On a recent trip to France I came across a very interesting monument that got me thinking about what we believe to be “real time” adoption.
I found a monument to men who were working on ice production for a small city in the beginning of the 20th century. They delivered huge carriages across the city every day of the year, and at one point the production reached 130 tonnes a day(!). And this is for a rather small city. Originally, the ice was distributed on horse-drawn carriages and then (by the middle of the century) by lorries, some of which were already (even) electrically powered (more on ice production if you are interested - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade).
Why does this matter and what does this has to do with sci-fi?
Well, imagine yourself back in 1990 for a second. Ask a stranger on the street for the time. But. Tell him that you are asking for the time, because you’ve forgotten your phone home… I think a very happy trip to the nearest loony bin is guaranteed.
The point is just this: what seems to us strange and maybe even illogical today, wasn’t like that just a while ago. People of the past (and so have we for that matter) thought that their reality is the only possible reality.
Just like it is hard for us today to imagine an AI revolution (or evolution), the use of blockchain technology in every aspect of our lives (not just the financial sector) and so on, it was hard for them, to imagine any other reality (fridges in every house) apart from ice production for cooling purposes.