Things to look forward to in our electric future
A bonus from the archives from another era where they wanted to "electrify everything!"
Many of my posts written for Treehugger and the Mother Nature Network have been deleted, but between my archives and the Wayback Machine, I can often find them. Here’s a fun one celebrating another era where they wanted to “electrify everything!” I wrote this on a Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, in 2016.
Now that we have been thankful for everything that we have, all the retailers are telling us that it is time to look ahead to everything that we want and go out and buy it! Over the years, we have been promised so much, stuff that just never arrived. As Peter Thiel has noted, “We wanted flying cars; instead we got 140 characters.” Of course, these things are all either coming soon or are in actual use (like the robot lawn mower). But let’s look back at those things that America's independent Electric Light and Power Companies promised us in the fifties and sixties.
Seat belts? we don't need no seat belts. We are also promised beds that make themselves and ultrasonic dishwashers and get this- you will be able to dial up a library book!
This is the image that has launched a thousand autonomous vehicle posts, playing board games in the self-driving car. (of course the reality is, they would all be looking at their phones). They also promise us instant cooking, TV screens that hang on the walls, and "an electric heat pump will use outside air to cool your house in summer, heat it in winter." Pretty prescient, this one.
Color! Television! In every room! Perhaps most interesting is "Light Conditioning will include built in sunlamps, special fixtures for producing striking lighting effects indoors and out, ceiling panels that glow", most of which we are now getting with the LED revolution.
OK, robotic lawnmowers are a thing already, but look at what this is doing to the hedge! Just think of all the amazing topiary you could program in, Edward Scissorshands is out of a job. They also promise that "your home will be kept dust-free and clean automatically.
Finally, on this Black Friday, here is a checklist of the things you need to have a decent standard of living. Our house only got a score of 22, which means I really should go shopping right now, because "one good measure of your standard of living is the number of ways you put electricity to work." So, I am off to find a tape recorder and a vibrator.
Tip of the hat to Sally Edelstein, who has been collecting these for years.
That’s a great list even today to remind us how many things are drawing electricity in our houses, especially with today’s appliances etc. that have a power drawing sleep or instant on mode.
I thought they still want to electrify everything, only it's the Govt who is doing the wanting and we all know what that means.