is commonplace today.

When Trump sent B2s to Iran to drop bunker-buster bombs, he said that showed the world how advanced our military is compared to all others. But I remember my dad’s job when he was in the U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command in 1960 out of Savannah, Georgia. He was flying B47s, which as a prototype first flew on 17 December 1947. In 1960 the B47 was still on the front lines even though it was slowly being fazed out by B52s, which are workhorses to this day.

The B47 was built to deliver nuclear bombs to any target in the world from forward bases in the UK, Morocco, Spain, Alaska, Greenland, and Guam—and bases in the United States. I know that for several years my dad’s primary mission from Savannah was to take off, rendezvous with Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers, or the older Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers, for refueling while en route to drop a nuclear bomb on Moscow.

Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri is approximately 7,000 miles from Iran while the distance from Savannah, Georgia to Moscow is approximately 5,393 miles. The distance from Savannah, GA to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri is approximately 715 miles. The recent B2 flight to Iran was longer than one to Moscow, but one additional tanker from a forward European base would give the B47 the same range. BTW, the B52, which was also in service in 1960, could fly the 7,000-mile mission while carrying a bunker-buster bomb—if they had bunker-busters back then.

My point is that in 1960 our Air Force had the range and the nuclear weapons to destroy faraway targets. The only change since 1960 is there have been improvements in the tools and toys.

A couple days ago Guillermo Flor wrote an article for TheAIOpportunities.com that reviewed a recent Peter Thiel interview. In it, Peter implied that “AI is the only real exception to our stagnation—but he worries it might reinforce it.”2

He calls AI “more than a nothingburger, less than a total transformation. Like the internet in the 1990s, it might boost GDP by 1% a year—but won’t restart the engines of human progress.”

There’s much more to his thoughts, but they are similar to what I’ve been wondering about. I encourage you to read Guillermo Flor’s article because it is food for thought. What will our future hold? Will the stagnation of the past 65 years continue? As Peter says, “Will AI reinforce conformity rather than challenging it?”

Just listen to the debates we’re having these days regarding drugs, nutrition, and attending doctors. Current practices and beliefs are the same as they were in the 1970s where conformity with tradition is considered the only way to address ailments. If medical doctors don’t follow the “established” rules, such as during the pandemic, they are banned. If AI only learns about established methods, then change is doomed as humans learn from AI rather than take on the risks associated with exploring new frontiers.

Ted Slanker

1. The Most Famous Inventions the Past 69 Years Have Given Us by Popular Mechanics Editors

2. AI Is the Only Thing Keeping the World from Total Stagnation (Peter Thiel) by Guillermo Flor from AI Opportunities