I agree. Somebody from 1915 would already understand the paradigm shift brought by the industrial revolution. The notion of decomposing problems into small, specialized tasks and delegating to people and other resources was familiar.
Consider these technologies and innovations that had already been developed:
Automated computation is an amazing concept, but--at the risk of historic bias--what we have now is merely an optimized and widely available form of what we had then.
What I imagine they'd have a really difficult time accepting is modern physics, particularly quantum theory. Then again, the vast majority of the public today (including me) struggles with it.
Consider these technologies and innovations that had already been developed:
* Jacquard loom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom)
* Player pianos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_piano)
* Widespread use of interchangeable parts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchangeable_parts#Late_19th...)
* Assembly lines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_line)
* Tabulating machine for the 1890 US Census (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabulating_machine)
* Transoceanic telegraph networks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_telegraph)
* Use of humans for distributed computation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_computer)
Automated computation is an amazing concept, but--at the risk of historic bias--what we have now is merely an optimized and widely available form of what we had then.
What I imagine they'd have a really difficult time accepting is modern physics, particularly quantum theory. Then again, the vast majority of the public today (including me) struggles with it.