1923 Predictions for 2023

By 2023 there’ll be no mail between New York and San Francisco. Pittsburgh and London concerts will re-cord, on talking films, orders from merchants in Peking, and 1,000-mile-an-hour freighters will make deliveries of goods before sunset. Watch-size radio telephones will keep everybody in communication with the ends of the earth.

A vintage newspaper prediction describes futuristic 2023 technology, including watch-sized radio telephones, ultra-fast freighters, and instant global communication. The joke comes from the wildly optimistic predictions that are now amusingly inaccurate or oddly phrased, making it useful as a reaction to failed forecasts about the future.

• @beobanka / 21853 2023-01-04