"When you were a boy... SF things that Didn't Happen like..." Topic

… They Were Promised

"Being in my mid-thirties, I'm looking back on what the world was supposed to be like in the year 2013 from the point-of-view of a child who grow up in the 80's. From conception, I think, I've been a science fiction geek and lover of the future. So much so, that I always felt that I was born too early, and hard reality of 2013 has only broadcast that feeling more clearly. Growing up in the 1980's, you felt like technology that was in sci-fi movies was right around the corner. After all, we were the first generation that had computers (the Apple IIs) in our schools, most of our pop music was made with computers (I'm reminded of Gary Numan's 'Are Friends Electric?'), and we hung out at the video game arcades. Adding to this sense of the impending future was the increased American manned space program via the shuttles, Space Camp, and bold plans for future manned space missions. For me, that was the most exciting thing happening at the time, because I wanted nothing more than to be an astronaut, and it seemed in the 1980's that the human race was on the edge of being a spacefaring species. During the 1980's, there was a groundswell of culture that was looking towards the future, not the past. I can remember magazines like OMNI, Odyssey Science Magazine, and National Geographic Our Universe along with loads of pretty over-sized books that detailed our future in space and with robots with glorious 1980's concept art. To make matters worse, my elementary school stocked plenty of books about space, robots, and the future, setting me up to believe that a bright future with hoverboards, flying cars, and missions to the red planet were around the corner…how wrong we were.Here is my list of ten things that didn't turn out like the books and visionaries said that they would. This Calvin and Hobbes from 1989 encapsulates my feelings on the matter:

There seems to be an unwritten rule in science fiction that the skies of the future cities would have to be filled with dual-use vehicles, that are at home equally on the road as they are in the sky. This is one piece of technology is often a symbol of the advanced nature of the future time-period, like the Rolls-Royce 'copter from the 1958 Starship Troopers novel, the Doctor Who flying car or 'WhoMobile', the Police Spinner from BLADE RUNNER and so on and on and on. This trend still continues through today, just look at the remake of Total Recall complete with flying cars. Science fiction has been lying to us for generations on the promise of flying cars, even into my generation about the common man having access to the skies with their basic everyday transport, because for all logically reasoning, flying cars WILL NOT be a reality to the common citizen…"

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Amicalement
Armand

Cry me a river, Mr. Restivo! Have you got any IDEA how far behind schedule humanity's technological and political progress is for a peak year Baby Boomer? By this year, "Noisy" Rhysling should be travelling the spaceways, and Mars shouldn't just be colonized, it should be fighting for independence. Luna City is supposed to be safer than living on Terra, and the real old Mars hands should be being simply disbelieved by modern academics.

Instead, we got the future promised us by Cyril Kornbluth. I'd buy that for a quarter.

Yes in the 60's we were Promised jet packs.

Still waiting!!!

Computers were supposed to be fast, so why does it seem they are so crash-prone and slow?

I did recently see a woman talking into her wristwatch rather like Dick Tracy. It was sort of anticlimactic.

Computers were supposed to be fast, so why does it seem they are so crash-prone and slow?

Computers aren't crash prone and slow. That would be the software.

I own a relatively cheap phone. It a very fast computer that never crashes. It is so much more versatile than anything we were promised 40 years ago.

No moon base(s), flying cars, or jet packs.

Apparently though, the US military IS doubling down on the "flying car" thing, according to a headline I read, and flying Ubers/Lyfts are going to be a thing soon, or were, before the virus. Now they'll probably have to redesign them with separate driver/pilot, and passenger compartments to prevent viral spread.

I want my skin weave….

On the flying car thing I'm sure I saw an a story about an Indian company doing the flying car thing but as a fully automated drone – so no need to worry about 'distancing' pilot and passenger (actually makes a bit of sense since it removes the risk of normal people having to fly these things even if largely automated).

As for computers they are definitely better than the 'advertised' room-sized, tonne mass, behemoths! What do you mean I can run my Space Opera dreadnought off my iPhone?

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Our technology is suppressed by the powers that be because the world is run by a group of elites that want to control every aspect of our lives.

Because they think they know what's best for us, so no super speed computers or flying cars for you.

It's classified …

Glup!… (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

…… the world is run by a group of elites that want to control every aspect of our lives.

So not Reptilians?

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Yup, I grew up during the glory days of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo and I expected a whole lot more than we ended up getting. I wanted a retirement home on the Moon, darn it!

It's strange that some of the technology we have far out paces some of the SF tech like ST communicators couldn't take pictures while smart phones can. Though some SF shows the future as dystopian with some doing extremely well while the vast majority living like the homeless.

And remember Kirk had to wear glasses when he was older because he was allergic to the eyesight fixing drug. Before lasik.