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I am 20 and I like to read/watch a lot of sci fi things. As I was reading a blog called paleofuture I noticed that many people in the 20th century had made predictions about what the future will look like in the year 2000 or the 21st century. They imagined things like Flying Cars, Jetpacks, Robots, Interplanetary Travel, Undersea and moon colonies, domed cities, food pills, 150 year life spans, and so on in the next 50 to 100 years. I would like to know why did that world of tomorrow never make it to reality?


I have noticed that there have been some minor changes in our time line such as: Computers, the Internet, Video Games, Smartphones and Tablets, Hybrid Cars, HDTVs, Burj Kalifa, a black president, no segregation, no USSR, and that is about it.


But I am stil waiting on my cool future that the 40s,50s, and 60s imagine to arrive. Will these things ever come?

Earth001 wrote:
I am 20

Earth001 wrote:
some minor changes

Earth001 wrote:
Computers, the Internet

On the plus side, we also missed out on the Eugenics Wars.

And thankfully, Skynet never happened (yet).

Anyone that thinks of computers and the Internet as a minor change is an interesting fellow.

I'm typing on my phone. In my hand I hold a computer that is more powerful than the one that flew us to the moon. I can access the entirety of all human knowledge with it. But I waste my time arguing on Dakka while sitting on the crapper. Go me!

 d-usa wrote:
Anyone that thinks of computers and the Internet as a minor change is an interesting fellow

only 20.

Earth001 wrote:
I am 20 and I like to read/watch a lot of sci fi things. As I was reading a blog called paleofuture I noticed that many people in the 20th century had made predictions about what the future will look like in the year 2000 or the 21st century. They imagined things like Flying Cars, Jetpacks, Robots, Interplanetary Travel, Undersea and moon colonies, domed cities, food pills, 150 year life spans, and so on in the next 50 to 100 years. I would like to know why did that world of tomorrow never make it to reality?


I have noticed that there have been some minor changes in our time line such as: Computers, the Internet, Video Games, Smartphones and Tablets, Hybrid Cars, HDTVs, Burj Kalifa, a black president, no segregation, no USSR, and that is about it.


But I am stil waiting on my cool future that the 40s,50s, and 60s imagine to arrive. Will these things ever come?

Really, there is only a handful of reasons;

1) Nations no longer are racing to do anything other than not blow the crap out of the planet. Say what you want about the Cold War, it was the only "War" in history that actually lead to scientific/technological progress.

2) It takes time, and we are just starting to get there; We have mega computers sure, but Jet Packs, Hoverboards, and those shnazzy Self Lace Shoelaces are only now being made, it's going to take years until they can be mass produced.

 Slarg232 wrote:
it was the only "War" in history that actually lead to scientific/technological progress

Not even close.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Slarg232 wrote:
Hoverboards, and those shnazzy Self Lace Shoelaces are only now being made

I knew we already achieved self-lacing shoes (albeit not for wide consumption) but are you telling me we currently have hoverboards, too?

Sometimes it amazes me that I can, from my bed, reach all the information I need on a little device in my hand....
I mostly use it for porn, but that is beside the point.

Well, at least we got tricorders.

Carbon fibers. (viable) electric cars, rovers on other planets, artificial organs, synthetic skin, instant communication with anyone on the planet that had a cellphone.

The list goes on and on. We didn't get many things that we imagined, but we got many more things we never dreamed about.

Earth001 wrote:
I am 20 and I like to read/watch a lot of sci fi things. As I was reading a blog called paleofuture I noticed that many people in the 20th century had made predictions about what the future will look like in the year 2000 or the 21st century. They imagined things like Flying Cars, Jetpacks, Robots, Interplanetary Travel, Undersea and moon colonies, domed cities, food pills, 150 year life spans, and so on in the next 50 to 100 years. I would like to know why did that world of tomorrow never make it to reality?


I have noticed that there have been some minor changes in our time line such as: Computers, the Internet, Video Games, Smartphones and Tablets, Hybrid Cars, HDTVs, Burj Kalifa, a black president, no segregation, no USSR, and that is about it.


But I am stil waiting on my cool future that the 40s,50s, and 60s imagine to arrive. Will these things ever come?

I'm 43

1. Sydney Poitier
2. CPT. Kirk and Uharuru
3. Last Americans coming home from Vietnam
4. Moon Landing's
5. SR71
6. Star Wars on Screen
7. Star Trek on screen
8. Berlin wall going down
9. Space Shuttle
10. Space Shuttle Columbia
11. Movie "Look Who's Coming to Dinner"
12. Fred Albert and friends
13. Kevlar
14. Remote controls for TV
15. MTV
16. Cable Television
17. Internet
18. AIDS scare
19. 18 to 21 to drink alcohol
20. Pentium chip hitting market
21. Cell phones
22. Hubble Telescope
23. New Coke
24. Robotech
25. Transformer
26. Game systems (PONG)
27. End of Aparthied in South Africa and election of Mandela
28. Rise of Long hair bands
29. Cable internet
30. 500+ channel Cable TV
31. USSR becoming FDR

to name a few

Showed my age

Earth001 wrote:
Flying Cars

We did get flying cars, a long time ago. Development just ended at the prototype stage when everyone involved realized that there was no market for them.

Jetpacks

A combination of no real market and engineering difficulties (fuel, hot exhaust, etc) that are easy to handwave away when you're writing fiction about the future.

Robots

Err, lol? You do realize that we have robots, right?

Interplanetary Travel

No reason for it. We have the technology, we just decided that it's not worth the money. This is unlikely to change now that robot probes are so much more effective than sending human scientists.

Undersea and moon colonies, domed cities

No reason for it. Current living arrangements are working well enough, and "it looks cool" isn't a reason to deal with the massive engineering problems of building those cities.

food pills

No market for it. People enjoy eating, and a pill doesn't duplicate that experience.

150 year life spans

Just slightly ambitious. Average life spans have been increasing, and quality of life as we age has also been increasing.

 Peregrine wrote:

food pills

No market for it. People enjoy eating, and a pill doesn't duplicate that experience.

Speak for yourself. I hate the fact that I have to eat, and would jump all over a pill form of complete and healthy sustenance. And I'd be happy to eat real food as an occasion, 1 meal a day for enjoyment, something like that.

I cant be alone!!!

But if we don't eat we don't poop. And I love pooping!

Touche!

 Peregrine wrote:

food pills

No market for it. People enjoy eating, and a pill doesn't duplicate that experience.

I'd buy them. Eating is awesome when you have the time for it. There have been, and are, countless times when I just wish I could eat a little pill to immediately get back to work again. Armies all over the world would stock up on it. Shipping made extremely easy to quickly take care of poverty all over the planet.

Earth001 wrote:
I am 20 and I like to read/watch a lot of sci fi things. As I was reading a blog called paleofuture I noticed that many people in the 20th century had made predictions about what the future will look like in the year 2000 or the 21st century. They imagined things like Flying Cars, Jetpacks, Robots, Interplanetary Travel, Undersea and moon colonies, domed cities, food pills, 150 year life spans, and so on in the next 50 to 100 years.

We're getting there. Flying cars are not safe or viable due to people. Jetpacks are not safe or viable due to physics. Robots are here, even if you don't see them, and in some cases, even when you do see them (Roomba?). Last I heard, Space-x was still trying to get a mission to mars together. Undersea and moon colonies haven't happened yet because there's no compelling reason to build them beyond "because it's possible", and technically, we probably had the technology to do the undersea ones anyone LAST century. Why would we need or want domed cities other than to reflect your take on scifi's concept of the 21st century? They don't benefit us any until the climate finally gives out on us, and we've got a few more years of milking profit margin before that becomes a worry. We don't have food pills, but we have high caloric food bars, which are pretty close. 150 year lifespans are not something that may ever be viable without dark science that requires going into ethically murky zones.

To a certain extent, a lot of that stuff has little to no bearing on the real world. You might as well have asked why we haven't genetically engineered aliens, and then seeded them somewhere so that we can discover them, or why we haven't invented zombie plague so that we can have zombies, because old movies and books told us we would. The answer is, "Because it doesn't make sense."

I have noticed that there have been some minor changes in our time line such as: Computers, the Internet, Video Games, Smartphones and Tablets, Hybrid Cars, HDTVs, Burj Kalifa, a black president, no segregation, no USSR, and that is about it.

Woah, wait. Wait. Full Stop. So what you're telling me is that, according to your world view, the two are true:

- robotics aren't here yet,
and
- a box the size of an address book (not that you'd know what one of those is) that can do the following is a "minor" thing?
-> show you any movie any time you want it to at a resolution probably better than your eyes can recognize
-> send communication to the opposite side of the world in less than 10 seconds
-> understand things that you say to it, and follow through with things you tell it to do
-> take pictures without film and store more pictures than a closet of photo albums
-> and STILL be smaller than an address book?!

You know what, I was going to not be snide about it, but maybe the reason you didn't get that future you thought you were "promised" is because YOU haven't made it happen.

I'm going back to my job now. Harumph.

I think I am quite pleased with what sci-fi put out for ideas so long ago.
We tend to invent and create when we have an idea or goal in mind.
All those wild an wooly things thrown out there gave targets for research and inventors to shoot for.

You cannot tell me that flip cell phones were not influenced by Star-Trek.
Transparent aluminum for heaven's sake has been invented, ultra-capacitors, "grapheme", railguns, military grade lasers, exo-frame suits those are the more obvious science "coolness" items.
We already have a water based "hoverboard" or a hovercraft version.
The "Martin Jetpack" is out there.
Flying cars look up Terrafugia.

The internet was a cool and huge thing when it first came out but was rather elitist, now it is available instantly in the palm of your hand.

I remember looking at a Turbo Grafx 16 game system (1987) and thinking that it would be cool if a whole music album would fit in one of those cartridges (about size of domino).
Now fast forward and your entire music collection and the player all would fit in that size.

It still blows my mind and my kids when I say "I am older than the internet and portable phones!".
Questions like how you would ever find out things and how did you have fun tend to crop up after that statement.

For some, the future that was promised looks better in some ways than predicted (lived under the shadow of the "cold war").
Most of the movies I see now show a world that looks like it was designed by Apple: White, seamless with curves.
The usual Armageddon scenario has always been around.

I could see the old "Cyberpunk" genre coming back since it was all about "street-tech" and how more and more innovation is being found in the general public.
The huge big bad corporate empires are not looking quite the reality it used to.

The future is now.

<edit> Hehe the MaxHeadroom avatar has a whole new meaning suddenly. Now off to Network23!

8 track to cassette to CD to thumb drive

Yeah, where is my mech?

Think Japan actually built one

 Jihadin wrote:
Think Japan actually built one

It's not in my backyard though.

 Talizvar wrote:


I remember looking at a Turbo Grafx 16 game system (1987) and thinking that it would be cool if a whole music album would fit in one of those cartridges (about size of domino).

Bonk FTW

 Talizvar wrote:
Flying cars look up Terrafugia.

Or go back to 1949: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Aerocar. Which is why it amuses me when people complain about not having flying cars yet. We had them, and nobody bothered to buy them.

 Peregrine wrote:

Earth001 wrote:
Robots

Err, lol? You do realize that we have robots, right?

I think he means the good kind of robots, the anatomically correct ones that look like Natalie Portman.

I remember when I was a kid reading Dick Tracy comic books. (After the 80's movie came out, I'm not THAT old.) I though it was ridiculous that he could have a walkie talkie the size of a wrist watch. Now I have a voice activated hand held computer/phone/camera more sophisticated than the one Al used on Quantum Leap.

 Boggy Man wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Earth001 wrote:
Robots

Err, lol? You do realize that we have robots, right?

I think he means the good kind of robots, the anatomically correct ones that look like Natalie Portman.

I remember when I was a kid reading Dick Tracy comic books. (After the 80's movie came out, I'm not THAT old.) I though it was ridiculous that he could have a walkie talkie the size of a wrist watch. Now I have a voice activated hand held computer/phone/camera more sophisticated than the one Al used on Quantum Leap.

I prefer the ones that make my stuff.

I think we are doing rather well compared to the post apocalyptic future I was read to about since I was a little kid.

 Asherian Command wrote:
I think we are doing rather well compared to the post apocalyptic future I was read to about since I was a little kid.

Soviet shock troops should be happily garrisoned in Brest - France - by now supping on wine through their well made NBC equipment.

What went wrong.....

 Mr. Burning wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
I think we are doing rather well compared to the post apocalyptic future I was read to about since I was a little kid.

Soviet shock troops should be happily garrisoned in Brest - France - by now supping on wine through their well made NBC equipment.

What went wrong.....

I am still surprised monsters from hell have burst through the surface.

The movie Red Dawn (THE ORIGINAL!!) had a good vibe of realm of possibility to it back then