Starting with an introductory letter from a lunar inhabitant, the book dedicates each subsequent chapter to a major institution or sphere of life, speculating what they will become in 2019 - 33 years after its 1986 publication. The hospital, the school, the office, the movies, and the home are joined by sports, transportation, psychiatry and sex. Some chapters gesture at phenomena yet to come, namely artificial intelligence, interstellar travel, and space stations. Meditations on life, death, the technologically mediated Third World War, and an epilogue on the future of the United Nations close out the volume. For the most part, it succeeds in its retro-speculative framing, although occasional clues do betray its mid-80s era.
Description:
Starting with an introductory letter from a lunar inhabitant, the book dedicates each subsequent chapter to a major institution or sphere of life, speculating what they will become in 2019 - 33 years after its 1986 publication. The hospital, the school, the office, the movies, and the home are joined by sports, transportation, psychiatry and sex. Some chapters gesture at phenomena yet to come, namely artificial intelligence, interstellar travel, and space stations. Meditations on life, death, the technologically mediated Third World War, and an epilogue on the future of the United Nations close out the volume. For the most part, it succeeds in its retro-speculative framing, although occasional clues do betray its mid-80s era.