Why our 'amazing' science fiction future fizzled

[jefferiestubes8]

CNN has an interesting read on

Why our 'amazing' science fiction future fizzled
May 29, 2009
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/05/29/jetpack/

 

[Myasishchev]

Nice, but it reminded me how oh so very much the ending to BSG (which it spoils btw) sucked.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Interesting read

 

[Robert Maxwell]

It seems like the main problem with a lot of them--particularly jetpacks and flying cars--is that they'd be incredibly dangerous in the hands of most people!

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Actually there was this Swiss guy that built a jet-pack... Totally badass

*drools*


CuttingEdge100

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Yeah, the article mentions that. But apparently safety and practicality are the major issues with things like jetpacks.

 

[Squiggy]

For all these inventions that never came to fruition there are a countless hundreds that the sci-fi writers never thought up of. Who back in 1939 ever thought that a man could order a sweater from a computer via wifi?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

That's true. A lot of sci-fi completely overlooked the technology that would become the Internet. Although there's also plenty of it that was surprisingly prescient...

 

[Squiggy]

Or that we would have access to thousand of channels viewable in high definition on TV's inches thick, feet wide, and that hang on a wall and can be set to display art as a screen saver.

Or people could carry their phones with them at all times.

Or that camera film would be obsolete due to digital cameras.

Or that people could carry every song they ever listened to on a device no larger than a deck of cards.

Most of our obvious technological advancements over the past few decades have been based on making our entertainment/communication choices a bit more "vivid" (atari to nintendo to xbox, color to cable to satellite etc). Compare this to what ye olde people though technological advancements would be transportation based (flying cars, jet packs).

 

[jefferiestubes8]

'Trek' tech beamed into present day

'Trek' tech beamed into present day
Communicators (cell phones), other devices from iconic series no longer science fiction
Monday, June 1, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
http://dispatch.com/live/content/bu...gets.ART_ART_06-01-09_A6_QDE0NQE.html?sid=101

another interesting coincidentally timed article today.

 

[USS KG5]

It seems like the main problem with a lot of them--particularly jetpacks and flying cars--is that they'd be incredibly dangerous in the hands of most people!

Exactly - when thousands die every year in vehicles that travel in 2D you simply cannot trust the same people with flying cars!

There is also the practical element to it. You do not need to fly to the supermarket, or to work, or to school, it is simply not necessary. There might be an advantage in turning what are now roads into pleasant grassy interludes in the city, but the disadvantages massively outweigh this.

The same really applies to space travel sadly. Most sci-fi authors envisaged us at LEAST having got to Mars by now, but as we have found no practical reason (i.e. a financially sensible one) to do so we simply have not.

If anything it shows the lack of practicality in a lot of science-fiction. There is little care for how technology integrates into society or how it works economically or how, fundamentally, it comes to be used in the first place. A lot of sci-fi is about the technology, not the interesting bit which is how technology affects the world.

As others have pointed out, the biggest technological change of the last 50 years has been the Internet, which was little prophecied in sci-fi.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I agree, USS KG5. As someone who writes sci-fi myself, I try to focus more on what the technology implies, rather than masturbating over its hypothetical existence. That's always the more interesting part, anyway. How will people be in the future? How will technology shape and affect them? At that point is where you start thinking about what kinds of technology would be interesting to explore from that angle.

 

[TIN_MAN]

Actually, great strides were made during WWII in all kinds of exotic physics/technology but the military industrial complex classified it all, and it's now buried deep in black projects for reasons of national security.

 

[USS KG5]

Actually, great strides were made during WWII in all kinds of exotic physics/technology but the military industrial complex classified it all, and it's now buried deep in black projects for reasons of national security.

Hmm, somehow I doubt that.

 

[Noname Given]

Or that we would have access to thousand of channels viewable in high definition on TV's inches thick, feet wide, and that hang on a wall and can be set to display art as a screen saver.

Umm, take another look at the opening Recreation Room scene in TOS' Where No Man Has Gone Before (Although to be honest, it looks more like a DLP HDTV monitor)

 

[GalaxyX]

Flying Cars would be amazing, but they have to at least keep semblance of today's cars (and not look like small planes like they do today).

Flying cars would practically eliminate traffic congestion and would literally be like going from Dial-Up to a Cable or DSL internet connection in transportation wise. Instead of a 2-4hr commute everyday, it literally becomes a 15min commute.

The one technology that would be bad ass is handheld energy guns, like Hand Phasers and the M95A1 Plasma Rifles from Terminator 2. These weapons are extremely powerful and would give any army holding them an extreme advantage.

 

[chardman]

Flying cars would practically eliminate traffic congestion and would literally be like going from Dial-Up to a Cable or DSL internet connection in transportation wise. Instead of a 2-4hr commute everyday, it literally becomes a 15min commute.

Flying cars would also practically eliminate any chance of surviving minor accidents that ground cars regularly experience without causing loss of life.

If your car stall on the freeway, you can usually coast safely to the shoulder, while a simple engine stall in a flying car involves plummeting hundreds of feet to one's almost certain death.

The flying car equivalent of a fender bender could easily kill dozens of people, and do millions in property damage.

 

[Admiral Pike]

Flying Cars would be amazing, but they have to at least keep semblance of today's cars (and not look like small planes like they do today).

Flying cars would use so much more power compared to ordinary cars, that I can't see it happen in the near future ---with the energy crisis, global warming etc. Most likely, public transportation, such as buses, rapid transit, and high-speed maglev trains, will replace autos on a large scale, as the only ways to solve the problems with congestion, pollution and rising fuel costs. Hell, we'll be lucky if we are even driving cars (and if so, hopefully electrical ones) in the future. One could even say that the electric car is the new flying car, if that makes any sense.

The one technology that would be bad ass is handheld energy guns, like Hand Phasers and the M95A1 Plasma Rifles from Terminator 2. These weapons are extremely powerful and would give any army holding them an extreme advantage.

Yes, weapons that can wipe out dozens of people at a time is definitely something to look forward to.

 

[Deks]

Main points of the article:
We have the technology to do it, but we didn't because of the practical issues.

As we already pointed out, there are numerous drivers today who make a ton of accidents on the streets in regular cars ... imagine giving these people flying ability.
We'd have mini 9/11 all over the place ... or something akin to it if the irresponsible drivers get a hold of the technology.

Then again ... we could easily overcome those issues by increasing education in safety when utilizing these technologies.
Accidents happen every day, and we really don't have any real evidence that accidents will increase exponentially by using jet-packs or flying cars.
I agree there are dangers, but those could be overcome by increasing awareness and responsibility of the users.

As for energy requirements ...
Again not a real problem since we have the means to switch to more efficient/better/powerful power sources today.
The main reason why we didn't do it, is because the corporations would lose a lot of profit by switching to alternative sources.
Or in translation: Money.

 

[Da'an]

I read somewhere that the Videophone Booths from 2001 were the best example of both simultaneously overestimating and underestimating the capabilities of future technology at the same time. I thought that was quite funny.