Retro Futurism: The Failed Prophecies of the Past

The vast majority of the things we make are designed, not just to bring value to the capital class, but to ease our suffering or reduce the amount of work we do. This latest bout into robotics and AI is somewhat different though. We do this for new reasons, namely the fear of death, the fear of not being taken care of as we get older, not wanting our children to have to do menial work, and of course, not wanting to do any of the hard, dangerous or repetitive work ourselves. The demography of our society is driving this acutely.

Also, you're correct that we are living in an amazing time. However, the last ~150 years have been absolutely breakneck in terms of the pace of change, with right now arguably being the fastest period of transformation yet.

Good video btw.

Hello! Your video popped up in my recommended. I'm glad YouTube recommended me your channel, your editing and essays are really good! I'm also a small video essay channel (from the UK though) and it's difficult out here with the old algorithm. I hope your channel continues to grow 🙂

Great video, i like the personal touch combined with facts put into a nice medium.

really nice and informative video. 🙂 would luv to have more of this naturalistic design language and intense colors to come back into modern design, instead the mostly empty white minimalistic style of nowadays

Hello. You know that thing you did with the text when you were defining retrofuturism? Please don't do that lol. I was like "wtf happened to my eyes!?"

I'm subscribing to your channel regardless. I'm liking the video essays. But please please don't do that again.

One of the things I find defining of Space-Age retrofuturism is the optimism and generally unified cultural view, although the "dream" could really only exist in fiction, like the countless cheesy sci-fi literature, or the more well established authors. The '80s also feels like its own era of retrofuturism with a more tangible "dream" with tangible technology such as early personal computers, extended flights in space via the Space Shuttle, and still retaining the optimism. Listening to Filk music of the era really helps with defining it, as space goes hand-in-hand with Cold War retrofuturism in general. Even in the 2000s I absolutely felt influenced by the media still being produced, but as of the 2010s-present it feels like the dream has just been replaced with depression.

I didn't know about this craze for flying saucers in the 60s in the USA.

Fun fact about music and the flying saucers: Brazil went through a long dictatorship during the cold war. Many had to leave the country, including artists. A singer/songwriter called Caetano Veloso had to leave the country at the end of the 60s and lived in London. In exile, depressed about not being able to return to his country, he ended up writing a song in English called "London London", and the chorus repeats: "While my eyes go looking for flying saucers in the sky".

I always heard this song and asked myself: "but why does he talk about flying saucers"? I think your video already gave me a new tip.

when it comes to the people from the past trying to predict the fashion for today, nobody even dared to predict the Black Tape Project.