Where do we want to be 97 years from now?

There is a enchanting posting at Paleo-Future of French postcards from 1910 depicting a vision of life in the year 2000. I find visions of the future illuminate many subtle aspects of their time. These postcards evince a powerful belief that technology is good, and that mechanical means of performing manual tasks is preferable to humans doing the work. There are even machines for brushing your hair in the morning.

Some of the aspirations are almost universal to the idiom, such as individual flight that has evolved into the idea of jet-packs, some are dystopian such as the prediction of horses verging on extinction and some are brilliantly joyful such as the festival of flowers where people fly about in small craft hurling blossoms at eachother.

I feel these images give us a glimpse into the hopes and aspirations of the time. Where we are now is a very different place. Some of these wishes have been realised, in some form, we have video-conferencing and news podcasts now, but this innocent popular imagining of the future seems to be disappearing. There is a prevailing view that technology is something that happens to us, and that if anyone plots its course they are far removed from us.

Perhaps by engaging in these flights of whimsy we can shape our future. What kind of future do we want or think will be 97 years from now?