Futurology is the science of predicting the future as a science fact.
One problem this science has (in the short term) is the benefit of hindsight to show how horribly wrong they got it.
After finishing the excellent book A Brief History of Tomorrow by Jonathan Margolis I found one common denominator for most futurologist tend to do is assume that things will always stay the same and gradually get bigger or worse.
It's amazing how 20 years ago, people concentrated on oil shortages and Nuclear terror rather than the fall of Communism, the rise of information technology like the web and mobile phones and the decline of smoking and it's almost out cast from civil society.
(to highlight this just look at James Cameron's Aliens where he has an almost flawless representation of a space station of the future but people are smoking in a limited oxygen environment)
These wonderful videos are from the New York World Fair both 1939 and 1964
Both were heavily sponsored by Motor Companies who had no allusion that cars would rule America in the future.
Surprisingly enough it's the General Motors 1939 Futurama that seemed to more on the mark than the 1964 Fords version.
Part 2
