What happened to the future?

[User_SB]

Its 2014, shouldn't we be having flying cars by now? I am 20 and I grew up on a whole lot of science fiction. I was hoping that by now we would be having a lot more science fiction technologies around by now. I read a lot of old magazines and articles from the 1950s and they thought that by now there would be flying cars, robots, moon cities, underwater cities, jetpacks, hover boards, virtual reality, holograms, space exploration, food pills, and many other technologies.

 

And all we got were video games, HDTVs, smartphones and laptops, The Internet, Computers. Why did the real world turn out to be less amazing than what science fiction futurist were speculating?

[Endy0816]

Some of those are real.

 

flying cars, jetpacks, holographic technology, drones/self driven vehicles

 

Real world is necessarily more practical though considering we have a number of technologies/innovations that nobody predicted I think it is still pretty amazing.

[Phi for All]

The answer is probably more political than scientific. When I graduated from school, I was promised (among other things) that by 2000 there'd be flying cars and 25 hour work weeks. The folks with the money decided 50 hours was better, and that you need lots of other stuff instead of flying cars.

 

I don't think flying cars was ever viable. Too much chaos to control with cars in two dimensions now. Our obsession with individual vehicles instead of mass transport is partly to blame, I think. We might've been able to get the busses to fly (although I still like maglev tech), but individual flying vehicles of a quality that matches our cars would be costly indeed. Jetpacks? Another awesome-inducing technology that would fall flat on its face in wide practice. Manned urban rocketry. I think a lawyer dreamed up the idea of jetpacks, just for the litigation opportunities.

 

Don't sell the internet short. When I was in high school, the computers were paper tape driven. Six feet of tape and thousands of dollars to run a program a $3 calculator could do faster today. Even then, we never dreamed we could one day carry around access to libraries of information wherever we go. That was for Federation personnel only.

 

Robotics actually took a smart turn. There's no need to make them look like people, which is usually what the science fiction writers were on about. We have lots of robotics these days, they're just mostly performing tasks in the background.

 

And you're comparing some cherry-picked science fiction with "the real world", so "less amazing" is always going to be the result.

[Ophiolite]

When I was growing up the following was true for me:

• We had an outside toilet.
• I never sat in a car until I was nine years old.
• My mother had one of the first electric washing machines in our town.
• Television was a tiny screen in low definition black and white, with one channel.
• The small number of people who crossed the Atlantic did so primarily by boat.
• There were probably no more than a score of computers in the UK, all with less processing power than your phone.
• MRI scans had not even been dreamed of.
• Space probes had not yet visited comets, asteroids, Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Mars, Venus, Mercury or the Moon. Why? No space probes.

And yet you think none of what we have around us is amazing.........I'm amazed.

 

[swansont]

Its 2014, shouldn't we be having flying cars by now? I am 20 and I grew up on a whole lot of science fiction. I was hoping that by now we would be having a lot more science fiction technologies around by now. I read a lot of old magazines and articles from the 1950s and they thought that by now there would be flying cars, robots, moon cities, underwater cities, jetpacks, hover boards, virtual reality, holograms, space exploration, food pills, and many other technologies.

 

And all we got were video games, HDTVs, smartphones and laptops, The Internet, Computers. Why did the real world turn out to be less amazing than what science fiction futurist were speculating?

 

Since when is fiction a promise? And, as the saying goes (in some version or another): Unless you're older than 60, you were not promised flying cars, you were promised a cyberpunk dystopia. That promise seems to have been fulfilled.

 

Scientists (at least, ones in the appropriate fields) didn't promise you flying cars. They understood/understand what is involved in flight and knew how energy-intensive it is. Sci-fi authors are free to posit things like antigravity, which scientists know isn't real.

[Ophiolite]

 

. Sci-fi authors are free to posit things like antigravity, which scientists know isn't real.

So, who first floated the idea of anti-gravity?

[CaptainPanic]

Some stuff went different than in the future predictions from the 80's, but one thing even those predictions predicted right: it would be different than predicted.

 

That said, I think it's pretty awesome now:

 

Instead of supersonic flights, we got budget airlines. Not as glamorous, but if you think about it, it's so much more practical. So, instead of going from London to Tokyo once per year really really fast, you can now fly to Greece 5 times per year and have money to spend on beer as well! I think we got this one right.

 

We got tricorders. We call them smartphones, but with a few physical add-ons which you can already buy in the store, you can do almost everything that star trek predicted would only be available in the year 2400. And more: we can do video-phone (it's called Skype now) on ours, and play music, shoot photos and videos... and it's even a flashlight and a mirror. Take that, tricorder.

 

We have robots. Lots of them. They manufacture our cars. They sort the mail. They bomb places like Afghanistan all the time. Also, some are rolling around Mars. They just don't have the friendly face as in the cartoons, because frankly, that is just creepy. And we just don't have the one-wheeled household robot that the Jetsons had, but speaking of the household:

 

Most houses have dishwashers, washing machines. Fancy houses even have centralized lights, dimmable windows, climate control. Who says our houses aren't automated? Again, no robot with a friendly face, but nobody is stopping you from sticking a tablet with a smiley onto your dishwasher.

 

So, yeah, we failed on magic levitation which was necessary for hover boards and flying cars, and nobody has yet wanted to pay for moon cities (but that is probably because Dubai hasn't thought of that yet, because they are totally building an underwater hotel).

 

And finally, I love it how you dismiss the Internet as something mundane... If you think the internet is boring, you're not using it right. But that's just me talking from the Netherlands to all my friends on SFN from around the planet.

[Phi for All]

And finally, I love it how you dismiss the Internet as something mundane... If you think the internet is boring, you're not using it right. But that's just me talking from the Netherlands to all my friends on SFN from around the planet.

 

When NASA set up a site where anyone with an internet connection could grab the simulated controls of the Rover and explore Mars, I was struck by how 20 year-old me never would have imagined it would be possible for that to happen outside a select few people. That they made it available to the masses is incredible, really.

 

If you look at some of the attributes humans have that allow us to flourish, complex communication is one of our best, and the internet is a supercharger for really detailed information exchange. And better communication enhances some of our other attributes as well, like cooperation.

[swansont]

So, who first floated the idea of anti-gravity?

 

Not sure, but it started appearing in the literature (in English) about 100 years ago. That's not any guarantee that it was in works of fiction, though.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=antigravity&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cantigravity%3B%2Cc0

 

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=anti+gravity&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Canti%20gravity%3B%2Cc0

[Endy0816]

lol, this is pretty funny in retrospect:

 

 

 

 

The logic we are called upon to swallow on pain of being classed with antigravity and flat earth men is simply this similia svnilibits procreantur as we see daily now therefore in former times similia dissimilibus procreabantur In other words men produce men and apes apes therefore we take a further step and conclude that in former times apes produced men.

 

 

English Mechanics and the World of Science, Volume 22

Edited August 5, 2014 by Endy0816

[Dekan]

 

Not sure, but it started appearing in the literature (in English) about 100 years ago. That's not any guarantee that it was in works of fiction, though.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=antigravity&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cantigravity%3B%2Cc0

 

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=anti+gravity&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Canti%20gravity%3B%2Cc0

Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels", published in 1726, has a good example of anti-gravity. In Part 3 of the book, "A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi,Glubbdrubdrib, Luggnagg and Japan", the Laputian king lives on a Flying or Floating Island. This is a huge flying-saucer, 4.5 miles in diameter, and 300 yards thick. Its anti-gravity drive comes from a big "loadstone" or magnet. Swift describes the magnet as of "prodigious size" But then adds the disappointing detail that it's "in length six yards, and the thickest part at least three yards over." That always struck me as way too small for the job. Perhaps Swift was being satirical again.

 

Nevertheless, the "Flying Island" impressed me as a child, when I first read the book. And in all the times since then, Part 3 is the section I've re-read most often. (It contains a lot of other scientific, or pseudo-scientific, material. Especially Chapter 5, with its account of the Grand Academy of Laputa, and the projects being researched there - including a kind of Babbage-style "Analytical Engine". But this is going off-topic -sorry)

[swansont]

Magnets aren't antigravity.

[Externet]

Its 2014, shouldn't we be having flying cars by now?.... ..., robots, moon cities, underwater cities, jetpacks, hover boards, virtual reality, holograms, space exploration, food pills, and many other technologies.

 

And all we got were video games, HDTVs, smartphones and laptops, The Internet, Computers. Why did the real world turn out to be less amazing than what science fiction futurist were speculating?

There is flying cars, but they are called Piper, Cessna... and likely you can not afford them. Most of the others exist too. But not in your budget. The prediction was not far from reality, what differs is the speculators never revealed you would not have them.

 

Having the mean$, you can have those toys. If Cessnas were $5000, the skies would be the most horrible mess you can imagine, likely dying on first flight.

 

The key is in your own paragraph above. Past speculations on science fiction.

[SmallMindedOnes]

Well, to understand the future, we need to focus on the past.

 

Some people may say it was because of the religious conflicts (the church was on charge) in the Middle Age that made a scientific oppression, resulting in a world with limited freedom, and then, we got a little "late" comparing to our main goal. Although, this is one of the possible answers, and I'm NOT making fun of other people's religious (if they have one) beliefs, just to clarify.

 

Though, if you want a more "recent" answer, I could say that what people were used to say in the 90s or in those years were just speculations, in the same way we're still going to think that these same things are going to happen in 2020, or even maybe in the very next century.

 

Now I'd like to talk about the flying cars, food pills etc.

 

When you mention a "flying car" it will not be a car, technically... it will become an airplane. Because airplanes fly, obviously... but about the "flying cars", they have been tested, but without organization, this idea would become a large scale disaster!; Now about the food pills... as far as I know, astronauts have already taken them; scientists are developing robots to do simple tasks; virtual reality (google glass or oculus rift) became very popular, as well as holograms (Michael Jackson hologram was made during a musical event) have been developed; space exploration is something that happens a lot (or at least people say it does), and NASA spends a lot in these types of projects. All these things are in a progress. Slow for someones, fast for others.

 

Then... the things we didn't make yet: jet packs, moon cities etc. Probably they weren't made to avoid confusion (like people's reaction to the first computer, telephone etc.), but somebody needs to try at least to know the results! About the moon cities, I am not even sure if humans have really gone to the moon, because if they did this about 45 years ago (I don't know if I'm right about the time), why couldn't they develop really advanced metropolises and resources there? Unless if it was all a lie and they have never went to the moon.

 

People are not ready for the future. We cannot even deal with the past! The society will do amazing things, but it's only possible if they try to do it.

[Moontanman]

When I was growing up the following was true for me:

• We had an outside toilet.
• I never sat in a car until I was nine years old.
• My mother had one of the first electric washing machines in our town.
• Television was a tiny screen in low definition black and white, with one channel.
• The small number of people who crossed the Atlantic did so primarily by boat.
• There were probably no more than a score of computers in the UK, all with less processing power than your phone.
• MRI scans had not even been dreamed of.
• Space probes had not yet visited comets, asteroids, Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Mars, Venus, Mercury or the Moon. Why? No space probes.

And yet you think none of what we have around us is amazing.........I'm amazed.

 

 

 

That 50 meter run to the outhouse could be a killer, lol I grew up that way as well, funny how you forget things like that. The "promise" of science fiction has been provided just not in the way we thought...

[Endy0816]

Jetpacks are real. Mostly just pricey(gas based variety), not unlike flying cars.

 

There isn't much in terms of of practical value on the moon. Not a whole lot you can do with lunar regolith. I looked into it awhile ago and concluded we'd be better off building stations in open space and not bothering with the added cost of yet another gravity well. Most I saw for the Moon to offer was in the form of a tourist destination and scientific reserach station.

[Thorham]

I'll take our current ridiculously fast and cheap computers over silly and dangerous flying cars any day

[Dekan]

 

 

There isn't much in terms of of practical value on the moon. Not a whole lot you can do with lunar regolith. I looked into it awhile ago and concluded we'd be better off building stations in open space and not bothering with the added cost of yet another gravity well. Most I saw for the Moon to offer was in the form of a tourist destination and scientific reserach station.

 

That's very true, the Moon hasn't anything much to offer. Nor have the planets Mars and Venus. Or anywhere else in the Solar System. It's just dead lumps of rock and giant balls of poisonous gas.

 

To find anything worthwhile for our ships to land on, we'd have to go beyond the Solar System. That would require developing a star-drive, and we won't do that.

 

We'll just stay on Earth, and watch porn on the Internet.

[Endy0816]

 

That's very true, the Moon hasn't anything much to offer. Nor have the planets Mars and Venus. Or anywhere else in the Solar System. It's just dead lumps of rock and giant balls of poisonous gas.

 

Well they aren't all bad. Gas giants and their moons are our best bets.

[Janus]

So, who first floated the idea of anti-gravity?

The earliest reference I could find was in Percy Greg's Across the Zodiac, written in 1880. Of course, probably the most famous use of early anti-gravity was H.G. Wells' Cavorite from The First Men in the Moon written in 1901.

[Ophiolite]

Thank you Janus. However, as I pointed out to swansont, my question was based upon the whimsical juxtaposition of anti-gravity and floated.

 

Well, it amused me.

[MigL]

Holy crap, Ophiolite... OUTHOUSES ?!?! Just how old are you and Moontanman ?

See, whimsical juxtaposition amuses me too.

[Carrock]

Jetpacks are real. Mostly just pricey(gas based variety), not unlike flying cars.

 

There isn't much in terms of of practical value on the moon. Not a whole lot you can do with lunar regolith. I looked into it awhile ago and concluded we'd be better off building stations in open space and not bothering with the added cost of yet another gravity well. Most I saw for the Moon to offer was in the form of a tourist destination and scientific reserach station.

There's actually a lot of practical value on the moon.

 

There's water that can be electrolysed for rocket fuel and at least most of what you'd need to manufacture spacecraft.

Only about 3% or less of the energy required to launch an interplanetary spacecraft from earth is required to launch it from the moon.

 

You could even build a linear accelerator to launch spacecraft using only electric power from ( a large number of ) solar panels.

 

Of course all this would require an enormous investment before there was any payback.

 

Science fiction would be pretty dull if authors ran their ideas past an economist.....

[Endy0816]

It would still be in a gravity well though. We are not short on space in Space. Imagine a Colony in the Sky instead of one tethered to the ground.

 

You would need to extract and process lunar ice and even then there is only a finite amount of it. Fuel, drinking, oxygen production and building materials. People like to talk about using lunar water to do all these things and there's only so much of it. Something is going to give.

 

Some sort of automated base might be worth it(extracting components of minerals), but there is little there that warrants setting up a human colony. May as well leave the radiation and dust problems where they are.

 

Biggest gains we'll see will come from better recycling of what we already bring up. Carbon Dioxide is ironically a prime candidate.

[jason.p]

I understand Helium 3 can be extracted from the Lunar regolith. Could this ever be an economically viable reason to set up processing plants on the moon?