The Future Began in 1965

1966Uranus-Pluto2100

[ad]The 1960s fea­tured rock­ets. Rocket cars. Nuclear Rock­ets. Rock­ets to the Moon. Rock­ets were noth­ing new, but ones fes­tooned with elec­tron­ics, were. Rock­ets turned into guided mis­siles, trans­form­ing space, time and diplo­macy. Fast was in. Slow was off the table.

Quick, Make Up Your Mind

[ad]People didn’t notice it then, but the ‘Instant’ world began in the 1960s. Instant Cof­fee, Instant Pic­tures, Instant Sex. Since then, Instant has only got­ten faster (but instant cof­fee still sucks). The king of Instant, the Inter­net (actu­ally packet tech­nol­ogy, which also pow­ers cel­lu­lar net­works), was invented in the 1960s because of what might hap­pen when nations fire rock­ets at each other. But Instant did another thing: it turned news into his­tory. No longer did peo­ple wait a few days for news; reports came hourly, now minute to minute.

Cue: “We just saw his­tory here, today, Ladies and Gen­tle­men. Now, to our reporter on the street for an instant reac­tion.“
“Excuse me Ms./Mr. Pub­lic could you tell me how you feel about the his­tory we wit­nessed today?”

That’s what began as 1966Uranus-Pluto2100 did. Instant cul­ture. Instant immersed cul­ture. Rock­ets. Satel­lites. Elec­tron­ics. All now part of a grow­ing net­work. Aero­space. Many of the com­po­nents had been around for a bit, but how to use them, how to com­bine them changed. For­ever. Uranus-Pluto is like that.[ad]

That 360°/0° Thing.

1966Uranus-0°-Pluto2100 can also be read 1849Uranus–360°–Pluto1965. The end shapes the begin­ning. The path along the quad­ra­ture align­ments from 1849, to 1874, 1902, 1930 and 1965 brought us from rail roads and telegraphs, through tele­phones and auto­mo­biles, to air­planes and mass-production, to nuclear tech­nol­ogy and rockets.

Net­works of steel and wire, lead to ones of steel and more wire, to ones through the air, both phys­i­cal and vir­tual. Along with these accom­pa­ny­ing changes appeared. The dis­tance between field and table decreased dra­mat­i­cally, in time, alter­ing all sorts of equa­tions. The same tech­nol­ogy that sent freight and peo­ple down rails also pow­ered machines on the farm.

People’s lives began to revolve more around machines than farms, chang­ing the focus on where to live. Bet­ter to live in the city, near the fac­tory. So your fam­ily moves there, along with the shops, the offices and schools. Since you won’t need the many hands needed on a farm, you will have fewer chil­dren, also bet­ter for city liv­ing. Women live health­ier lives, with more free time. To get away from the fac­tory, some of the chil­dren learn math­e­mat­ics, law, even the arts.

Abstract thought and art and music chal­lenge pre­vi­ous lim­its. New­ton­ian Physics, mechan­i­cal and causal, gives way to Quan­tum Physics, where dif­fer­ent states can exist simul­ta­ne­ously in dif­fer­ent loca­tions! And because we could see abstractly, we could see atoms. Well, at least we could see how they moved. And, then we learned how to split them! So when we blew stuff up, it stayed blew up. We also used it as a new way to heat up water. So the 360°/0° thing applies here because all those things hap­pened dur­ing the last Uranus-Pluto wave; all those things occurred between 1849 and 1965; the past that shapes the future.

Rock­ets, the New Rail Roads

At 1711Uranus-270°-Pluto1848, near 1821, exper­i­men­ta­tion with rail roads began. After 1849Uranus-0°-Pluto, near 1848, rail roads, lit­er­ally, became part of the land­scape. Near 1849Uranus-270°-Pluto1965, circa 1929, God­dard began rocket exper­i­ments that lead to the moon landing.

Space rock­ets improve all the time, but their launch no longer is a big tourist attrac­tion. We note their depar­ture like we do a pass­ing train. What­ever rock­ets evolve into by 2100, we have already begun down that path. We have already seen how the Inter­net change from its Morse Code-like begin­ning to its more use­ful tele­phone off­shoot, more instant lives, even more instantly.

The Future’s Not So Clean Any More

We need remem­ber that Rachel Car­son’ s Silent Spring just pre­ceded the 1965 Uranus-Pluto con­junc­tion, with a mes­sage equally as wor­ri­some as the “Bomb”. Indus­try that exploded from 1850 on, came with dirty side-effects grow­ing in pro­por­tion to the its influ­ence on cul­ture. Since her mes­sage ignited aware­ness, our capac­ity to spoil the envi­ron­ment grows. We lit­er­ally have changed the weather, for decades, prob­a­bly cen­turies. Mean­while, we demand more resources, so we can grow more pop­u­lous and demanding.

Pol­lu­tion is no longer local; China’s smog is also California’s. British Petroleum’s neg­li­gence is Louisiana’s night­mare. Jet­sons car­toons now come with a Sur­geon Gen­er­als warn­ing. The future is loaded down with car­bon. The past shapes the future.

1792, 1902, 2045

The next Uranus-Pluto turn­ing point comes near the oppo­si­tion of 2045. These oppo­si­tions do not sub­tly arrive and dis­ap­pear into his­tory. Remem­ber 1792 for being close to the French Rev­o­lu­tion, the Amer­i­can Con­sti­tu­tion, the final split of Poland and a dra­matic shift toward indus­try. 1902 fea­tures planes, radios, air con­di­tion­ing, impe­r­ial bat­tles, strikes and rev­o­lu­tions. along with the avant garde, and the abstract. The turn of the cen­tury clearly departs from the past.
~2045 will likely amaze in ways both chal­leng­ing and awe­some. The chil­dren who barely knew what a land-line was will hit middle-age, just as many demo­graphic time­lines reach crit­i­cal junc­tures. Pop­u­la­tion will close on 9–10 Bil­lion, just as our oceans may run out of fish. We could be closer to 400 than 350.

What­ever deci­sions made or delayed regard­ing energy sources circa 2010 will show con­se­quence at this time. At this point, since most cul­tures defer atten­tion to these mat­ters, and given the his­tory of Uranus-Pluto oppo­si­tions, this astrologer sus­pects upheavals a long the line of Paradox2140:Progress . I won­der how much Louisiana Light Crude will haunt the Gulf of Mexico?