Imagining the Future

[wolf]

Another discussion board I'm on has a thread doing this. I started thinking about it and realized ...

It's hard to speculate ... while I've been waiting for my Dick Tracy wrist radio, my cell phone keeps getting bigger. And smarter.

I wouldn't trust most of the people I know with a flying car ... they can't navigate properly in two dimensions.

I would look like hell in a silver lame jumpsuit.

And the idea of the one true leader of the world scares me more than the current presidential administration.

As much as I adore science fiction, I don't think I'm ready for the future.

[sexobon]

Is this your way of starting a Cellar community obituary thread 'cause you know sometime in the future we're going to need one?

[monster]

I can't wait for brick and mortar banks to become obsolete.

[infinite monkey]

We haven't a clue about the future. Even making educated guesses is futile. Here's why:

I watched part of a recent Twilight Zone marathon. The vision of the future, based on things they knew and things sci-fi suggested and educated concluding...and they weren't even close!

So why would our vision of the future, based on things we know and things sci-fi suggests and educated concluding be any closer to reality?

The flying car could be an opportunity: only an elite crowd of good, conscientious, safe, and intelligent drivers would be able to pass the licensing test. The dimmer, the dumber, the stupid, the "hold my beer and watch this" people would eventually die out, due to the lack of decent transportation to date and procreate. They'll inbreed for a while until they die out.

It could happen.

[limey]

But but FaceTime is exactly like science fiction, isn't it? And have you ever played Scrabble on an iPad with two iPods as the tile racks - it's exactly the way they'd play it in Red Dwarf!

[Sundae]

I was laughing when I watched a Dr Who film the other day.
Set in 2150, there were still adverts posted onto the sides of buidlings. Posted on with paste I mean. Maybe retro was in vogue that year. For 1966 especially.

And while the men are recruited into labouring for the invading Daleks, women can only hope to be put to work mending clothes in return for food. They of course don't have the benefits of being fed by the Daleks, who serve up portions of pills on paper plates on their ship. Which go into a waste disposal chute which leads directly to the outside. Very bad for the planet, but handy for escaping humans.

When I had to write about the future I wrote about the world being flooded and people having to live on the seabed, the remaining cities having been over-run with crime. I included video phones of course, but everyone had expected those for years. I also included something like a Replicator - I hadn't watched Star Trek but the idea of instant food without preparation is a fairly universal concept.

Oh and I had what would now be called a Lazy River running around the periphery of my undersea dwelling. I'd never seen nor heard of one, but the vague idea was it powered the place, but I could also just use it for fun. This is less about seeing into the future and more about loving the idea of not having to swim.

I was 10.

[LJ4]

we don't know how our future will be like,but i think just enjoy it~

[LJ4]

isn't it?

[Gravdigr]