Jetson, could the future actually be like it?

Question

having a robot maid, flying cars, camping on the moon, making dinner by pressing buttons, can life be as simple!???

Answer 1

someday very soon it will be that way as a matter of fact life is well on it's way to becoming just like the jetsons, and if you don't believe me just look at the links i give you and see for your self.

Answer 2

It can happen just that way, it's just a matter of spending the money to refine the technology and build it. But it probably won't happen that way. The Jetsons are basically a 1960s family with 1960s issues and attitudes transplanted into the "future". Back then, very few people thought about the environment or world economies. It was just Dad at work watching the clock, Mom supervising the maid at home, sis shopping at the mall and little brother thinking of ways to blow up his toys. We still have that, but we are more aware of the contingent issues.

Flying cars? What kind of fuel do you use? How do you manage three-dimensional commuter traffic, and congestion? How do you deal with vehicle failures? Will commuting even be necessary? What will be the nature of "work" then?

Ultra-highrise apartments "above the weather"? How high is that? Do you have to deal with issues like air pressure and wind shear? What materials do you design them out of? How do you utilize the land beneath? Does it effectively deal with sprawl? Is it cost-effective?

Push-button food? Vending machines will get more sophisticated, perhaps heating food as it vends, but is that really how you want your meals? (The box always looks better than the product.) How will these meals be prepared? On site from raw materials? Pre-packaged and sterilized? What kind of infrastructure will society invest in this ongoing project? Who will finance it? Automated food tends to get designed to fit the delivery system, not human nutritional needs. And factory farms are already pretty frightening.

Robots have to be designed and programmed to do everything they must be capable of doing. They also require maintenance. Some may become self-maintaining and maybe even "learn" but they won't be cheap or flawless. One of the challenges of a house robot is to make it powerful and adaptable enough to do the work, but safe enough not to injure people.

Camping on the Moon? Don't forget it takes about three days just to get there from Earth orbit. It's doable, once the facilities are built but short visits may not be worth the cost. What exactly will you do there?

The more "automatic" you make life, the more there is going on behind the scenes, and the more there is that has to be hidden to maintain the illusion of simplicity. Robots can replace all those third-world sweat shop laborers, but who services the robots? Other robots? There is a point of diminishing returns.

If we were actually able to make a perfectly efficient, self-contained robot culture that could do all the work without fail, what would WE do? What would be our aspirations? Our purpose? Even the most sophisticated entertainment will get tedious eventually. And with all problems solved, there will be no "good deeds" to do. Life could get mighty dull. (Perhaps we could imitate robots, pretending to do "work" and solve "problems".)

Answer 3

maybe the robot maid, no flying cars, no camping on the moon, maybe making dinner by pressing buttons but no it won't ever be exactly like the Jetson's.

Answer 4

I agree with cosmo. I sure miss the good old future! The real future (2001, oooohhhhh wow) sucks.

Answer 5

Back in the '60s, the future was like that. It's not like that anymore.

Answer 6

Yea, I think so, but probably not for a looooong time.

Answer 7

sure people can make anything