Could have been at the beginning of Bush's term and toward the end of Clinton second term, so they could be like 12 years apart.
Tried? I'm wondering if he succeeded.
Just in time.
I wonder if Kennedy ever tried....
"You had a job?! Wow you must have had your pick of colleges!"
She seems to have aged significantly between George H Bush and Bill Clinton.
It's like she's The Doctor.
Was Jimmy Carter ever young?
Or to take Arms against a Sea of Haterz
> The Slings and Arrows of outrageous SWAG FTFY
I'm sure this image will blow your mind then.
In two years many impossible things will happen. Hoverboards, auto-lacing shoes, the Cubs winning the World Series....
I still have to say this to my grandparents all the time. Misogyny and Racism were a staple of 50's culture.
Or Butt Bucks!
I don't think any single thing has made me really get how long she's been on the throne before this comment...
Or Dung Dough!
As a child of the 90s this bothers me. I used to be able to go outside and run around and whatnot. I think part of it is a media frenzy of worrywart parents, to be honest, propagated by the 24 ho...
I'm a 19 year old girl. I grew up with riding my Shetland pony (bike once I moved into the city) everywhere, running around barefoot, shooting lots of guns, playing in a junkyard, running amok in...
Are you suggesting that Brooks should have gone to Hong Kong? I don't think his parole officer would have approved.
"And Who’s Secretary Of State? Jerry Lewis?"
To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposin...
Being able to go on a nonstop flight from New York City to Hong Kong in 16 hours would have blown their minds. And that it would cost about $135 in 1955 dollars would have also really shocked the...
That's a more thoughtful dialogue than I remember it being.
"Why can't they just use some reinforced concrete? I would never set foot in that building, birds or no birds. This is bull hockey, excuse my French. Why don't you have any ashtrays?"
My dad be 60, and we tried to get him to use Netflix. He asked if there was porn or John Wayne on there, and when I described no porn he told me it wasn't worth figuring out.
Show them the Transformers movies and they'd lose their goddamn minds. Edit: Apparently Nick Swardson had this idea as well.
Mutants, clearly. While special effects during the 1950s were not yet very good, it was also when there was a great deal of fear about the effects of radiation.
http://i.imgur.com/vdzgO.jpg
50's guy is going to assume you mean pleasant, chipper, full of cheer and joy.
"So what did you think Past-Man?" "I need me a hover-board." "Yeeaaahh, we don't have those yet."
...before it was cool to do so
Admittedly I'd just woken up and my eyes are still adjusting, but I had to double take to realize that was a couch and not some fat lady's lap in a jumpsuit.
"You can't call them that."
Classic Shakes, man.
"Everything is amazing... and nobody's happy." ~ Louis CK
Elizabeth II is still the queen of England.
I'm a child of the 70's and this bothers the hell out of me. At 6 years old I could go anywhere in my town (granted, smaller town.. about 14k people) as long as I was "home before it got dark". I...
1950's: You went to college?! Wow you must have had your pick of jobs! 2000's: Umm...
Not sure if adorable kitten or horrifying larva.
Looking back, its nice to see "hipster" used here in its original context.
Pirating Austin powers with the same device I use to charge my electronic cigarette. Hello. I am the from the future.
can you link me to sock cat I want to dig it
He used to invent words and shorten language, he'd be yoloing before you could wtf.
Glasses jacket shirt, call me glasses jacket shirt man.
Romeo and Juliet wouldn't be so tragic a story if they had texting...
Shaved genitals.
> Shakes FTFY
Or Fecal Finances!
Except it's one that would never be written. Fiction suffers from the restriction that you must be able to suspend disbelief, which means on some level it must be believable. History is under no ...
I was watching the final fantasy movie on tv years ago. My mom sat down and watched 20 minutes with me and then asked "how come that guy doesn't look real"
You wait and see, Mr. Caruthers. I WILL be mayor! I'll be the most powerful man in Hill Valley, and I'm gonna clean up this town.
I bet Shakespeare would totally dig sock cat.
Hatters gonna hat.
Or Crap Cash Counter!
Where the Korean War is currently happening.
Smartphones are the devices that continually remind me that we're living in the future. Look at the sci-fi of the fifties and sixties -- most of it just envisioned large mechanics getting larger:...
"Wait, Ronald Reagan was the President when this was made? The actor?"
especially PET scans, motherfucking antimatter exploding in your body.
And explaining technology to them is quite frustrating, isn't it?
Imagine having to explain texting to Shakespeare YOU: Yeah you can just send these messages that instantly get delivered to the other person wherever they are. SHAKES: What joy! Do you send y...
Jesus Christ, what are you trying to do, kill him? Outside is where WW2 happened!
Why everything is suddenly in color
I'm not a rapper.
The quantity of obese people waddling around.
I have had explain this sort of thing to real people last week. "No Dad, CNN does not have hologram technology. They do, however, have CGI technology." "B-b-but it was live!" "This technolo...
He works from home.
"Take that, macaroni ears."
I still find it incredible that we have a device that can call anyone anywhere in the world (as long as you have their contact info), you've got a map of the entire fucking planet, you can (as yo...
Yup, my great-grandfather, born in 1891, refused to believe it too. He was 100% sure that they just landed somewhere in West Texas. To be fair to him, they do look similar.
Sounds legit. Unless anybody has a better plan? No? Okay, naked women it is. What do we do when we drastically increase the speed? Surely with all the extra bandwidth we could use it to trans...
"We start off on a minor 1, then move directly to fuck you in the key of shit minor, asshole." Free jazz explained.
"So Past-Man what do you think after watching the movie?" "I'm still confused about, well, everything I guess. But now I want a delorean, everyone must be driving those now right? Could I borro...
Well that's certainly good news! Maybe getting outside tomorrow will add another day?
> "Well done Mr. Powers. We're not so different you and I. However > isn't it ironic that the very things that you stand for -- free > love, swinging, parties -- are...
"Yeah, Internet. Smart phone. Swell. Did I just step out of a TIME MACHINE!?"
"There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. People look classy in fedoras as they puff away constantly, smoking cigarettes regardless of the time or place. It is an area which ...
Or Shit Salary!
You know... when you put it that way... history reads like some ridiculous pulp sci-fi magazine article from the 50's.
This is heavy
They also expected people to use video phones for every day conversations which, despite the technology being available, people just don't. I mean, fuck dude, it's a Friday night and I don't se...
9/10 Would read again
It did give me a reason to keep the gun out of my mouth for one more day.
What a missed opportunity for alliteration... it could have been called Poop Pay. EDIT: Just realized... It should definitely have been named Ass Pennies .
Hat as a verb. I like it. Im using it.
This thread is like an affirmation of your existence, isn't it?
I read that in Bob Newhart's voice like one of his comedy routines.
Now I want to go watch Austin Powers. Thanks.
"Indoor plumbing was a pipe dream." Zing. EDIT: Goddamnit I left my reddit account open and my bf's comment on here is the only thing that has gotten me any karma :(
They're also wearing fedoras and they actually look good because of their matching suits.
Exactly. I got nothing against the coloreds. Like I says to Johnson over in marketing, it's not the coloreds, it's them Jews you gotta watch out for.
I think it's bullshit that I can't have some fancy crystal bar set next to my desk. Instead I have to hide my bourbon in a flask like I'm a goddamn animal. inb4 relevant username
It amazes me that video calls are here and we're pretty much "meh" about it. That was supposed to be the real indicator that we'd reached "The Future".
I think they're thinking of MRIs or CT scans? Those are more future-y and such.
If I were to flap my meat at someone, I doubt they'd take that as a sign I want to communicate.
Hmm? What's that? Who's that colored fellow on the television? Well. Um. That. That would actually, ah....that would be the President. Yes. Of the United States. The United States of America, yes...
I disagree. People from the 50's expected the Futuristic World of Tomorrow to include videophones . But they expected them to look like a 1950s television crossed with a public phone booth. Edi...
Agreed. There would be multiple levels of WTF that would have to be explained.
I suppose Jane Wyman is first lady!
Wasn't the 50's in the US the start of the post war boom with all the suburbs and offices and stuff being built (I'm English, so excuse ignorance.), the alienating aspect of which lead to the fir...
Dude... We're like, wizards, man.
hey there are dozens of us, dozens!
Time travel. Just have him watch back to the future or something.
"Right, chaps, we've got this amazing network thing, too connect all of the computers on earth together, communicating at high speeds and being able to share knowledge and information in the blin...
I possess a device, in my pocket, that is capable of accessing the entirety of information known to man. I use it to look at pictures of cats and get in arguments with strangers.
Yeah, I recently watched the first season of the Twilight Zone (1959) and noticed that the show has held up extremely well - for the most part, the episodes are general enough that they don't fee...
I'm living in the future and didn't even notice...
This morning I was in the year 1950, AMA.
how about they explain to me how the fuck they nailed time travel?
There's an app called Poop Salary that you can run every time you go to the can and it'll calculate how much money you are being paid to poop in a given time frame. Just so you know. Edit: Sinc...
Thousands of years of medicine, we still poke something and ask if it hurts. If it ain't broke, don't fix it... prostate exams are quite simple and effective.
I'll explain dubstep as soon as they explain chordal movement in free jazz.
I envy your world.
They had x-ray machines in the fifties. Heck, they had them in department stores.
Currently in the stall at work. Gettin' paid.
"And Jack Benny is secretary of the treasury!" - Emmett Brown
That was a fantastic read. Thank you.
When did all this happen?
So funny cries in the corner. Edit: 500+ up votes? :D
They'd probably reply, "What year is it? -2013? You got your what, 10th robot there? What the hell is taking you guys so long?"
"No wonder it broke down, it's made in Japan" - Doc "What are you talking about Doc, ALL THE BEST STUFF ARE MADE IN JAPAN" - Marty
-"I'm gonna clean up this town" -"Good, you can start by sweeping the floor"
Once, in a bustling town, resided a lively and inquisitive boy, known for his zest, his curiosity, and his unique gift of knitting the townsfolk into a single tapestry of shared stories and laugh...
Psyche! That's the wrong numba!
Just like the rest of us, Kyle.
Why kids aren't allowed to play in the neighborhood or walk to a friends house without constant adult supervision anymore.
My dad said his grandmother, who was born in 1866 and died in 1972, refused to believe we landed on the moon. Hell, I can't blame her. When she was born they fought wars with horses and bayonette...
Mayor Goldie Wilson....I LIKE the sound of that!
With all due respect I disagree. When someone asked President Truman if he thought we would ever go to the moon he said something like "Yes I do, but I couldn't ever imagine what for."
> "Austin, the Cold War is over!" > > "Finally, those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes, eh? Eh, > comrades, eh? > > "Austin, we won." > > "Oh! Smashin...
I've not read this in years, one of my favourite short stories!
Who's the vice-president? Jerry Lewis?
The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry.
I'm pretty sure I'd have the hardest time trying to explain to him how the fuck he got here from 1950.
Me: "We have machines that can see inside your body and diagnose illnesses without even cutting you open." 50's Guy: "That seems plausible, this is the future after all." Me: "Prostate exams,...
Funny thing is that a 1950's person is closer to the moon days than we are.
That their grandson Fargo is a genius screw up.
Porn. Variety and availability of it.
There's that word again. "Heavy." Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the Earth's gravitational pull?
Mayor! Now that's a good idea! I could run for mayor.
doesn't that have a mini-game built in where you can shoot people?
I love informing kids that we took a car to the moon.
The deindustrialization of the American economy and the movement forward towards a service and information society. (all the while making it impossible for students to afford higher education or ...
and here we sit, made of meat http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/TheyMade.shtml
President Reagan? Like the ACTOR?
the quote was from Thomas Watson, President of IBM and given in 1943 "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." http://www.pcworld.com/article/155984/worst_tech_predictions.htm...
I'm pretty sure that folks from the 1950s were already aware of most of what you've just listed. That being said, pretty much anything involving a dune buggy is worth repeating.
I describe reddit as a custom made magazine tailored to your specific interests. You can subscribe to things that interest you or want to learn about and unsubscribe to the things that don't conc...
I'd think they'd be even more shocked. A white guy from the 50s isn't necessarily a racist, or even someone who would have given race any great deal of thought. Telling him that a black guy was...
we do, we simply haven't adopted them since they're expensive and require a pilots licence.
Sweet dolla tea from McDonalds. I drink that.
It's not socially acceptable to drink whiskey and smoke cigarettes at work. Also, secretaries are less "friendly."
There has been "dirty" music since people started making music. The 50s wasn't as innocent as people think, that's just nostalgia.
> Also, no hats. Well, not in the physical realm. Inflation made hats outrageously expensive for all but the wealthiest Americans, so the average Joe or Jane has to use this virtual hat simul...
Speaking of robots...if aliens ever land on Earth, they won't be aliens. They'll be alien robots. If they're smart enough to master interstellar travel, then they're smart enough to figure out th...
Reminds me of this. http://www.blogcdn.com/www.urlesque.com/media/2010/10/urchinflowchart.jpg
Man, that's heavy.
Photo realistic CGI. In particular trying to explain that we have a machine that can create an artificial, yet totally realistic looking image. For someone who has seen this technology graduall...
Given a lot of people's predictions of the future, saying that in 60 years time there are robots on mars i doubt you'd be that freaked.
Video chatting. I remember in the late 90s playing with a videophone at Disney World in their technology of tomorrow exhibit and was blown away from it.
And I suppose Sammy Davis Jr. is Secretary of the Treasury!
But imagine how much more freaked out they'd be if you said "We sent a few robots to Mars."
And Miles Davis.
What if the person that came back from the 50s was black?
I think if you said, "Yea, it turns out that the moon is deader than the deadest desert and has no air. It's mostly just rocks and dust. We took some of both and left a flag and a dune buggy." th...
"Hi, welcome to 2013. Here's a smartphone; this is how it works. There's the bathroom; we have better toilet paper now. While you're pooping, you can take part in the discussion about you already...
Smart-phones. We'd tell them that we have devices in our pockets that can become any book we want, find out anything we want, and contact anyone we want in the blink of an eye.
Obligatory answer: Ladies have jobs now and if you smack your wife around people will call the police. Oddball answer: Cake farts. Edit: Since I'm getting hated on via misunderstanding, that ...
Yeah, smoking has really declined in the past few decades.
We don't have flying cars yet.
"Are you telling me that there's a coloured in the white house?"
The language we speak would be pretty perplexing to them. I mean, it's not that we've evolved a new dialect in 60 years, but we litter our sentences with all kinds of words that had no currency...
Music would be a lot different now than it was then. It's a lot more chaotic and (in their opinion) vulgar, and very beat-focused. Social acceptance of certain groups would also be very differe...
Reddit. I can't even explain reddit to my friends
The fact that, in the US, we're not so much locally-focused anymore, but much more externally-focused (and primarily on pop culture). It used to be that everyone knew everyone who lived in their ...
Japanese and German cars are wildly popular on American streets.
Talking dirty no longer consists of calling your wife a "blockhead"
Can't smoke in elevators or offices anymore, so you have to stand outside, all huddled in the cold like a junkie or a rummy.
That we didn't kill ourselves, and the soviet union fell.
That we sent people to the moon then decided not to bother any more.
$5.00 for a coffee
The internet. EDIT: Also computers. Someone at IBM (I think) said there might be a world market for several computers, having billions (including the one in your pocket) would be mind boggling....
A black president
To expand on the question, while there are a lot of obvious differences between now and 1950 in terms of technology, culture, etc., I wonder which changes or new things they'd grasp easily and wh...
https://as.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/15yaap/if_someone_from_the_1950s_suddenly_appeared_today/