"He was ahead of his time".

timzil · 27-11-2015 08:08PM #1

The saying "he was ahead of his time" is often is often heard reffering to people who said things at the time which weren't popular opinion but turned out to be true. One example that comes to mind is Bob Geldof and Bannana Republic and the power of the church.

What do ye think are the critiques that someone could make about todays society which aren't exactly popular opinion now but could deem them to be regarded as being ahead of their time in the future.

Ficheall · 27-11-2015 08:13PM

timzil wrote: »

The saying "he was ahead of his time" is often is often heard reffering to people who said things at the time which weren't popular opinion but turned out to be true. One example that comes to mind is Bob Geldof and Bannana Republic and the power of the church.

What do ye think are the critiques that someone could make about todays society which aren't exactly popular opinion now but could deem them to be regarded as being ahead of their time in the future.

I reckon people in subsequent posts might disagree with your interpretation of the phrase.

ygolometsipe · 27-11-2015 08:13PM

Ahead of there time does assume us humans will continue to make
progress

I don't know if you heard but a turkey shot a Russian last week.

"He was behind his time"

will never be said

timzil · 27-11-2015 08:14PM

Ficheall wrote: »

I reckon people in subsequent posts might disagree with your interpretation of the phrase.

Please elaborate.

XR3i · 27-11-2015 08:16PM

"for each man kills the thing he loves yet each man does not die"

JRant · 27-11-2015 08:17PM

For me the most obvious example is Noam Chomsky. He's been pretty much bang on point over nearly a half century at this stage yet the mainstream media refuse to give him airtime.

Have a listen to some of his talks from the 70's and he has pretty much called how the media, Governments and corporations are acting now.

I would argue that Geldoff was of his time more than ahead off his time. Plus he doesn't like Mondays.

JRant · 27-11-2015 08:20PM

XR3i wrote: »

"for each man kills the thing he loves yet each man does not die"

Mr Wilde was certainly ahead of his time.

Junkyard Tom · 27-11-2015 08:30PM

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977.

Dirty Dingus McGee · 27-11-2015 08:37PM

Professor John Frink was really ahead of his time when in the 70's he declared: "I predict that within 10 years, computers will be twice as powerful, ten thousand times larger, and so expensive that only the 5 richest kings of Europe will own them"

Junkyard Tom · 27-11-2015 08:40PM

"The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty-a fad." - Advice from a president of the Michigan Savings Bank to Henry Ford's lawyer Horace Rackham. Rackham ignored the advice and invested $5000 in Ford stock, selling it later for $12.5 million.

AllGunsBlazing · 27-11-2015 08:42PM

Bob Geldof ahead of his time? Please stop the Earth from spinning for a minute, I'd like to get off now.

ygolometsipe · 27-11-2015 08:43PM

different time zones - ahead of their time

rafatoni · 27-11-2015 09:01PM

AllGunsBlazing wrote: »

Bob Geldof ahead of his time? Please stop the Earth from spinning for a minute, I'd like to get off now.

Hes an arse hole of the highest order. No more ahead of his time than the man on the moon.

timzil · 27-11-2015 09:06PM

AllGunsBlazing wrote: »

Bob Geldof ahead of his time? Please stop the Earth from spinning for a minute, I'd like to get off now.

Yeah ok fair point about Geldof. I suppose what Im trying to say is if the church was the establishment and dictator of the narrative of public opinion in the past. Then who is the dictator of todays popular opinion and what are the things that people today believe but in the future will be debunked.

Wacker The Attacker · 27-11-2015 09:06PM

rafatoni wrote: »

Hes an arse hole of the highest order. No more ahead of his time than the man on the moon.

yeah yeah yeah yeah

JRant · 28-11-2015 12:47AM

timzil wrote: »

Yeah ok fair point about Geldof. I suppose what Im trying to say is if the church was the establishment and dictator of the narrative of public opinion in the past. Then who is the dictator of todays popular opinion and what are the things that people today believe but in the future will be debunked.

Religion in general would be my hope. Hopefully in the not to distant future people will look back and ask what the hell were all those people doing believing in such nonsense.

Jarrod · 28-11-2015 01:02AM

Is it just me or has the term banana republic completely changed from its original meaning? I see it used a lot on AH in reference to Ireland, which doesn't make sense to me.

JRant · 28-11-2015 01:09AM

Jarrod wrote: »

Is it just me or has the term banana republic completely changed from its original meaning? I see it used a lot on AH in reference to Ireland, which doesn't make sense to me.

In fairness we are a small country heavily dependent on a handful of exports ie. pharma and get dictated to by said companies far more than the average Joe soap would like to believe. Pretty much a textbook babanna repulicin the modern sense.

Tarzana2 · 28-11-2015 01:15AM

The film 'Network' was ahead of its time. Very prescient, predicting the advent and domination of reality TV shows. 'The Truman Show' was also prescient in this way.

ThinkProgress · 28-11-2015 01:19AM

People who choose to live their lives with less technology. Or at least reject the insidious nature of how it has wrapped it's tentacles around every facet of our existence...

These people will be seen as visionaries in the future!

RobertKK · 28-11-2015 01:23AM

I see inventors and people who create new things while making the accepted way obsolete as people who are ahead of the times, People who disrupt the accepted way, like Reed Hastings with Netfix, Elon Musk with many things including Tesla, online payment, Steve Jobs with the iPhone.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin with Google. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, Jack Dorsey and 3 others with twitter, Jeff Bezos with Amazon.

These are the sort of people who were ahead of his time as they looked at what existed and made something new mainstream.

Tarzana2 · 28-11-2015 01:39AM

RobertKK wrote: »

I see inventors and people who create new things while making the accepted way obsolete as people who are ahead of the times, People who disrupt the accepted way, like Reed Hastings with Netfix, Elon Musk with many things including Tesla, online payment, Steve Jobs with the iPhone.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin with Google. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, Jack Dorsey and 3 others with twitter, Jeff Bezos with Amazon.

These are the sort of people who were ahead of his time as they looked at what existed and made something new mainstream.

And they make it look so easy, when of course it's not.

I mean, the idea behind many of these thing is simple, but none of us came up with it. And probably not many of us have it in us to come up with something like any of the above.

I think so many people long to be a successful entrepreneur, so many of us want the ego boost of coming up with the next novel, groundbreaking idea, of being seen as a visionary. That's why there are so many start-ups. But to come up with something like that I'd say is very rare.

DEFTLEFTHAND · 28-11-2015 01:54AM

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

"The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty-a fad." - Advice from a president of the Michigan Savings Bank to Henry Ford's lawyer Horace Rackham. Rackham ignored the advice and invested $5000 in Ford stock, selling it later for $12.5 million.

"Guitar groups are on the way out, the Beatles have no future in showbusiness"

Dick Rowe of Decca Records after the Beatles auditioned for the label in early 1962.

In fairness he would later redeem his reputation by signing the Rolling Stones.

Eugene Norman · 28-11-2015 02:40AM

ThinkProgress wrote: »

People who choose to live their lives with less technology. Or at least reject the insidious nature of how it has wrapped it's tentacles around every facet of our existence...

These people will be seen as visionaries in the future!

Oh. Absolutely. I think we all hate the internet here.

TheLastMohican · 28-11-2015 02:44AM

XR3i wrote: »

"for each man kills the thing he loves yet each man does not die"

That you Fingal O'Flaherty?

Eugene Norman · 28-11-2015 02:45AM

JRant wrote: »

For me the most obvious example is Noam Chomsky. He's been pretty much bang on point over nearly a half century at this stage yet the mainstream media refuse to give him airtime.

Have a listen to some of his talks from the 70's and he has pretty much called how the media, Governments and corporations are acting now.

I would argue that Geldoff was of his time more than ahead off his time. Plus he doesn't like Mondays.

Chomsky wasn't ahead of his time. That isn't to say he isn't correct but his left wing views are in no sense dominant, and in fact modern leftism is identity political rather than focussed on corporate and US power.

Tarzana2 · 28-11-2015 03:03AM

Shakespeare of course. I think that is why he remains so popular. So many of the themes in his works are as salient and ubiquitous now as they were centuries ago. His works are pretty much the proof of the proverb "The more things change, the more they stay the same". Basically, people were assholes then, and they're still assholes now. :pac:

TheLastMohican · 28-11-2015 03:07AM

ADAM obviously

28-11-2015 11:14AM

Anyone who installed solar panels for generating electricity in the 1970s was way ahead of the time.

Menas · 28-11-2015 11:17AM

People who hitched a lift on Noah's arc were ahead of their time.

Wibbs · 28-11-2015 11:24AM

I'd add in HG Wells.

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977.

And in 1977 he was right and would continue to be right until the internet really took off. Pre the internet PC's were extremely useful in business, design, science etc, but in the home they were pretty much only of use for interested hobbyists and gamers, connecting them in a huge network gave them their everyday purpose. A pre interwebs computer was akin to having a car in a large driveway. You could tinker with it, start it up, rev it, even drive back and forth a few car lengths, but until you have access to a road network it's not much use.

There've been a few good examples mentioned already(not Geldof though. Very much of his time, merely reflecting it). Futurists nearly always miss something big that changes everything. The aforementioned internet a good example. Very few futurists and writers spotted that one coming, or the social effects it would bring with it. We're not even sure today how far down that rabbit hole we're going to go.

The "post modern" future of today is quite a different one to how we might have imagined it in the 60's or 70's. Then the future was somehow more advanced, bigger, shinier, more outward looking. These days we're a little more cynical, more inward looking.

Personal future gazing? I don't think the much hyped singularity is going to happen. Not for a very long time, if ever.

"He was ahead of his time".

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