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Repost it in November.
Still waiting for those flying cars though.
Can you post that?
With the other 4 hours spent screwing around on Modern Mechanix....
They want you to buy the machine FROM THEM.
The supplies FROM THEM.
The list of prospective customers FROM THEM.
(Probably taken from the phonebook.)
PS and PM still exist!
Stock up on mustard.
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Sir, my Roomba and Scooba are most offended at your anti-robot (pro-maid) attitude... :)
Tongue firmly in cheek, Alan
As soon as one takes off, climbs to 1000 feet, flies 10 minutes and lands.
Twice.
Without refueling.
THEN I'll concede the existence of a flying car.
(Technically, to be a flying CAR, you would have to be able to drive it on the ground. City and Highway.)
"Credit cards are used for paying all bills. Each time you buy something, the card’s number is fed into the store’s computer station. A master computer then deducts the charge from your bank balance."
because it assumes Americans will have positive bank balances in 2008 instead of living off borrowings.
The housewife simply determines in advance her menus for the week...
Futurists aren't so good at predicting the really big changes, like cell phones or women's liberation.
Yes, that will take another 40 years.
You starve to death, or are shot to death for your left sock.
Would you like to play again?
The prediction suffers due to the person's naïveté as regards the way society functions. Specifically, there is a lack of understanding of capitalism. I have seen many predictions that technology will lead to shorter working hours, but even a basic understanding of capitalism brings you to predict that it will lead to higher unemployment instead.
When they predict that diets will be better, they suffer from the same naïveté about marketing and communication in a capitalist society.
Similarly, unthinking acceptance of selfish individualism and total ignorance of environmental concerns lead them to believe that improved transit of human beings can come about via flashy technological advances in the motorcar, rather than greater investment in public transport.
Apart from the implausibility of machines that tell you what maintenance needs to be performed on them (if the fault is as predictable as that, it will always be easier to take preventive measures than to install countless delicate sensors), they failed to understand that goods would be so cheap to make that people would no longer even consider taking them to be repaired by an skilled workman.
It's quite interesting.
simple take the article above:
1) change the year
2) substitute cybernetic internet connection for TV
3) update some of the examples (schematics will be sent directly from brain to brain with no physical drawing).
and your done.
I want my flash frozen pizza which i can cook in 4 seconds!
( oh and flying cars, yea, them... )
Suppose we'll have to wait till November for the dome thingy.
I've tried googling but can't really pin him down.
Yes. In 1968 when that was written, that wasn't considered sexist. In some places, it's still considered acceptable, as is the male equivalent (usually "stay-at-home husband/dad").
Gene Roddenberry says hello. But I guess there's a difference between predicting 40 years and 300 years into the future.
Where are the napkins from our last design conference?
We'll all be facing Mecca five times a day to pray. Or shot as infidels.
Even this is possible now, amazing prediction! The Poseidon undersea resort in Fiji is 40 feet (12 meters) underwater which will open on september 2008(!!)
Check it
http://www.poseidonresorts.com/poseidon_main.html
Substantial changes happen at a much slower pace, than the "futurists" would like us to believe. With the prevalence of usage of computers in today's workplaces though, the the rate of change could be accelarated somewhat.
In fact, it appears that inflation adjusted wage per American worker have fallen 30% since 1968, if you use consistent indexes. No wonder we're so gloomy these days:
http://www.safehaven.com/article-1942.htm
I read it in the early 1960's as a then youngster myself and I considered that old and tattered book amusing. At that time there were the first man-made satellites orbiting the Earth and a man on the Moon was only a speculation.
I really don't remember neither the title nor the author, too bad, now I would consider it less of a joke as then.
As an additional comment, everything in this article changes dramatically except the social role of woman, i.e. "housewife dealing with menus". I find the crooked and overtly technocentric yet traditionalist american view of life, which hasn't changed in the past 40 years, so naive and hilarious. please continue to have 5 kids per family and send them to middle east to fight for petrol which will be fed into your flying cars. oh, and of course disposable plastic cutlery is a great idea since everything can be substituted by money and cost determines the overall benefit.
In my mid sixties now, I am please that I have experienced such terrific innovations, progress, and great science applied to every aspect of our lives.
When one says, the good ol' days, I stop and think, why? I wouldn't trade today them for anything. Today is wonderful.
Thanks you to all of you scientific innovators. Thank you for all you have done in every aspect and field of science!
Picturing the future has always had issues
Even in 1968,one had to realize that the teachers unions would never allow home schooling to become commonplace.This artificial cost is probably a huge reason why we haven't as quickly as the author thought.
I'll give him a pass on the population estimate.He couldn't possibly anticipate Roe v Wade.
Studying at home can still be done, but the author should've known it wouldn't be half as effective as a proper university course. TV shopping and studying has been tried way before, but it just doesn't have the same advantages of going to a shop and physically seeing the products. As for underwater holidays, the costs of maintaining an underwater resort somehow doesn't seem to weigh up against the fascinating idea of staring out into the darkness of the ocean as opposed to having a good old fashioned beach holiday.
Good products ie proliferation of ipods, more hdtv, broadband and other Progress not war without end.
1. Greedy capitalists will STILL be selling batteries in 6 packs when all electromagnetic devices require 4.
2. Future message board readers will be amazed to discover that all of us were too brainwashed to notice the IMPENDING ECOLOGICAL APOCALYPSE of 3012 due to the alarming rise of Sodium Benzoate levels in drinking water and topsoil erosion from flying snails that emerged from this water (Those idiots back in 2008 were too preoccupied with a laughable fairy tale called "Global Warming" just as their idiot parents were duped by the "Population Bomb" and "Coming Ice Age" 40 years earlier- humans never learn!)
3. Oil will jump to $200 a bbl when Saudi Arabia and Kuwait announce their oil reserves will begin to FINALLY (honest to gawd this time, seriously, no more joking) take a dip in 3075.(Las Vegas casinos are unimpressed as they start booking wagers on which will occur first, Oil Depletion or THE FLYING CAR production model.)
4. Ex-President Barak Obama will be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery by the current President, Barak Obama-Soros the 3rd. Legions of Black Preachers, Wealthy Rap Stars, and Millionaire Basketball Players use this occasion to complain how Black folks have it rough and still can't catch a break from the white man or whitey's new bosses in China.
"You simply press a combination of buttons and the pages flash on your home screen. The world’s information is available to you almost instantaneously."
Today this is named "Internet".
(Why only 3 inches?)
:-)
Here in Europe, that may (will?) come sooner than 2048 if we're not very careful, my friend!
It reminds me of stories my Dad told me of when he went to church back in the 1950s has a kid and how the priest would condemn movies like "Frankenstein," saying how it would never happen. Now, we are reattaching limbs or even using parts from dead people to help sick or injured ones.
Imagine.
To bad oil companies will all go away eventually, when we open our oil rigs in Texas.
The four-hour workday prediction didn't take into account the capitalist system and suppression of unions. Corporations kept the same workday and kept all increases in productivity as profits for investors.
I predict 2048 will be a much gloomier era, since most of the oil will have been used up by then. (We've just reached the halfway point, and it will cost more to get the remaining oil. Google "hubbert peak".) It's hard to see how mass die-offs can be prevented in the next 40 years, as the (expanding) population is unsustainable with the dwindling oil supply. (Some have suggested the world's elite (Google "Bilderberg Society") have plans to forcibly reduce the world's population by 80% before this happens.)
Plant life produces oil from carbon dioxide in the air, water, and sunlight. In 2048 I predict this mechanism will be reproduced synthetically, and there will be oil factories, but research into this will be delayed by oil corporations that want to get every last cent of profit from oil pumped from the ground. The synthetically-produced oil will be too little too late to help humanity.
Recycling will become crucial in the coming decades as we go through the limited supply of natural resources. I predict in 2048 robots will be mining the landfills of 20th-century garbage for raw materials such as metals.
In 2048 the corporate takeover of the world's democracies will be complete. Civil liberties will be a quaint idea from a simpler time. Corporations and governments will merge as only political parties financed by corporations will be allowed. Surveillance of citizens will be almost continuous, and all communication will be monitored and censored at will.
Only a small minority of the population necessary for corporate functioning will have a decent standard of living. The majority of the population will be in poverty, struggling to survive. As a result, a strong security force (like a combination between police and army) will have a presence everywhere to maintain "order".
"@Willy: “Gender roles were something that no sci-fi writer or futurist of the era seemed to think would change.â€
Gene Roddenberry says hello. But I guess there’s a difference between predicting 40 years and 300 years into the future."
As, indeed, does Isaac Asimov; Susan Calvin first appeared in a story in the mid-forties.
Uhhh lets see. Cows will still provide milk and less things will be made out of plastic since its charm as a be-everything substance is wearing off. Plenty of stuff will be but metal and rubber will come back into style for a lot of stuff. Recycling will be more important as the worlds raw ore mines start to charge more and output less. Landfills will be "mined" for old metals which can be melted down and re-used. As this system becomes more set in, the idea of imposing the duty of recycling on each consumer will fade and regular garbage collection and transfer stations will come back into style where they were phased out, for cost and efficacy reasons.
Police will still need warrants to search houses and tap your phone, you will still have your right to bear arms and smoke cigarettes (even if they cost more), people will continue to be looked down on for smoking pot even if the laws are relaxed, people will still go to church, people will still use phones that are plugged into walls... racism will not be eliminated, homophobia will still be widespread, we won't be able to save everyone from an unnatural death or curable disease, and the internet will still be full of people with grandoise ideas about the way the world works, or will work.
I found a James R Berry author of 4 SF titles. Galactic Invaders, Quas Starbrite, Magincian of Erianne, and Stranger from a Distant Planet. I tmay be the same columnist who wrote this 1968 futurist piece.
Thanks for the article. I love it!
BobP
Not to fear, life will return to the planet... sometime around 5000 - 10000
The Imagery is beautiful, but sadly this never happed, and you call that THE FUTURE?(sigh!)
"women liberation?", that irrelevant (that's weird), I think women HAS not changed at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, I love woman!, who ever wrote that subject, Just mind your own manners!!!!!!!! , where was I?, oh!, The Jetsons!, It's amazing that where are now starting to complain about "OIL"(dirty word) , but not the "future"
(SIGH)!
http://water4gas.com/2books.htm?hop=eclipse123
The webmaster of the above website doesn't understand the energy to electrolyze water
exceeds the energy gained from it as a fuel.
Also, an explosive fuel /oxygen mixture in the air intake doesn't sound safe.
a. They produce way more human resource to take up these occupations than we in the West do. I think I read, something like a few hundred times more Engineering graduates per year. Do they need a "No child left behind" program? I doubt it.
b. Those same grads will work for the wages that an illegal Mexican landscaper gets here (in the U.S.)
c. They have huge cash reserves to invest and the foresight to do it.
d. Are much more lightly encumbered by ethical considerations, social welfare concerns. Stem cell debate? Cloning debate? Nuclear power debate? Problems with teaching Evolution in schools? Don't think so.
e. Although they do have some internal ethnic strife have a stronger collective identity than we do, which can be more easily focused toward national goals. Furthermore, care about China first and everybody else in 10th position and below, with nothing in between.
China is casting a huge shadow forward into the next few centuries.
- applying Moore's law, computer processing power should increase to billions of times what it is now. This will make human intelligence quaint. Surely, within the next 40 years, someone will be stupid enough to make a computer smarter than him, or her.
- travel between countries, or even cities for that matter, will be near impossible due to the quarantine restrictions, what with all the old-fashioned natural and new man-made infections. Because of this, most activities will be online, rather than in person: school, shopping, meetings, etc.. Public transportation will be for the desperately poor. Most local transportation, for freight or rare personal traveling, will be by computer-guided individual cars on high-speed express lanes. These cars will talk with each other, negotiating on the fly, and spacing will be sub-meter even while speeds exceed 200Km/h. For those wanting to maintain manual control, these express lanes will be off-limits.
- Populations everywhere will be shrinking and we'll still be talking about the "demographic time bomb." Old people everywhere will be wondering if their pensions will be worth anything, or who's going to help them. Some things never change.
- There will be no privacy, none. The young people of today will demand complete transparency in all activities. They will not associate with, nor vote for, anyone that demands or even expects the slightest level of privacy. Some level of publicly embarrassing information will be expected; those without it will not be trusted.
- The biggest debates will be on how much we're going to be augmenting our children. After all, simply normal children won't be able to compete in a society that demands 80hr work weeks. At a minimum, children will have to have a genetic tolerance to amphetamines, or whatever stimulant replaces them. Coffee will be a quaint drink that children get before bedtime.
David...
Notice that two areas that haven't made the progress predicted are roads and education, both of which are provided by government. In "Revolutionary Wealth" the Tofflers compare the speeds at which different institutions change. If business and companies change at 100 mph, government bureaucracies and agencies change at 25 mph, the government-run education system runs at 10 mph, and political structures (Congress, Senate) in wealthy countries change at 3 mph.
As for greed (e.g. capitalists and oil companies), as long as they can't force me to buy what I don't want, as long as they can only earn money by providing goods and services we want and value, then I have no problem with them. But when the government interferes and prevents or limits competition then I have a problem. (Remember when Bell was the only long distance company?) When greed is able to co-opt politicians, we are in trouble.
As far as shopping goes, we do have online and TV shopping as predicted. What he missed was the shopping mall. Back in 1948, supermarkets were just starting to replace the corner grocery store.
As for predictions of apocalypse, I've lived through a few; the Year 2000 (computer) non-crisis being more recent, the Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth" was somewhat earlier, and Malthus' predictions of global starvation were even before my time. We will not run out of oil suddenly; it will happen gradually while the price increases. (I read somewhere that about 100 years ago we were running out of oil, whale oil. There was a huge concern about how we would light our streets and homes.) As the price of oil increases, reserves that were too expensive to pump will become economicly viable. Alternatives for energy, such as solar and geothermal, will become competitive. Recycling will be more profitable. The human mind thrives on solving problems, especially when there is an incentive, be it financial rewards or survival.
1. Consumer electronics, little regulation, progress evenly to underestimated.
2. Transportation, moderate to heavy regulation (and taxation), progress overestimated.
3. Medicine and education, very heavy regulation, progress overestimated.
The bottom line: leave mankind free to innovate and trade on an open market, and we will. Here's aviation visionary Burt Rutan making the point with regard to space flight:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/4
As for Space 1999 and 2001: A Space Odyssey.... there were some things about both that even today seem perfectly plausible... albeit we didn't see many of them due to a loss in momentum in the space program. The Tube Train in Moonbase Alpha could probably be built today with existing technology, those Commlink things are basically just video cellphones, the Eagle Transporter, visually, looks almost like it could probably be built with today's tech... except it wouldn't be useful as a planet-to-Moon-and-back-again vehicle but as a vehicle to travel from one place on the Moon to another. Other technology in Space 1999, though, was pure space-opera. (Force-field projections over the Moonbase! Electronically-generated gravity that could be dialed up and down!) And then there were technologies still in use on the show that now seem laughably backwards. (One big computer taking up a whole wall of the command center! And at one point, a character was writing a report using an electric typewriter! What, no laptop or desktop computers?!?)
2001: A Space Odyssey, if you deleted all year-references in it, could almost be taken today as a vision of... say, 2068, or 2099... except, of course, some of the human-interfaces (like that identify-your-nationality-and-destination video terminal on the space station) seem too simple (that terminal should have had more buttons, or should have had a touch-screen interactive system in which the menu items could easily be changed out as needed), and of course, since the movie came out, AT&T has changed its corporate logo... several times, and of course Pan Am is long gone, it exists now only as a company name that has itself changed hands multiple times.
"Blade Runner" expected the future to change quite a bit more than it probably should have expected it to, also. That movie expected roughly 40 years into the then future we'd have cities filled with buildings hundreds of stories tall, artificially created people who you couldn't tell from natural born people until you started talking to them for awhile, and of course the obligatory flying cars.
"Always in motion is the future," said Yoda. "Difficult to see."
But of course, as someone else here pointed out, 40 years from now probably won't be that different than the world of today, we'll just have smaller and cheaper computers, more personal electronics of various types, groundcars that behave more or less like those of today, traveling on roads not that much different than those of today, going to and from houses and office buildings looking almost the same as those of today... but there'll be devices and services we never dreamed of today that will be commonplace, and some devices that today we think will be around forever will be simply gone.
Look back at Heinlein's novels that had us still using slide-rules centuries from now, or look at all those science fiction novels of the 40s and 50s that assumed that all our radios and computational devices would still be using vacuum tubes even into the 22nd Century! And of course none of them predicted MP3 players or Garmin street navigators. Some of them did predict pocket calculators, though. Go figure. Uh... if you'll pardon the unintended pun.
In the year 2525
If man is still alive.
If woman can survive, they may find.
In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies.
Everything you think, do and say, is in the pill you took today.
In the year 4545
Ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes.
You won't find a thing to chew.
Nobody's gonna look at you.
In the year 5555
Your arms hanging limp at your sides.
Your legs got nothing to do.
Some machine doing that for you.
In the year 6565
Ain't gonna need no husband, won't need no wife.
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too.
From the bottom of a long glass tube. Whoa-oh
In the year 7510
If God's a-comin, he oughta make it by then.
Maybe he'll look around himself and say.
Guess it's time for the judgment day.
In the year 8510
God is gonna shake his mighty head.
He'll either say I'm pleased where man has been.
Or tear it down and start again. Whoa-oh
In the year 9595
I'm kinda wonderin if man is gonna be alive.
He's taken everything this old Earth can give.
And he ain't put back nothing. Whoa-oh
Now it's been ten thousand years
Man has cried a billion tears.
For what he never knew,
now man's reign is through.
But through eternal night.
The twinkling of starlight.
So very far away.
Maybe it's only yesterday.
personally, i wish that 2008 NEVER even existed. (well, actually it all began in 2007, and seems to be never-ending...)
BOTH of my hands have recently suffered neurological damage - i am normally right-handed but now i can barely hold a pen - thank god for computers; at least i can muster up enough strength for one-finger typing ...! i live alone and no one comes 'round in the morning to help me get dressed (ever try to tackle simple daily things such as buttons & zippers when you're nearly handicapped ?)= think i'm going to continue living in pyjamas from now on - it's much easier!
A lot of the predictions are wrong for more than one reason (like the domed cities). But one reason they are wrong is that they assume the wrong level of public investment in infrastructure. For example, the proposed transit system with its 250 mph speeds would require an enormous public investment. Is that likely to happen? It may or may not. In the US, probably not.
There have been enormous infrastructure projects in the past, like the US interstate highway system. The interstate highway system has shaped the US economy and technology enormously. For one thing, it took away traffic from the enormously more efficient railway system, and encouraged our love affair with big fast cars. Some would say both developments ultimately turned out to be negative.
Public investment in infrastructure varies enormously as economic and political forces shift. No futurologist that I know of has ever considered that factor. They all assume that we will blithely pay whatever taxes are necessary to build that enormous dome over the city, for example, even if we would enjoy greater safety, security, wealth, and efficiency overall. As some of the comments above illustrate, that isn't likely.
I think that is a uniquely American failing. Public dollars projects change everything we see, but we refuse to acknowledge that. We cling to the fantasy that we can, by ourselves, with our own two hands, create our own lives out of whole cloth. For many elements of the life they want, Americans will have to buy them from their government with taxes.
A second element that crystal ball gazers rarely acknowledge is the differences between the rich and the not-so-rich. The article proposes that most people will take classes of some kind for a few hours a day. How will that be paid for? If it comes out of people's pockets, then not everybody will be able to pay for it. The people who can't will fall further behind. Their productivity and consumption will drop, and the economy will suffer overall.
A second example: All the cars and roads will have a system so that the cars can drive themselves safely at high speeds. But for the system to be optimally efficient, everybody will have to have a self-driving (or centrally controlled, or whatever) car. Even a few manually driven cars would slow down the overall system quite a bit, and would also increase the demands on the control system. The computers would have to continually react to an element that is outside its control, rather than being able to coordinate all parts of the system.
So the problem is that if only a few cars have that feature, then it is worthless. The value comes when everybody's car has that feature.
So how would that happen, in a free market? How would that feature ever become universal? With other worthwhile features (like antilock brakes, say) some manufacturer introduces it in premium cars, and then the feature trickles down into lower priced cars until it is offered across the board. In the case of antilock brakes, that process has taken over 20 years, and they are still not universally available. That, plus the fact that people buy new cars only once every 7 years or so on average, means that antilock brakes are far from universal in cars actually on the street right now. And that is a feature that would appear to have pretty clear benefits to the individual driver. A "smart" car/road combination would have no benefit to an individual driver unless everybody else had it too.
And I think is another aspect of that American blindness to the need for cooperative, collective action. We would rather be left alone on our property, and if them dadburn revenooers ever step on our land, we'll fill 'em up with buckshot. Well, there are certain problems we just can't shoot.
The USA is in the first phase of peacefully taking over Canada, another nation with a declining population. Mexico long ago was annexed by the US and provides most energy not bought from Canada. The USA is, of course, 75% hispanic-- immigration from South and Central America being needed to keep population levels around 300 million. Only about 15% is non-hispanic white as that group long ago stopped having enough children to maintain a static population level.
Oh, and no flying cars.
here are some of his books
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/b/james-r-ber...
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/b/james-r-ber...
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/b/james-r-ber...
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/b/james-r-ber...
Oh, and Karl, I'm quite sure the private sector not building transport infrastructure is not due to the cost of it. The private sector routinely builds projects that cost more than suburban train lines or local freeways. Chip fab plants, oil refineries, skyscrapers, airports and large ships are just some of the things that cost more to build than light rail lines, and all are routinely built by the private sector. The real problem is lack of a legal framework and economic model whereby an investor in transport infrastructure can get their money back without involving the government as a client. If roads were charged to the driver rather than to the taxpayer, there'd be much more opportunity for privately-built transport infrastructure.
Here's how we could have "flying cars" well before 2048: the first step is to bring the Inductrack maglev system to maturity. This could happen within five years. The next step is to find a site that demands very rapid, very comfortable travel, and is willing to pay a premium. I can imagine, for instance, a link from Dubai to Abu Dhabi -- about 120 km (75 miles). If someone built an exclusive track, with car-sized vehicles that traveled at 250mph (400km/h), connecting the two cities, the capital cost should be a lot less than the cost of building a system for big maglev trains, like the one running in China now. There would probably be quite a lot of business and affluent leisure travelers willing to ride between Abu Dhabi and Dubai for, say, $200 a ticket, to enjoy the thrill and simultaneously save 30 minutes of travel time. If not there, then maybe somewhere in China or Khazakstan, connecting an airport to a business district. In other words, somewhere up-and-coming, and optimistic enough to make room for an ambitious project just because it sounded cool in prospect. This could happen by 2015 or 2020. If it was a commercial success, it would surely spread rapidly. Green politics, being anti-aircraft, would probably encourage its spread.
By 2048, there could be a web of these things spanning the globe, connecting every major city.
It seems all you have to do is list enough predictions and some people will pick up on the few that are vaguely approximate to what happens and declare you a seer. The rest pick up on everything you got wrong and declare you an idiot.
Anyway, enough about astrologers...
Was that forecast in 1968? Of course not. Never even made it into the magazine article. Just taken for granted.
Isn't that what public officials are supposed to be doing at the direction of the voters? Planning for the future. But short-term thinking dominates.
I wish I could feel optimistic but in reading all the comments what I see is the absolute waste of the last 40 years in gadget mentality that leaves the well off ok but with a disintegrating infrastructure around us.
But seriously, the 'drugs in our water' story is a testament to the sensitivity of the detectors.
It's well under the biologically active level.
(Yes, none at all would be preferred.)
About flying cars - to me flying is not maglev or air-cushion. That's just suspension, and nobody would have given the Wright Brothers very much recognition for it. The average person has no idea who invented the hovercraft or maglev.
Who's going to be in charge of Air Traffic Control for them? FAA? The only way it could be done is strictly regulated control in flight lanes by centralized computer systems. Nobody would want that - the whole "cool" factor of flight is freedom. To grab those controls, swoop around, loop-the-loop, and finish off with a victory roll.
You select a destination and it follows a virtual highway (Back to the Future 2) to get there.
I think that's an acceptable flying car, even if it drops you off at the door and parks itself.
Citation needed.
There's 'built' and then there's 'flown'.
(I could 'build' a time machine!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Car
On Wikipedia, we are told that the most successful flying car of all time was/is the Aerocar, first built in 1949. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerocar
It was a proper, street-legal car that had fold-away wings, and could fly, and was fully certified for flying.
So, as you can see, flying cars were possible with 1949 technology, yet they never caught on. Plainly, there's not much call for them.
Now, a car that could drive itself at 250mph, that would be useful. If it could be done economically, there'd be plenty of demand.
So, umm, like the British Empire...?
Yah, there's been an awful rise of defeatism since the late 1960s, and technophobia is rampant. Only advances in computing are accepted without much complaint (occasional panics about the dangers of the internet aside) -- significant advances in any other area of technology seem to provoke mass dread, and there's a feeling that all technologies currently in the pipeline will surely never arrive. It's odd.
by the way. i have a great question. how come we havent been looking into alternative fuel 30 yrs ago? why has it just been on the forefront since around 2002?
As for nobody looking for alternative power sources until recently, that's not true. People have been exploring solar and wind power for a long time, as articles on this website indicate:
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2007/05/08/new-e...
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2005/11/21/wind-...
The thing about "alternative energy" is that we have a perfectly good form of alternative energy available already -- nuclear -- but technophobia (compounded by cold-war paranoia) prevents us from building enough nuclear plants.
You will also find on this site, articles of an environmentalist theme going back all the way to the 1920s. This one is interesting, because it predicts global warming, when at the time it was probably more fashionable to worry about a coming ice age:
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/03/21/growi...
So while perhaps not the best role model ever (in that she never actually took command of the ship), I'm sure she did have some positive impact.
Personally I think the flying car is being held back by 2 avenues. 1 that hasn't been mentioned. No one even thinks about what the flying car would do to the world and its law enforcement. Before we could mass use flying cars we would need every police station to upgrade 2-3 cars to flying to be able to chase flying criminals.. Many businesses that use to rely on fences would need ways to stop flying cars from entering in some fashion. Flying would give DUI/DWI peeps thousands of more things to crash into with more devastating effects.
From what I understand they have had flying car prototypes for over 10 years, but many things already mentioned on top of the above will make them a long time coming.
As to 2048 future... The Mayan calendar, along with many other civilizations, say the world ends Dec 21st 2012 so it wont ever happen! heh
1. 90% of animal and plant life from 2008 is extinct. But everybody born after 2040 doesn't notice since they were all born in cities that cover the globe and haven't seen natural forests or any animals other than domesticated pets, fleas, mosquitoes and roaches, which are even harder to kill than ever.
2. The work day is 12 hours a day with a 1.5 hour commute each way, and having one partner stay home to cook real food or take care of kids is unheard of. The kids are raised by robots and are expected to start work at age 12. Capitalism extremists make sure not to waste any precious "production potential".
3. The technical working class, the only non-upper-class that is educated to a fair degree in these times, is pacified by virtual reality games and recreation which keeps them in check.
4. The 1% rich classes, when not warring with each other, are busy keeping the regular man down. They neglect their arts and science education and opt for manipulation, history, and marketing usually.
5. Everybody owns (well, rents) a computer/phone/TV/GPS/monitoring-what-you-do device to help keep society "safe".
6. But just in case, everybody is monitored 24/7 anyway by various cameras, wiretaps, and internet data collection.
7. People still own guns in the USA, but all guns are secretly equipped with a self-disable device so if the government detects any "bad guys" all guns outside the military-police will stop working.
8. Owning your own home is a joke to the middle-lower-working classes, and everybody rents apartments.
9. More but I'm out of time.
Flying cars: in addition to the problems already mentioned, flying cars (and other things like jetpacks, hover-boards and the like) are being stopped by the absence of an energy source denser (i.e. more power per unit of weight and size) than gasoline that is also safe and available to the public.
2012: I can't wait to see what all these New Age apocalyptic prophets will be writing on January 1, 2013. Most likely they'll spin a katun or baktun here or there and say the Mayans predicted the End for 2025 all along. Or they'll switch to the Hopi or the Dogon and say, "Mayans? Nevahoidovem!" Does anybody else remember Jose Arguelles predicting the Big Galactic Change (based, supposedly, on the Mayan calander) for 1992, in the lead-up to the "Harmonic Convergence" in the 1980's?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24201711/
in the sense that there was more physical work then than now
today it is more mental than physical IN GENERAL
You fill our ears with pretentious crap.
To respond to one point, society has become slightly more religious, but only in the US. The rest of the developed world is increasingly secular.
the magnetic poles are gonna shift bc planet X is coming around the earth and is going to aline all the planets forcing this pull to creat crzy hurricanes tornados and posible volcanic eruptions covering the earth with ash, the only people who will survive are the ones who go under ground-no lie, this is not a joke-god be with all of you
http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm
And what do you mean "we"?
Yes, they do. And they do cost a ridiculous amount.
That's my point about these kinds of predictions. They never consider the economic conditions, the infrastructure, and especially the political will necessary to make these things possible.
These predictions actually say more about the time they were made (post-war, rapidly increasing prosperity, creation of the League of Nations and the UN, overall optimism) than about the situation they try to predict. Maybe that is why nobody does this kind of thing any more; we know better than to be blindly optimistic now.
It has been sited by many attempted suicides that they just no longer saw any future. Perhaps are Civilization is on the verge of suicide itself.
And 1950s.
And 1970s.
And 1990s.
You say "It is a sad thing we no longer predict greater future for ourselves."
I would say it is sad if we can no longer realistically predict a better future. But it is not sad that we have stopped making ridiculously fanciful and unrealistic "predictions" like the stuff in the article.
In either case, what matters is whether or not our views are realistic, not whether they are optimistic. Optimism for its own sake is lunacy.
But you also say, "Even though there are practicle things that can be done no-one really adresses problems like global warming, AIDS, world hunger, energy needs. Yeah people pay lip service to these problems but they don’t tell you they are solveable or even managable."
You obviously haven't been paying attention. Many, many people are working hard to address all those issues, and often they are making great progress. Even though I hate and despise Bush, his AIDS control plan in Africa has made significant progress, for example.
Unrealistic (and uninformed) pessimism is just as bad as unrealistic optimism.
Since the 1950s we were promised big flat TVs.
They were 25 years in the future in 1950.
1960.
1970.
1980.
That future finally arrived.
Since the 1950s we were promised Fusion Reactors.
They were 50 years in the future in 1950.
1960.
1970.
1980.
1990...........
First, imagine if you will our skies filled with millions of flying cars. How do you erect directional signs, lane markers (and remember, the lanes will now be three-dimensional; not two), speed limit indicators, etc.? Speed limits of one sort or another would be even more crucial since flying cars aren't going to have brakes or be able to stop or slow down quickly when they overtake a slower one. Lanes would be even more vital than on the ground to prevent collisions. Otherwise, imagine a huge paved lot the size of the US in which drivers go in any direction they choose at any speed they choose, all hundred million of them at once! Air traffic controllers already are overstretched to the limits just dealing with airlines and general aviation numbering just a few thousand planes in the air at any one time and on carefully regulated airways.
Again, the problem of brakes and stopping is a killer for air car designers. Even a hovercraft capable of going more than a few miles per hour is going to have problems if there were actually traffic around it. Someone crosses in front of it and what's he going to do? Swerve up into the next higher lane and make someone else dodge him?
Given the way many of us take care of our vehicles, maintenance would also be a real problem. If a car runs badly or stalls on the road, the driver can coast to the side or push it to the shoulder and walk. What's he going to do at five thousand feet? We aren't talking about an airplane with airfoil surfaces that can glide to the ground. We're talking about flying cars. Otherwise, this would just be a discussion of whether airplanes will become the common means of transportation. A flying car, by definition, isn't an airplane and is likely to drop like a stone when it loses power. Imagine living underneath these things...
Finally, the straw that breaks the camel's back: fuel. A flying car is not going to be fuel efficient, no matter who designs it. It takes a lot more power to fly than to roll on wheels, and there's nothing short of amending the laws of physics that can change that.
Your last comment is the best.
There is no forseeable alternative to petrochemical fuel for the personal VTOL.
(The proper name for the 'flying car'.)
The movie 'Back to the Future II' had two cheats:
Limitless energy and a propulsion system that obeys unknown physics.
(That's the 'half full' version of 'violates known physics'.)
Other than that, it's doable.
A high-resolution GPS, internet like packet switching (except the 'packets' are actual people!) and
a virtual highway system don't sound impossible.
"Where we're going, we don't need 'roads'!"
Oh yeah... each pVTOL would reasonably cost $1,000,000 each.
I mean, I love Asimov, but I hate the women in his early stories.
I look to the east and see the cooling towers of the plant that powers the ADM Citiplex. I might go check out their dump today, but last week, the security guards were having a laugh taking pot shots at me from their perches up on the walls. Good things show up there from time to time, plastics, organics for my compost and sometimes even metals, but not very often. It's still a worthwhile trip and those guards are too lazy to pay much attention to commuters nosing around the trash piles. Besides they depend on us in a way to carry it all away a piece at a time.
After I make sure the deer fences are sound I begin to weed my garden. I think about riding my bike over to the street market in the afternoon. but remember hearing that there is a new gang of bike thieves making life miserable for everyone these days. Sure you can buy it back from a totally honest bike dealer at the market who had no idea the bike was stolen and just needs to get back what he paid for it. The reality is that if they knock you off your bike with a tight wire or a stick in the spokes, you are going to end up with some bruises and prolly a few kicks while you are also emptying your pockets. There is never enough time to whip out a slingshot or a club before they are on you.
The suburbs are a rough place sometimes. There is no security and there are always scavengers, both human and animal, trying to survive at your expense...............
Simple answers.
Accurate answers.
Maybe when Philosophers (lovers of truth) return to Amerika...
we can see some real progress.
But.
Progress towards what? Low IQ idiots buying crap they don't need off of TV and Telephones?
Longer life spans so low IQs can get in more hours of TV?
The average Amerikan has no values. No intelligence. No ambitions.
And all of would have been true and reality if it weren't for the notorious Military-industrial complex.
That's what's screwing this planet and those that dwell on her...
September 23 is the 70 anniversary of the Westinghouse Time Capsule.
(Only 4930 years to go!)
Included amoung the artifacts of the 20th Century are gramophone recordings
of Finlandia, Star and Stripes Forever and Flat Foot Floogie.
Here's an excerpt of "The Middletons at the Worlds' Fair".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3Cke2wm6T8
PS: Is there an article about the 1938 Time Capsule?