Comments on: Aldous Huxley’s Predictions for 2000 A.D.

By: Auntiegrav

Auntiegrav — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 02:37:58 +0000

Ironic that Huxley found the comic section a waste of newsprint. In today’s newspapers, that’s the most cogent commentary. The rest is just advertising for consumerism, which was just coming onto its rails in 1950.

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 07:23:33 +0000

I laughed to see that in Redbook’s illustration of the future workplace all of the employees are white males. How times have changed :)

By: Richard Anderson

Richard Anderson — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 21:05:49 +0000

Huxley’s predictions/prognostications are interesting if a bit off target. The obvious error is the underestimation of the population size, though his brother did predict very, very rapid growth and large global population.

His prediction RE: Agriculture and meat is interesting. In the late 60s I did some calculations of grain production in North America and came to the conclusion that production could support nearly 10 times the US population of that era if it were consumed directly rather than being turned to animal feed.

One place Huxley was both correct and wrong is in the development of synthetic materials. We indeed now use more synthetics, but it has not reduced our impact on the planet because so much of that material comes from petroleum. When we have moved to substitutes for petroleum it has been at the expense of food production — e.g., ethanol from corn.

By: KevinL

KevinL — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 02:39:38 +0000

The depiction of farming machinery is very accurate. The modern farmer doesn’t use remote control per se, but computers and GPS largely determine how the machines plant and harvest.