5 ms·

> "Walking around Tokyo, I often get the feeling of being stuck in a 1980′s vision of the future" I'm British, living in the US, and I've always felt this way

by DanI-S 13y ago

> "Walking around Tokyo, I often get the feeling of being stuck in a 1980′s vision of the future" I'm British, living in the US, and I've always felt this way about America. I recently heard from an American friend that he felt exactly the same when visiting Britain. Not sure what to make of it, but it's interesting!

pyre 13y ago
If you average all of those feelings out, then does it mean that we really are living in a 1980's version of the future?
- redthrowaway 13y ago
  Only tangentially related if that, but I re-read Neuromancer recently and realized with some sadness that its very evocative opening line [1] will quite quickly cease to have meaning for generations who grew up without analog TVs. We tend to think of literature as timeless, but there's a very real, if small, slice of it washed out by the tide of shifting metaphors. [1] "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel"
  - twic 13y ago
    I've heard it observed before that current generations will assume this meant that the sky was blue, or perhaps black, that being what many televisions display when 'tuned' to an inactive input. Before i got to your comment, reading the grandparent about this being a 1980s future immediately put me in mind of something else William Gibson said in ~1993: "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed"
    - redthrowaway 13y ago
      I like to think they'd envision a big blue box stretched across the sky, with the words "This channel only available to premium subscribers." If nothing else, it'd capture the cyberpunk aesthetic nicely.
  - w1ntermute 13y ago
    > realized with some sadness that its very evocative opening line [1] will quite quickly cease to have meaning for generations who grew up without analog TVs Meh, I don't think this is really a worry. We still read Shakespeare - we just have to make an extra effort to understand the nuances. In fact, that's part of what makes it so interesting.
- joeyo 13y ago
  Indeed: The 19A0's. http://boingboing.net/2011/10/11/mixtape-of-the-lost-decade.html http://boingboing.net/2011/10/11/mixtape-of-the-lost-decade....
hsitz 13y ago
"I recently heard from an American friend that he felt exactly the same when visiting Britain." The "same", meaning he felt like Britain was stuck in 1980's version of the future? Or the past? Strange, my experience and I think the usual experience of Americans visiting GB/Europe is of feeling like you've timewarped into the past. How far depends on where you visit. Paris/London may feel twenty years back, other places fifty or a hundred.
- mtviewdave 13y ago
  Since I'm pretty sure I'm who DanI-S was referring to, I'll respond. My impression was that something "modern" in Britain would tend to fit a stereotypical 1980s-era optimistic prediction of what the early 21st century would be like. Compared to the U.S., a "modern" space in the U.K. seems to me a little more ordered, neat, well-packaged, brightly lit, and perhaps a little more sterile than its counterpart in the U.S. Of course, most spaces in the U.K. are not like this. But that may be why such "modern" spaces exist: if your town has an 800 year-old castle, and your pub is 150 years old and filled with well-worn, comfy furniture, having other more brightly-lit, ordered spaces is probably an interesting contrast. My impression of the U.S. is that "modern" spaces are a little more warm, and less concerned with presenting an ordered and tidy facade. For example, it's easier to find "modern" spaces with exposed ceiling pipes, building supports, etc, in the U.S., whereas those seemed almost always hidden away in British spaces. But at the same time, you don't have nearly the same amount of contrast between spaces. So it's hard for me to find a "pub" in the U.S. that has the same warmth and comfy feel as a U.K. pub.
jsemrau 13y ago
I would assume that this comes from a general feeling of disengagement to the urban environment that person is living as the 1980's were a period of significant anxiety about the future. Science Fiction of this period tends to be quite dark. After living in Honolulu, San Francisco, Berlin, Tokyo, and Singapore, I believe that only Singapore truly has a blue-print of the future laid out properly. A lot of green / smart housing developments. Deeply multi-cultural. Strong emphasis on education and personal development (plus world-class universities to support this). Of course living in an endless summer helps.

by DanI-S 13y ago

pyre 13y ago

If you average all of those feelings out, then does it mean that we really are living in a 1980's version of the future?

redthrowaway 13y ago
Only tangentially related if that, but I re-read Neuromancer recently and realized with some sadness that its very evocative opening line [1] will quite quickly cease to have meaning for generations who grew up without analog TVs. We tend to think of literature as timeless, but there's a very real, if small, slice of it washed out by the tide of shifting metaphors. [1] "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel"
- twic 13y ago
  I've heard it observed before that current generations will assume this meant that the sky was blue, or perhaps black, that being what many televisions display when 'tuned' to an inactive input. Before i got to your comment, reading the grandparent about this being a 1980s future immediately put me in mind of something else William Gibson said in ~1993: "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed"
  - redthrowaway 13y ago
    I like to think they'd envision a big blue box stretched across the sky, with the words "This channel only available to premium subscribers." If nothing else, it'd capture the cyberpunk aesthetic nicely.
- w1ntermute 13y ago
  > realized with some sadness that its very evocative opening line [1] will quite quickly cease to have meaning for generations who grew up without analog TVs Meh, I don't think this is really a worry. We still read Shakespeare - we just have to make an extra effort to understand the nuances. In fact, that's part of what makes it so interesting.
joeyo 13y ago
Indeed: The 19A0's. http://boingboing.net/2011/10/11/mixtape-of-the-lost-decade.html http://boingboing.net/2011/10/11/mixtape-of-the-lost-decade....

hsitz 13y ago

"I recently heard from an American friend that he felt exactly the same when visiting Britain." The "same", meaning he felt like Britain was stuck in 1980's version of the future? Or the past? Strange, my experience and I think the usual experience of Americans visiting GB/Europe is of feeling like you've timewarped into the past. How far depends on where you visit. Paris/London may feel twenty years back, other places fifty or a hundred.

mtviewdave 13y ago
Since I'm pretty sure I'm who DanI-S was referring to, I'll respond. My impression was that something "modern" in Britain would tend to fit a stereotypical 1980s-era optimistic prediction of what the early 21st century would be like. Compared to the U.S., a "modern" space in the U.K. seems to me a little more ordered, neat, well-packaged, brightly lit, and perhaps a little more sterile than its counterpart in the U.S. Of course, most spaces in the U.K. are not like this. But that may be why such "modern" spaces exist: if your town has an 800 year-old castle, and your pub is 150 years old and filled with well-worn, comfy furniture, having other more brightly-lit, ordered spaces is probably an interesting contrast. My impression of the U.S. is that "modern" spaces are a little more warm, and less concerned with presenting an ordered and tidy facade. For example, it's easier to find "modern" spaces with exposed ceiling pipes, building supports, etc, in the U.S., whereas those seemed almost always hidden away in British spaces. But at the same time, you don't have nearly the same amount of contrast between spaces. So it's hard for me to find a "pub" in the U.S. that has the same warmth and comfy feel as a U.K. pub.

jsemrau 13y ago

I would assume that this comes from a general feeling of disengagement to the urban environment that person is living as the 1980's were a period of significant anxiety about the future. Science Fiction of this period tends to be quite dark. After living in Honolulu, San Francisco, Berlin, Tokyo, and Singapore, I believe that only Singapore truly has a blue-print of the future laid out properly. A lot of green / smart housing developments. Deeply multi-cultural. Strong emphasis on education and personal development (plus world-class universities to support this). Of course living in an endless summer helps.