Comment by mustacheemperor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mustacheemperor | Hacker News Reader

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mustacheemperor

I can put on a lightweight headset and hang out to shoot pool with a group of strangers from around the world in virtual reality. In my lifetime countries, including political enemies, worked together to build a space station that has been continually occupied by humans, each usually staying long term, since it became habitable. I watched the F-35 hover over the water and shoot out of sight instantly at Fleet Week, and I can wirelessly throw an essentially unlimited supply of media from throughout history onto a TV I can’t perceive the pixels on. I can fly across california for $100 round trip and instead of owning a car I can rent an electric one with an app on my phone.

The air isn’t polluted by leaded gasoline. The equal employment act and title ix didn’t pass until 1972, America is a more balanced and equitable society today than it was in 1970.

All that to say I find this take is needlessly pessimistic from multiple angles, and I disagree.

Hm. In 1969, you could watch a Harrier jet hover the water and shoot out of sight and several emancipatory legislations were a direct result of these era. (In fact, you could watch Apollo 16 going to the moon and celebrate the equal employment act passed just the previous month.) And it's also the 1970s, when awareness rose for environmental issues (like leaded gasoline and many more).

Regarding pixels, well, there were still some high-res vector displays left (otherwise, there weren't any compression artefacts, at least). ;-)

The view OP presents is a bit grim though. Most of the real "modernity" of the '70s was not something regular people would enjoy. Going to the Moon, or the Concorde were no different from today's fusion experiments, including the fact that they were based heavily on "earlier work".

Perhaps society decided to turn that progress into something a regular person could benefit from. Think EVs, or a network of internet satellites, work from home (and everything supporting that), getting all your shopping delivered at home, all the virtual "networks" (I don't mean FB here, any networking possibility) you can imagine, and all the knowledge now available from the comfort of your own personal pocket device. There are also plenty of social movements and evolution, think on the line of equal rights, that may have been rooted in the '70s but were completely in the realm of the implausible until the last 2 decades.

Of course people no longer see that as evolution and modernity because so many were born into them already. They look like normality.

And even the "modernity" that was available to normal people in their daily lives was mostly for the sake of the looks. I lived in some modern buildings of the '70s (not unlike the one presented in the article) and that wasn't modernity, it was creativity and embellishment mixed with a lot of impracticality. They were more art than practical creation. The result of the same current that gave birth to The Jetsons a decade earlier, just put in tangible reality in the '70s.

The observations on modernity are important. In a sense, future — as in this optimistic, curious interest and anticipation — is a thing of the past. We have replaced art by engineering (for the most part with a rather short term perspective) and lost emotions on the way. I think, this is one of the reasons for the retro trend we've seen in the last decade. – I also think, the 1970s were actually already a bit late to this, as they were also the decade of a generation on wait, rather apt to indulge in personal matters. (Are the 2020s the 1970s of the post-futuristic age?)

Regarding the the article, metabolism occupies a special spot: it's futuristic, full of anticipation, both theoretical and practically minded, and vitally combines elements from both art and engineering approaches.

Edit/PS, regarding art vs engineering: And in the arts engineering is called curating… ;-)

What do you mean replaced? There's more art than ever, isn't there?

Perhaps the idea is that today generally speaking there's a clearer separation between art and engineering. We tend to have functional things, or ones focused on impressive visuals at the expense of the functionality.

Comparatively very few things want to be both. The car wanted to be both engineering and "art" in the 50s-60s, in the 70s buildings had their turn with all kinds of experimental architecture. In the 80s clothing and fashion became art with outrageous and flashy colors and designs.

These days we have a clearer line between art and engineering. Then again my opinion may just be a product of being surrounded by "present day life", creating some bias. Or maybe electronics are today's form over function.

Not that I was around for it then, but the sense I get about things that are trying to be both Art and Engineering is that they fail to be spectacular in either category.

The blending of art and engineering is part of what makes hypercars so interesting IMO. Just 2 examples:

Aston Martin Vulcan: https://youtu.be/7ts_j5Pmwb0 Koenigsegg Gemera: https://youtu.be/1mPmCDS66Qc

Today's super/hyper-cars definitely try to be beautiful and stand out visually but they're as much function as they can be. The form just follows the function. Every line prioritizes aerodynamics, every component is about weight saving and performance, every embellishment is about ventilation or downforce. The visual uniqueness is working around the function, not the other way around.

Look at a '50s car and you'll see all kinds of functionally useless fins and embellishments all around, all meant to make the car look more futuristic and "airplane like", simulating airplane's wings and engines [0].

[0] https://live.staticflickr.com/1637/25965835911_3cd002a8b8_b....

It was actually meant in the sense of the paradigm art versus engineering. E.g., in software, the pendulum is at about the most extreme it ever was. As for art as in fine arts, well, the definition changed. (Art theory was rather different in the sixties and seventies, as was the general modus operandi.)

>America is a more balanced and equitable society today than it was in 1970.

The inflation adjusted minimum wage peaked in 1968. An American worker in 1970 could graduate high school and get a job that would allow them to support a family of four, buy a home, and take the occasional vacation. To say that we've progressed in terms of equitability since then is a cruel joke. The area under the curve of material wealth may be greater, but we've become a winner-take-all society.

I think you are right that we have not unilaterally progressed in terms of equitability since 1970, but by my understanding of history the upward mobility you describe would be much more accessible to a woman or non-white person in America today than in 1970. "An" American worker, sure. Someone in the right demographic. But not every American, not by a long shot (not to say that today everyone has equal opportunities across gender and racial demographics, but we've improved).

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