What would the world have been like if Walt had lived longer?

Now there's an interesting question, don't you think? 

Perhaps your first inclination is to say that it would be pretty much what it is today, except with a better Walt Disney World in Florida.  And that might be the exact right answer. 

But we all know that Walt wasn't one to rest on his laurels.  He was always moving forward.  Any reason to think that wouldn't have continued?  His passion at the time of his death was his reimagined city concept which may or may not have been a success. 

I know I've written in this blog that what we got may in fact be preferable to what Walt wanted.  But I wrote that as a Disney fan.  I would never try to argue that what we got was "progress" in any sort of really important way.  Whether his ideas proved to be workable or to be a complete failure, the world would have gained something - knowledge about what might or might not work. 

Would having that knowledge have improved the world?  Well, it certainly would not have hurt the world.  Think of the mess our cities are today.  Not technologically, but socially.  I live near Chicago where we can't seem to stop the kids in gangs from killing each other and often (far, far too often) catching innocent bystanders in the crossfire. 

I'm not sure that Walt's social experiment with urban planning would have helped these people.  But who knows?

But more to the point, Walt was, in my opinion, his generation's Steve Jobs.  Yes, he focused on entertainment most of the time, but in a way, so did Steve Jobs and Apple.   What has Apple really changed?  They've changed the way we consume our entertainment, with our tablets and our iPods and iTouches and our smartphones.  Cool toys, all of them.  I'm pretty sure they all have applications beyond entertainment.  (For example, you can download my DOING DISNEY ebook and read it on the Kindle app on an iPad...shameless self-promotion...and not really to the point since reading is entertainment.)

What if Walt had taken the next step in his audio-animatronics and created actual AI robotics?  What shape might such things have taken?  What if Walt had put his mind to space?  His contributions to our space program were mostly PR-related, but would it not have been cool if he would have had any sort of input, through the megaphone of the Disney media giant, into the direction our space explorations might have taken?  Can you imagine Walt's excitement if he had actually lived to see Neil Armstrong step onto the moon?  Disney might have more than a few satellites in orbit (I'm assuming that, as a media company, they have at least a couple of those things flying above our heads)...they might have actually had a presence in space, if Walt could have envisioned it - and I'm pretty sure that if anyone could have, Walt could have.

I'd love to assume I have someone reading this, and if that is the case, I'd then love to hear what changes, if any, Walt might have involved himself in beyond the urban planning exercise he was devoted to in Florida.  The comments are available if you have anything to add to what is, to me, a fascinating thought experiment.

(As an aside, read   HABST AND THE DISNEY SABOTEURS if you want to take a look at Leonard Kinsey's thought about what might have been if Walt's mind had been allowed to continue working on problems in the world...)

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If you want to read a book about one family's strategies when vacationing for a week at Disney World, feel free to check out my title , Doing Disney: How To Spend A Week At Disney's Florida Resort   It's available on Amazon for $2.99.  I tried to write it for families who get to spend a week in the World every year or two and want to maximize their time in the parks and in the area.  It doesn't try to be comprehensive, but I think you might find a few helpful tidbits within its electronic pages...

Thanks!

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Book Review: HABST AND THE DISNEY SABOTEURS

Leonard Kinsey hit one out the (theme) park with HABST AND THE DISNEY SABOTEURS.  His fictional follow-up to OUR KINGDOM OF DUST pulled me in almost immediately and he kept his foot on the gas pedal for the entire book, creating a funny and exciting novel about every Disney fan's dreams.

I don't want to spoil the book here, so I'll just mention that the story involves Reginald "Habst" Habstermeister and his backstage explorations of Disney's Florida theme parks.  Habst uses his fake cast member credentials and more than a little cunning to gain access to the behind-the-scenes areas of several rather unpopular attractions and posts the videos to his YouTube channel in order to earn Google Ad revenue.  When "Sat-Com" contacts him he begins uploading them to another location on the Darknet, and after he posts his videos, it seems something bad happens to said attraction.  It doesn't take long for Habst and Disney Security Chief Charlie Walker (you might remember him from HOLLOW WORLD?) to link the two.  What follows is an exciting adventure to find the culprits and find out what their intentions are.

I would recommend this book to most anyone, but especially to mature fans of the Disney parks.  (By mature, I mean, this isn't for kids.  Or for the easily offended.  Or those who like their Disney sanitized and idealized.)  Anyone can enjoy it, but my five-star rating (forthcoming on Amazon) is because I am that sort of Disney fan.

I hope Kinsey's work gets a wide audience because it's that good!

Here's the link to buy it for $3.99 in the Amazon Kindle Store:  HABST AND THE DISNEY SABOTEURS

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Meanwhile, feel free to check out my book, Doing Disney: How To Spend A Week At Disney's Florida Resort   It's available on Amazon for $2.99.

Thanks!

*****

New fiction from Leonard Kinsey - and it's got Disney in it!

 

Habst and the Disney Saboteurs

by Leonard Kinsey, author of THE DARK SIDE OF DISNEY and OUR KINGDOM OF DUST has been released by Bamboo Forest Publishing. I just barely started reading it. It seems that perhaps it owes a debt to those intrepid backstage explorers from the Mesa Verde Times site (you know, the guys who documented so much of the old Horizons ride). But I'm not far enough along to tell yet. If you like Kinsey's stuff, well, here's another one!

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Meanwhile, feel free to check out my book, Doing Disney: How To Spend A Week At Disney's Florida Resort   It's available on Amazon for $2.99.

Thanks!

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