Has commercialism displaced our idealism?

Question

When I compare the designs we were presented with 30 years ago with those we get to see today, I can't help but feel that nobody wants to be futuristic anymore. Nobody seems to want stuff that's "new and weird looking" - all our new products are merely "marketable looking".
Where has the pioneering spirit gone?
And why?

Answer 1

I think with such a wide generation gap, the kids aren't buying what we are selling and we aren't buying what they are selling.
The gap is wider than ever it was in the past.
We may be at an impasse right now and we will have to wait until both generations get older.
Commercialism takes over when we are too busy and our lives are so fast paced we let others make our choices. So I think there is a middle ground in the age groups that fall into the commercialism trap. Working pay check to pay check to keep their children in school and their parents from or in a nursing home. Just wait ten more years when our kids have their say. Kinda nervous about that myself, but the weirdness will return, these kids already have their own perception. If artists can tap into that now, they will make a fortune later,

Answer 2

When I was 6 years old I was given a book titled "The Kid's Whole Earth Catalog." It was written by a bunch of 1970s Greenies and Techie-Hippies. It contained concepts for futuristic things like hydroponic food farms, green power, bionic and artificial body parts, and computerized homes. While the great 1000 person capacity airships the authors envisioned are not flying through the atmosphere and the moon colony never happened, look at the technical achievements we have made in the past 30 years.

10 years ago a friend of mine was building a new home and we though it was a radical thing to have a data port in every room. Now I'd laugh at the idea. We didn't even have the concept of a wireless network 10 years ago.

Sadly, I have to agree with the theory that advances are market-driven. Most technical advances are, but is it a bad thing? We all love to hate the large pharmaceutical companies, but thanks to them I can eat all the fried chicken I want and I can get a raging woodie whenever I need one! I can never have to go to a bookstore or record shop because I can download whatever I want and keep it on my computer or mp3 player. While I was being sarcastic about the drugs, I seriously use less batteries now with an mp3 than I did with a walkman. My first Walkman used four AA batteries that I would have to change all of the time. Rechargable batteries in 1984 sucked. I use one AAA rechargable batter for my mp3. It will last a whole week under normal use. Look at what isn't going into a landfill.

I can't think where I would be without Gore-Tex, Cordura Nylon, Titanium Cooking Gear, 10mm Nylon Dynamic Climbing Rope, Vibram Rubber, Fiberglass Ski Poles, LED headlamps, kevlar composite kayaks, Primaloft isulation, and of course....Crocs! I'd still be toting around a 50lb. backpack when I go to work if it wasn't for technology.

Now, where the US has really dropped the ball is in landmark architecture. Sadly, if 9/11/01 hadn't happened, an significant skyscraper would not be being built in lower Manhattan. Granted the skyline still changes yearly, but nothing like a Chrysler, Empire State, or WTC was on the drawing boards. However, look at the Western Pacific Rim. Malaysia, Taiwan, China...all of them are building record breaking skyscrapers. Dubai is too. Like or dislike the Three Gorges Dam in China, you can't not admit that it is an awesome undertaking.

We don't see the pioneering spirit in the US or Western European architecture anymore because we all have become a bunch of fat, lazy, socialists waiting for free medicine and social security checks. We can't build great things because Union Labor costs too much and the Robber Barons who built the New York skyline don't exist anymore. Even Wal-Mart only has a 1-story office complex. Bill Gates is a philanthropist and would rather give away his millions to starving African children than stick it into a 2000 foot office building in Seattle. (As a conservative, I have to say that his money is his to do with as he pleases. I'm not going to tell him what he should do with it.)

The reason you see massive building projects in emerging countries is because they don't have to deal with legislation and labor laws that exist in the West. The Chinese government can enslave whomever it wishes to build a dam or skyscraper. Wages are low and hours are long...but that's what built the Hoover Dam as well. Today's Oil Sheik in the UAE is yesterday's JP Morgan. Westerners have this notion of social charity and that they should use their profits for the betterment of society. (Agree with it or not...that's what is going on.) Whereas Asians are blowing their bucks on monuments of personal or state achievement.

As for the wonders of Space Travel we were all promised...I could care less if we never launched another human into orbit. (Although I would support a one-way trip to Mars for Oprah, Rosie O'Donnell, Michael Jackson (not the Beerhunter), Angeline Jolie, and Madonna. We'll keep Hillary because she does serve a purpose...scaring the hell out of Republicans, but the others are useless.) Anyway...we waste so much on space travel. What is the ISS going to give us? Nothing! Everyone says what will replace the space shuttles? I say "Who Cares." Until we fix the environmental problems on Earth I don't think we should go screwing around terraforming the Moon and Mars. So if the Flash Gordon dreams of so many space enthusiasts never come true...so be it.