The halfway mark.

• Author: Mangu-Ward, Katherine
• Position: Follow-Up

There's something about an anniversary that inspires one to take stock of the past, present, and future, reason's 20th anniversary issue in 1988 was no exception.

In "Things Are a Lot Groovier Now," then-Publisher Robert W. Poole Jr. reminded readers how terrible 1968 was. Cable television was banned in major cities, self-service gas stations were illegal in most places, getting cash required standing in line at a bank between the hours of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on a weekday, airfares were set by the government, the draft was alive and well, and hooking up an answering machine was a good way to incur the wrath of Ma Bell.

Evaluations of the present were more cheerful, with techno-utopian George Gilder declaring that the 1980s would be recalled "as the epic when America overcame entropy and socialism succumbed to it." Alan Reynolds said the '80s would be remembered "for a revival of democracy and capitalism, for privatization, deregulation, and reduced tax penalties for increasing output and income."

Charles Murray, by contrast, was pessimistic: "When I recently suggested before an audience that I thought my children would live to see the end of American democracy, the reaction was not so much 'Why do you think that?' as 'Don't be silly.' The Framers knew better."

Virginia Postrel, later to serve as editor of the magazine, was assigned the unenviable task of pondering what life would be like in 2008. She selected a Blade Runner theme...