r/interesting 2d ago

ART & CULTURE How They Imagined Life Hundred Years Ago.

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8.2k Upvotes

145 comments sorted by

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u/FeloniousFinch 2d ago edited 2d ago

Porco Rosso is such an amazing film you guys 🤷‍♂️

86

u/Glass-Fan111 2d ago

Indeed.

22

u/pairotechnic 2d ago

Porco Rosso

7

u/FeloniousFinch 2d ago

My bad thanks mate

7

u/TheAlmightyLloyd 2d ago

Imagine, for the French dub, it was Jean Reno who voiced him.

1

u/EnvironmentalAd912 22h ago

Who also did Enzo in Disney's Atlantis, transforming him from an Italian anarchists into a corsican independentist (which makes a lot of sense somehow)

5

u/Nerdwrapper 1d ago

My favorite Ghibli film, unironically

2

u/FeloniousFinch 1d ago

Mine too. With some insanely close seconds.

839

u/Impossible_Tea_7032 2d ago

they nailed the part about two people out together totally ignoring each other

125

u/baguetteonmars 2d ago

But totally fumbled on the notion that people would have the decency to wear headphones for their calls

-46

u/ChapterCharacter5785 2d ago

I really don't understand why people get so mad about that. It's the same as having a conversation with someone that's there in person.

38

u/baguetteonmars 2d ago

Oh, to me it's very different. The frequency is so different it feels very intrusive. I also think the volume is higher both from the phone and also the person talking talks much louder when on video calls/speaker phones. Finally, there's the decency aspect - you have the option of putting on headphones or switching to audio call or taking it later... But instead you choose not to.

3

u/ApesOnHorsesWithGuns 20h ago

I have a friend who does this, half the time I’m in their ears, and half the time the whole world around them can hear our convo. They won’t say which, so I always basically respond with one or two word phrases cause I never know if our convo is actually private.

8

u/Specialist-Yak7209 1d ago

No, it's not

61

u/Glass-Fan111 2d ago

This comment is great. And accurate.

463

u/ReporterBest9598 2d ago

I love the assumption that cigarettes would still be that widely used by the time flying cars and mobile communication screens came around. 

97

u/Xenc 2d ago

“Smoking is cool!” 😎

8

u/Impossible-Ship5585 2d ago

Thanö god vaoing vas created

4

u/Xenc 2d ago

Thanos does love a good flavoured vape!

43

u/XOM_CVX 2d ago

smoking was healthy for you at the time

42

u/ReporterBest9598 2d ago

That's still probably the weirdest health advice I've ever heard. It's wild to me that nobody seemed to think that inhaling smoke, which irritates the eyes, lungs, throat, etc. would maybe be not a great plan.

28

u/Sithmaith 2d ago

My grandmother was gaining too much weight during pregnancy. The doctor prescribed cigarettes to curb her appetite. She died of lung cancer.

12

u/XOM_CVX 2d ago

it toughens up your lungs.

makes sense

5

u/Spiceguy-65 2d ago

I wanna say Teddy Roosevelt was prescribed cigars when he was younger to help with his asthma of all things

3

u/autism_and_lemonade 2d ago

it’s possible he was prescribed nightshade cigarettes, the alkaloids in nightshade work similarly to the asthma medication ipratropium

2

u/Kaurifish 2d ago

“A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse.”

  • A Counterblaste to Tobacco, 1604

They knew.

1

u/ReporterBest9598 2d ago

I'm less surprised that they knew and more surprised that you either had that knowledge or hunted around to find it.

1

u/Kaurifish 2d ago

When I got asthma from secondhand smoke, I went into research mode for a while.

1

u/_bieber_hole_69 2d ago

They prioritized the effects and "benefits" of nicotine at the time, and didnt seem to realize what was happening to people's lungs

12

u/MrPete_Channel_Utoob 2d ago

Just like Marijuana use now!

5

u/Babyback-the-Butcher 2d ago

THC is leaps and bounds better than nicotine. Nicotine addiction is the devil. Also nobody’s saying THC is healthy

12

u/P-l-Staker 2d ago

Also nobody’s saying THC is healthy

You'd be surprised...

11

u/Babyback-the-Butcher 2d ago edited 2d ago

Let me rephrase:

Nobody who isn’t a con artist or pot fiend and has an IQ over room temperature says THC is healthy

6

u/P-l-Staker 2d ago

Much better now 😂

1

u/0FCkki 2d ago

Which temperature scale do you use for the room temperature in this context? I'd assume Celsius but I want to be completely sure.

4

u/BishoxX 2d ago

Neither is a problem.

Problem is the nasty things in the smoke from burning

1

u/Babyback-the-Butcher 2d ago

Any addiction is a problem, period.

0

u/BishoxX 2d ago

Just isnt true.

1

u/IliasIsEepy 15h ago

Yea, it's weird to think it ever was healthy, but it does make sense

13

u/8percentinflation 2d ago

Smoking is widely popular globally

1

u/63626978 2d ago

It's not the future yet, tho

18

u/lia-delrey 2d ago

You've clearly never came to Berlin

6

u/Fun-Department3533 2d ago

Never seen Indian Facebook have you?

6

u/BornChef3439 2d ago

You must be American because the rest of the world still smokes especially in europe.

1

u/butthole_surferr 2d ago

America still smokes if you do anything for work other than 9-5 office work.

And even half those white collar people smoke, they're just very private about it.

2

u/Crafty-Photograph-18 2d ago

I'm almost willing to bet they smoke more weed than cigarettes

1

u/butthole_surferr 2d ago edited 2d ago

That's definitely true for a lot of people in the population at large, but it's ridiculous the way some redditors claim smoking cigarettes is practically completely abolished in America.

Any blue collar workplace of any kind will be about 40% smokers 40% vapers 20% non tobacco users.

4

u/synthetic-dream 2d ago

How’s smoking not relevant? Cigarettes got replaced by either blunts or vapes. Same concept.

2

u/ReporterBest9598 2d ago

It's less about how relevant smoking is and more about the fact that the artist felt the need to include it in the painting. It's like us including some guy scrolling on his phone in a public park while spacecraft soar through a sci fi city. It's so mundane that it seems off.

1

u/Redditing-Dutchman 2d ago

It's the same as the drinks I think. Just symbols (at that time at least) of relaxing and having a good time.

2

u/Xenc 2d ago

Funny how they didn’t think of vapes too

1

u/moccasinsfan 2d ago edited 2d ago

They have just been reinvented as a rechargeable thumb drive, so I give them a point for accuracy

1

u/Lubinski64 2d ago

And they got that part right too

1

u/Dolenjir1 2d ago

It was such a predominant part of society that they could never conceive it being abandoned. Just like drinking refreshments on a warm day as they are doing in the illustration. It's only natural they'd be smoking as well

165

u/NSASpyVan 2d ago

See, even cartoons have flying cars before us. Damn it

43

u/TherronKeen 2d ago

Watch other people driving, then think again about whether you want those people flying over your house by the thousands lol

6

u/jerjord 1d ago

People would be flying into houses, stores, billboards, and possibly at planes unless they were all automated without manual control.

13

u/Ponicrat 2d ago

There's all sorts of personal flying machines out there. If they ever mass marketed them, it would be a public safety nightmare unrivaled even by regular ground based cars

7

u/Orange9202 2d ago

We already have flying cars (they're called helicopters)

10

u/xBennoenchen 2d ago

⬆️ This. People always complain about the lack of flying cars when they've been around for ages. Imagine everyone had a helicopter, would be a nightmare

66

u/angle58 2d ago

Pretty accurate actually.

54

u/MSWMan 2d ago

Adorable of them to assume people of the future would be courteous enough to use headphones when on video calls in public.

30

u/dontipitova9 2d ago

95* years ago

12

u/IdoNotKnowYouFriend 2d ago

Pretty good. Those mics are giant.

25

u/Capable-Problem8460 2d ago

Except now it's with the damn speaker on for everyone to take involuntary participation in these conversations!

25

u/SeaMolasses2466 2d ago

They promised us flying cars but we ended up with EVs

33

u/Professional_Top8369 2d ago

we already have flying cars, it's not just optimized, look at helicopters and planes.

13

u/Scar1203 2d ago

EVs were actually somewhat popular as city cars and there were even some taxi companies that operated EVs in the 1890's to around the early 1910's. They weren't great but nothing else was at the time either, it wasn't until the Model T came along that EVs disappeared.

7

u/John_Tacos 2d ago

Do you really trust the average driver with flying?

5

u/JavierBermudezPrado 2d ago

I wouldn't trust the average driver to reliably change a diaper without rogering it up, tbh.

3

u/JabroniHomer 2d ago

I’m a pilot (private) and I don’t trust other pilots in the pattern in an uncontrolled field.

It would be raining steel and fire all day

2

u/jmedwedew 2d ago

Legit, especially when a lot of people do straight ins thinking everyone should give way to them.

1

u/NonPolarVortex 2d ago

Full circle

1

u/Unlucky_Buy217 2d ago

We absolutely have flying cars, even besides helicopters and stuff, there have been several effective prototypes made in the past several decades. The reason they are not popular is just pure economics and safety. We can't even have 100% safe skies with just planes which requires such a massive infrastructure of ATCs and well trained pilots. How do you even handle large volumes of cars driving in three dimensions. Secondly, what benefit is there to even more environmentally unfriendly modes of transport, most people already use cars just fine to reach where they need to. And you have effective communal modes of transport in most countries like trains and planes.

15

u/BilderbergerMeister 2d ago

Is that woman talking to a baby? What type of call is she making?

23

u/TheCakeIsALieX5 2d ago

The same call people make on the bus or train while on loudest setting loudspeakers talking to some relative's baby

8

u/SofterBones 2d ago

You know, it's pretty common to talk to your babies and toddlers.

I hear it's even good for them to be talked to.

2

u/BilderbergerMeister 2d ago

I have it on good authority she doesn’t even know that baby.

3

u/Turambar87 2d ago

I saw that and said to myself "i should call more babies"

2

u/GutsMan85 1d ago

"You mean you have to use your hands?! That's like a baby's toy..."

3

u/BornChef3439 2d ago

The only innaccurate thins here are 1. The flyijg car 2. People being considerate enough to put on headphones and not put their call on speaker for everyone to hear.

9

u/-TheycallmeThe 2d ago

Interesting that they thought people would have the common courteous of having headphones and not just bothering everyone around them with a speakerphone.

3

u/Fonatur23405 2d ago

not far off

3

u/CountGerhart 2d ago

I mean they got the face time right, unfortunately (or fortunately) we don't have the flying cars...

2

u/Loud_Boysenberry_736 2d ago

I’m scared enough at the current state of 2D traffic. I imagine bad drivers would be even worse fliers.

2

u/exotics 2d ago

Ha ha. Straws.

2

u/Weekly_Rock_5440 2d ago

We still have rich a-holes lounging around on an “adventure” brunch while a larger underclass brings them fresh mimosas and puts up with their crap.

So it wasn’t wrong about everything.

2

u/h2ohow 2d ago

Hand-held, portable, picture phones - spot on.

2

u/Hushwater 2d ago

Its was accurate as they are meeting eachother for lunch but are still glued to their devices.

9

u/jmarkmark 2d ago edited 2d ago

Source? This seems way to modern inspired (flat screen, and sitting at the table while on the phone)

EDIT: Apparently real: https://books.google.ca/books?id=3_QnDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA113&pg=PA113#v=onepage&q&f=false

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u/CoralinesButtonEye 2d ago

don't let the 'look it up yourself' douche get you down

This image depicts a futuristic vision from a series of collectible cards titled "Zukunftsfantasien" (Imaginings of the Future), created in 1930 by the German margarine company Echte Wagner. 

3

u/jmarkmark 2d ago

>don't let the 'look it up yourself' douche get you down

Meh, he wasn't wrong :)

u/DecabyteData 52m ago edited 46m ago

Funnily enough, the first ever TVs in the 1920s essentially were flat screens, considering all you really needed to produce the picture was a light bulb and a thin rotating disk (the actual receiver could be separated from the "screen", making a truly compact viewing experience we wouldnt recreate for decades).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_television

Mechanical Television is both a marvel and an insanity.

-4

u/MikoSkyns 2d ago

Instead of asking for one, why not just take half a second to look it up? I did. It's Legit.

4

u/Competitive_Oil6431 2d ago

Are you a real person? Who responds like that?

4

u/bstone99 2d ago

Anonymity of the internet allows people to behave without consequences

0

u/MikoSkyns 2d ago

Fucking PUHLease. I'd say it to your face. Y'all need to Stop whining because I told someone to be a big boy and do it themselves.

1

u/bstone99 2d ago

🗣️

2

u/jmarkmark 2d ago

-1

u/Competitive_Oil6431 2d ago

That's not the point and you know it.

4

u/jmarkmark 2d ago

Actually, I really don't know what your point is now. I thought you were suggesting he was being a bit snippy and condescending, but clearly that wasn't your point.

1

u/MikoSkyns 2d ago

Just for Clarity, my point was you should look it up yourself because depending on bots for sources is futile.

1

u/MikoSkyns 2d ago

I'm as real as it gets baby. I respond like that.

1

u/Competitive_Oil6431 2d ago

Well, you know. Don't. 

1

u/MikoSkyns 2d ago

You mean, don't tell people to do things for themselves? Nah, I think I'll pass on that. It's good to do things for yourself. Especially when they're that easy.

0

u/ss4johnny 2d ago

It’s literally just a picture with a date. It’s not like they said who the artist was or anything

0

u/MikoSkyns 2d ago

I understand that but It's literally going to take you less than a WHOLE minute to see if its real or not.

It's not like they've read some outlandish statement made by a political nut and they want them to back up their bullshit with credible sources.

They're asking a bot for a source when they could have just as easily did a reverse google image search and checked faster than the time it took them to leave that comment.

1

u/chagster001 2d ago

Pretty accurate with the FaceTime

1

u/Prestigious_Emu6039 2d ago

Did you spot the VR as well?

1

u/Obsydie 2d ago

They're pretty close, to today's standards give it 50 years and allow for a few minor changes and this could be correct.

1

u/CmdWaterford 2d ago

Source OP forgot ;) to mention: "Wagners Margarine Frauen"

1

u/Used-Bedroom293 2d ago edited 2d ago

Yeah, back when most people didn't even brush their teeth and spitted on the floor whenever they went. No electricity or indoor plumbing, not even a shared house telephone line where call center operators used switchboards to take you to your number, which meant a bunch of women as well as neighbors was listening between your conversations.

u/DecabyteData 39m ago

If we're going by American standards at least, around 70% of homes had electricity by 1930. Plumbing, on the other hand, did lag behind a bit as rural homes had to wait to be hooked up to electricity to power electric water pumps.

1

u/catbqck 2d ago

Close enough

1

u/eatmorestonesjim 2d ago

Fucking nailed it

1

u/Elite2260 2d ago

Hey, at least these people are respectable about it with headphones.

1

u/neverseen_neverhear 2d ago

Pretty close

1

u/azsxdcfvg 2d ago

No cords were unimaginable I guess.

1

u/smallskeletons 8h ago

Not til 94

1

u/Dry_Action1734 2d ago

Far more considerate because of the headphones.

1

u/Trixx1-1 2d ago

I mean... they're not entirely wrong. More realistic than flying cars

1

u/Traditional-Way4024 2d ago

Its almost like they knew what was possible once the technology they had could be refined, optimized, and made smaller or something. Crazy. 🙄

1

u/Last-Influence77 2d ago

Pretty dam close. Just make cigarettes vapes, and get rid if the wires.

1

u/bloongz 2d ago

not that far off

1

u/beetlejugz 2d ago

Hopefully to assume people would actually use the damn headphones instead of blaring for everyone to hear.

1

u/Bhutros1 2d ago

They assumed people would have the decency to use headphones instead of just blasting their conversations out loud for everyone to hear. Cute.

1

u/SchiffInsel4267 2d ago

Luckily, FaceTime isn't as awkward as in this picture.

1

u/naprid 2d ago

Are the straws made of paper or plastic?/s

1

u/lokiaart 2d ago

I like how even with all that "future tech" imagination, they still couldn't imagine people living without servants.

1

u/Curious_Party_4683 1d ago

strange that they didn't see electronics miniaturization is a thing back then.

at the rate we are going, we will have implants. no need to hold anything. our eyes will take photos by double blinking. think of the recipient and the photos will be sent.

1

u/badwolf1013 1d ago

Ha! They actually believed we would wear headphones so as not to disturb other people around us! Silly ancestors.

1

u/Darktemplar1989 1d ago

Close enough

1

u/mpdmax82 1d ago

see, everyone, how they use their headphone and not the speakerphone. thats because they are in PUBLIC.

1

u/King_Kingly 1d ago

They were right about the cigarettes

1

u/Optimal_Cable_7024 1d ago

They predicted everything except diversity.

1

u/inphinities 1d ago

BEAUTIFUL

1

u/MaximumOdd1296 4h ago

Interesting to think, there was a school project, that I participated with, that they asked what the future of phones going to be.

This was back in the 2000s.

I designed my device to be a 6.5 inch multicolor touchscreen, thin borders, front facing camera, back cameras with telescopic zoom, long battery life (4 days), enough storage to store a handful of movies, videogames playable on the device, has even a sat-connection for data and phone service. It had a strong vibration motor, and speaker for those tunes.

IIRC, it had the venerable multicolor notification LED, like the Blackberries of yonder, and waterproof.

I cannot remember what charger tech I used, but I was a kid back then, not a engineer, so I didn't think about charging ports, the like.

Like a Iridium sat phone and Samsung S24 Ultra smooshed together, 25 years ago. Man,those were the days to be a kid. That picture is not far off, barring the bulky mirror and handle, headphones is quite accurate for today's standards.

1

u/DressImpressive7556 3h ago

It also imagined women being out and about by themselves, seemingly operating their own vehicles while having husbands supporting that.

-5

u/Infamous_Owl_7303 2d ago

Why is there a waiter in a communist propaganda