(The future, it would appear, is one wild idea right after the other)

I always get a kick out of listening to programs discussing the future, especially when it's the year 2000 as viewed from the perspective of 1966.

Part of the Second Sunday radio series for NBC, newsman Chet Huntley did some in-depth crystal ball gazing and came up with some bizarre ideas as to what the future, 34 years from the comfort zone of 1966, would look like.

For example - computers:

I.A. “Bud” Lewis (computer tech for NBC): “There will be this society of the computer programmer. The man who will tell the machine how to perform its task. See, the thing about a computer is, that it is the first, I think, universal machine. It is the machine which can perform any task, as a matter of fact, it doesn’t even know what it’s supposed to do until you tell it what to do. The telling of a machine what it’s to do, that is the program. And it is the programmer who really controls the means of production. It seems to me that, if we must have as I suggested before, an ethos in which work is not important then we must also have a kind of a noblese oblige in which certain electronic elite people realize it as their duty to help to supervise the economy.”

There's always the "things we could never dream" asides as well as the tons of leisure time all Americans are supposed to have.

Some of the predictions are eerily spot-on while some are just hilarious.

But remember; this is 2000 as seen through 1966 eyes. And we are a scary bunch - even then.