What happened to "The Future"?

Question

Where is my flying car?
How come my robot housemaid didn't turn up today?
Why am I not skiing on Mars during my holidays?
Why do my batteries not last forever because they're actually miniature nuclear reactors?

"The Future" is a big disappointment.

I understand the song IGY (aka Wonderful World) by Donald Fagan was based on proper leading scientists' not-unrealistic expectations of the not too distant future as published in the International Geographia Yearbook (is there such a thing?) of the title in the 50s.

There have been some big developements in a short time (phones and computers especially) but a lot of obvious ideas just don't seem to have even begun to be explored by R&D science.

Answer 1

Actually, this isn't the future and it will never be the future.

Answer 2

I think I'll answer these one at a time.

The flying car, seemed like a good idea at the time and a few were invented like the AVROCAR but they were never a success. For one reason or another, the cost of research and development and not to mention how crowded the skies would be if everyone were a pilot it is no wonder flying cars never got off the ground!

A robot housemaid could be handy. They seemed very futuristic back in the '50's especially as computing was still in its infancy.
However a real housemaid performs many many tasks which would be beyond the capability of even one a today's supercomputer. Tasks which may seem simple to us humans can be extremely difficult to emulate in a robot, standing up and balancing for example. On the flip side a robot vacuum cleaner would be a fairly simple affair but moving it around and employing other tasks would complicate thing exponentially!

We may have been on Mars by 1990 if press reports from the '60's were anything to go by, but due to funding NASA decided against sending humans to Mars back then and decided to concentrate on the Space Shuttle instead. NASA and ESA are both look to send humans to Mars probably in 25 to 30 years time.

Nuclear reactor batteries? Hmm. Actually they may have been more environmentally friendly than conventional batteries containing all sorts of nasty things like mercury, cadmium and lead. However a nuclear battery in the home could be lethal if it were to be damaged somehow. Interestingly NASA's Pioneer space probes used nuclear batteries to function their systems in deep space which last about 20 years! Also if you have a smoke alarm in your home then you will have some radioactive material (Americum) in your home (Ok it's not a battery but is just used in sensing the smoke).

Please don't think 'The Future' is a disappointment as the future hasn't happened yet and is whatever we choose it to be.

Thank you

Answer 3

Your flying car? It's at http://www.moller.com/

Your robot housemaid? We're only now achieving the computing capacity to develop 'cognizant' machines. Stay tuned. They're on the way...Moore's law has limited us to date, but we've done well considering. Check out www.roomba.com and http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/QRIO/top_nf.html

Why are you not skiing on Mars during the holidays? Because skiing in sand sucks. Especially RED sand. It may look cool in 'The Blizzard of Ahhhhs', but it's actually no fun. I've tried it. Seriously, terraforming would take hundreds to thousands of years, so even if we had already been there it would not have resulted in atmosheric warming substantial enough to defrost the martian permafrost to result in precipitation within 50 years. Not sure what genius thought this was a real short term possibility.

Batteries that are miniature nuclear power plants? NO thanks! I like the hair that I have left. Now Hydrogen is something to get excited about...and substantially less radioactivity. Look for the first hydrogen powered cars in 2011.

So why are some of the cooler ideas not as forthcoming as we'd like? Beaurocracy. The government likes to complicate things with things like the FAA (for flying cars), and is too heavily influenced by companies that want to sell out existing stores of product before bringing the next one to market. Creativity stalls in the face of economics, and competition often gets swept under the rug when big business comes into play.

Secondly, though I was not born yet in the 50's, I tend to think that the expectations were set a bit high by 'scientists' in the 50's making these predictions. We were just at the forefront of discovery in the 50's, and what we've discovered over the last 50 years is that things are a bit more complex than they were perceived to be in the 50's. Simple predictions from a simpler time. I'd like to think that we're just a little behind schedule...

Answer 4

Sadly, "the future" is no more than a Hollywood vision, perpetuated to an extent by post-war depression. The 1950s and 1960s weren't the holiday that people think - they looked to "the future" and thought what a wonderful place it would be.

I personally think "the future", now the present is an alright place - sure there are no flying cars, no robot housemaids, but we do have ipods, plasma TVs, HDTVs, DVD players, awesome games consoles, really cool (non-flying!) cars...could be worse!

Answer 5

Start wining income with the Zcodes System from here https://tr.im/Vbv6c .
Zcodes System is a simple however powerful system. No longer guesswork or relying strictly on a really fickle woman Luck. You obtain just the thing you need and are found exactly everything you want to do to be able to gain regularly
In the event that you use Zcodes System you are provided with extensive video tutorials and tutorials to exhibit you precisely how the machine operates and things you need to do to be able to make money.
Zcodes System is excellent for novices to because even though you know nothing at all about activities whenever you join, you will learn whatever you need to know fast and effectively and you will particularly learn how to maximize your spending to reap the maximum winning rewards.

Answer 6

Yeah it is sad, they do have flying cars, (not for sale) robots, and Mars would not be good for you. You would need a real tight space suit to survive other wise you would look like a big marshmallow on Mars and all of your organs would pop out. So The Future is a big disappointment.

Answer 7

Too many people are looking to gambling to resolve their financial problems, but if they eliminate they are just making points even worse. But, with Zcodes System from here https://tr.im/An1ob you won't have this problem.
The Zcodes System is the best activities investing computer software system. This method is preferred to anyone that is able to get their activities investment to another level. This really is an absolute must have in your sports expense arsenal.
Zcodes System is at the top of the record for activities betting systems that function!
 

Answer 8

We have celphones, which are telephones that aren't tethered to walls. We have terrabytes of data available at our finger tips. We have food that can be heated in a box and served within minutes. We have computers and laptops that are more powerful than goverment computers from 50 years ago. We have moving pictures being broadcast from a box. We have commercial trips to the moon available (although you must be uber elite to afford it)

Answer 9

Wow, those are particularly not straight forward questions! (my solutions are not too large yet it really is all i ought to arise with) a million) i wager that wrestle were given somewhat too over excited. 2) I were given style of loopy the different evening at the same time as the Wings gained the cup and pleaded Holstrom to cajole Lidstrom that he must have a snooze over at his domicile and for some loopy reason invite me 3) properly, i wager i replaced into lower than the impression of alcohol (it really is why i do not undergo in thoughts what got here about! lol) and that i accidently spilled my soda on correct of Hollweg the evening of the game and he were given revenge (alongside with Orr and Dawes)! 4) i replaced into tenting with some friends and then in the previous I knew it those hockey gamers come alongside (at the same time as my 2 friends were both snoozing) and it really is darkish out and that i heard some noise. i replaced into knocked out no longer too lengthy after. when I awoke I heard one of them say some thing about how hungry they were and how dissatisfied there wasn't a lot meat on me. It seems that i replaced into tied up and replaced into meant to be dessert. they ought to were lower than the impression of alcohol to imagine i replaced into equivalent to the rabbit they were roasting - i think they idea i replaced into some style of puckbunny - actually! lol

Answer 10

Us humans are no longer well educated like the people whom once brought us, the wheel, electricity, television etc. We may never see the day of the future, until we get off our backsides and start to invent. I blame this computer technology.

Answer 11

Try to find the documentary "How William Shatner Changed The World". It exposes "the future" pretty well.