Comments on: The 1910 time traveller

By: Public displays of grief – Just Two Things

Public displays of grief – Just Two Things — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 07:29:32 +0000

[…] and going into some of the social history of 1900 London, I wrote a blog post that suggested that the 21st century would be less strange than we like to imagine to a time traveller from […]

By: Utopias and six generations | thenextwave

Utopias and six generations | thenextwave — Fri, 05 Jun 2015 09:20:57 +0000

[…] and therefore links to a couple of my previous posts on here: on six (or seven) generations, and on looking forward a hundred […]

By: You can’t unhear The Beatles

You can’t unhear The Beatles — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:42:49 +0000

[…] Curry quotes Esa-Pekka Salonen — can’t find the original reference: # “An authentic performance of old music is […]

By: kh

kh — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 23:40:23 +0000

When people say that the present is unfathomable to a person from the past, they don’t generally mean that they literally wouldn’t understand the streets they see. I fail to see the relevance of pointing out that the same streets exist now that existed then. The point of fathomable is in regard to whether or not they would be capable of fathoming the things which did not yet exist. In most cases, the answer would be a resounding NO! A person witnessing the telegraph in action would be highly unlikely to suddenly understand the concept of picture messaging with a cellular telephone. The telegraph functions in a completely different way than the internet, and it would be unlikely that the viewer would have even the slightest idea about what it is. They would first need to understand what a computer even is. It seems to me that it is the author who is in fact employing hindsight. Additionally, although you found a convenient example for your point in which streets have stayed the same, in many places the physical landscape has changed VASTLY over 100 years. In the area I’m from, every single building and road that is there was absent in 1910.

By: Noah Raford » On Glass & Mud: A Critique of Corporate Design Fiction

Noah Raford » On Glass & Mud: A Critique of Corporate Design Fiction — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:28:05 +0000

[…] social change matters more than technological change. See Andrew Curry’s excellent “The 1910 Time Traveller” for more […]

By: rdm

rdm — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:05:18 +0000

There are so many issues not covered here. There’s an entire industry centering around plastics which did not exist back then. Music also, has undergone some significant changes. And then there’s GPS, and so on.

And while “the internet” might at first seem commonplace, some aspects of it (search, for example) might invoke cognitive dissonance.

But I think the most “unfathomable” change would be our movie portrayals of the time and place our past visitor would have come from.

By: Back to the Futurist: Noah Raford | URBNFUTR

Back to the Futurist: Noah Raford | URBNFUTR — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:07:13 +0000

[…] agree, a point well illustrated by Andrew Curry’s wonderful thought experiment, “The 1910 Time Traveller“. So aside from a few major possible techno-industrial or ecosystemic shifts, the most […]

By: Noah Raford » Back to the Futurist Interview

Noah Raford » Back to the Futurist Interview — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:02:09 +0000

[…] I totally agree, a point well illustrated by Andrew Curry’s wonderful thought experiment, “The 1910 Time Traveller”. So aside from a few major possible techno-industrial or ecosystemic shifts, the most significant […]

By: Interesting elsewhere – 17 January 2011 | Public Strategist

Interesting elsewhere – 17 January 2011 | Public Strategist — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 12:15:47 +0000

[…] The 1910 time traveller « thenextwave But there’s perhaps an underlying story here. When we think about long-term change with the benefit of hindsight, the things we think are unfathomable are usually the technology –planes, cars, computers. But it is at least as likely that the things that time travellers would most struggle with are the shifts in social values, which are almost invisible to us because we swim in them constantly and adapt ourselves to them as they change. […]

By: Noah

Noah — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 17:00:46 +0000

I just chose this as my favourite post of 2010! Well done Andrew. Please keep them coming.