In 1926, Collier's magazine published a conversation with inventor Nikola Tesla. The content of the conversation was shocking at that time - and even now it is very curious.
The life of bees will become the rule for the human race, says the famous scientist Nikola Tesla. A new sexual order is imminent, in which women will play a dominant role. We will communicate instantly using simple handheld devices. Airplanes will fly in the sky, controlled without human participation - by radio. Huge reserves of energy will be transmitted over long distances without wires. Earthquakes will be more frequent. And some of these startling events aren't long before, Tesla says.
Nikola Tesla is 68 years old. He sits quietly in his office, studying the world he has changed with his own hands, and predicting other changes that will inevitably occur due to the progress of humanity. Tesla is a tall, thin, ascetic man who wears dark and looks out over the world with calm, deep-set eyes. He can afford the luxury, but he lives modestly and chooses his diet with amazing care. He drinks nothing but water and milk, and has not smoked tobacco since his youth.
He is an engineer, an inventor, and besides all this he is also a philosopher. And despite his obsession with the practical application of all that a gifted mind can learn from books, he never forgot the dramas of human life. In fifty years, he says, the world will be different from what we see now, much more than our present world - from what we saw half a century ago.
Tesla came to America when he was still young and his genius was quickly recognized. Thanks to his revolutionary electrical devices, he made money and built several factories - first in New York, then in Colorado and Long Island - where he began to conduct countless experiments that led to various important (and not so) achievements in electrical science.
“Since the advent of wireless systems,” he says, “I realized that this new art will bring more to humanity than any other scientific discovery, because it actually erases distances. Most of the disasters from which humanity suffers are caused by the colossal size of the globe and the inability of nations and people to come into close contact."
Wireless transmission will allow these close contacts to be achieved through the transport of intelligence, our bodies, materials and energy
Promotional video:
“The whole world will turn into a huge brain. We will be able to communicate with each other almost instantly, regardless of the distance. Moreover, with the help of television and telephone, we will be able to see and hear each other as beautifully as if we were sitting face to face, despite the distance of thousands of miles; and the devices that enable us to do this will be startlingly simple compared to our phones today. A person will be able to carry such a device in his pocket. We will be able to watch and listen to events - presidential inauguration, sports championship, earthquakes or battles - as if we were there."
“When wireless power transmission is commercialized, there will be a revolution. We have already transmitted movies wirelessly over short distances. But then - just a few years later - the distance will not be limited. Images are already being transmitted by wire, using the telegraph. But when wireless power transmission becomes widespread, all these methods will seem as primitive as a steam locomotive compared to an electric train."
Borders will be destroyed
All railways will be electrified, and steam locomotives will be in museums. There will be flying machines that do not carry fuel on board and will be free from all the restrictions of today's airplanes and airships. We can get from New York to Europe in a few hours. International borders will for the most part be destroyed, unification and harmonization of the various races inhabiting the earth will begin. Wireless technologies harmonize interests of different countries, provide understanding instead of disagreement. Modern systems of power will become obsolete.
Tesla foresees tremendous changes in everyday life. We will be able to print the daily newspaper at home wirelessly every morning. Home control - heating, lighting, mechanics - will be done automatically.
“I foresee the emergence of flying cars the size of a car, and I believe that Mr. Ford will make a great contribution to this cause. The problem of car parking and road construction will be solved. Parking towers will appear in our cities, and the roads will either be widened out of necessity, or will be completely unnecessary when civilization changes its wheels to wings. And the reserves of the heat of our planet - which are indicated by frequent volcanic eruptions - will be used for industrial purposes.
Tesla considers one of the main changes in the future to be a change in the position of women. “It is clear even to a person without sociological education that a new attitude towards gender discrimination has come into the world. Women's struggle for equality will lead to the creation of a new sexual order in which women will take the leading role.”
“Women will achieve equality, and then dominance, not through a primitive physical imitation of men, but through the awakening of the intellect. From the very beginning of history, the subordination of women led to a partial atrophy of mental qualities, which, as we now know, the female sex is endowed no less than the male."
The queen is the center of life
“The female mind has demonstrated the ability for all the intellectual achievements that men are capable of, and this ability will be expanded. The average woman will be no less and then more educated than the average man. Women will ignore the past and amaze civilization with their progress."
“The gradual assimilation by women of leadership and new areas of activity will dull female sensitivity, suppress the maternal instinct. Marriage and motherhood, perhaps, will begin to cause disgust, and human civilization will increasingly come closer to the perfect civilization of bees."
The principle that dominates the bee economy - the most organized and intellectually coordinated form of irrational animal life - is the instinct of immortality, which replaces motherhood with the divine. The queen is the center of bee life. She dominates the hive - and not by inheritance, but because she is the bosom of this insect race.
Sterilizing the race
The Bee Hive is based on huge, sexless armies of laborers whose only purpose and happiness in life is hard work. This is the ideal of a socialized, cooperative life. Further, there are females in the hive, which are kept in case the queen bee disappoints the hive. And there are drones, which are few, and who are tolerated only because they are necessary to fertilize the uterus. Only the strongest of them reaches this moment - and then dies. And the queen returns to the hive, carrying tens of thousands of eggs with her, the future bee city, and begins a new reproduction cycle.
The imagination refuses to admit that such a prospect is possible for humanity. But if you think about how the instinct of humanity to immortalize its race dominates our lives, then why not allow that, thanks to the intellectual breakthrough of women, this instinct will finally express itself in the manner of bees? Of course, it will take many centuries to change the habits and customs of people that block the path of this simple and scientifically organized civilization.
But we are already seeing it start in the United States. In Wisconsin, sterilization of criminals and premarital screening of men are required by law. All that remains is to wait and wonder what will become possible when scientists finally have their say.