What happened to the future?

[expat]

That’s the point. We’ve got all the domestic stuff and we can go around being annoyed by our phones instead of having some peace and quiet to think of something really brilliant, and we’re stuck. We should be able to fly to Australia for lunch, hold the 2012 Olympics on Mars and buzz around from one low orbit office to another using personal jet packs. We should be able to say ‘bugger this traffic jam, time for VTOL mode and afterburner’.

But we can’t because somebody stole our ambition and put it in an Icelandic bank. I want it back.

Engineers got the internet to play with, while accountants got Excel and Access. Both gave up building the future, in favour of playing games for amusement.

[bogeyman]

Engineers got the internet to play with, while accountants got Excel and Access. Both gave up building the future, in favour of playing games for amusement.

Actually I think that's quite pertinent.

Does the Internet (and do computers in general) make people more lazy, stupid and degenerate?

Even ignoring some of the posters on this board, I think it might be the case.

[Mich the Tester]

Engineers got the internet to play with, while accountants got Excel and Access. Both gave up building the future, in favour of playing games for amusement.

Do you think that if we ever contact extraterrestrial intelligence that they’ll be sitting around posting drivel on Planet Zog’s internet too?

[bogeyman]

Do you think that if we ever contact extraterrestrial intelligence that they’ll be sitting around posting drivel on Planet Zog’s internet too?

That's why they've never made contact - too busy wanking over tentacle porn.

[ace00]

It will get here, just takes time.
I think the big projects will be Chinese / Indian. I believe they are already planning for a moon base as a decent quantity of resources (deutrium 3 is one I think) are up there. Never understood why US/Russia built a space station when the moon's already there.
And the internet is amazing - to have all this information to hand is wonderful.
Email, mobiles, proper cars, medecines, etc.
I thought William Gibson's view of the future was quite good (Neuromancer). Bit grim, small nuclear war, over-population, that kind of thing.

[EternalOptimist]

That’s the point. We’ve got all the domestic stuff and we can go around being annoyed by our phones instead of having some peace and quiet to think of something really brilliant, and we’re stuck. We should be able to fly to Australia for lunch, hold the 2012 Olympics on Mars and buzz around from one low orbit office to another using personal jet packs. We should be able to say ‘bugger this traffic jam, time for VTOL mode and afterburner’.

But we can’t because somebody stole our ambition and put it in an Icelandic bank. I want it back.

beer, games and sex. I got it all

you can keep your ambition

[expat]

It will get here, just takes time.
I think the big projects will be Chinese / Indian. I believe they are already planning for a moon base as a decent quantity of resources (deutrium 3 is one I think) are up there. Never understood why US/Russia built a space station when the moon's already there.
And the internet is amazing - to have all this information to hand is wonderful.
Email, mobiles, proper cars, medecines, etc.
I thought William Gibson's view of the future was quite good (Neuromancer). Bit grim, small nuclear war, over-population, that kind of thing.

I wonder if some of the setbacks came from having adopted a very inflexible route to the Moon: launch to Earth orbit, detach to Lunar orbit, land from there. Good for winning the 1960s space race, not for getting into space on a permanent basis.

Like nuclear power: all done with big enclosed reactors. Did it really develop that way because that was what the US Navy wanted? Could it have been cheaper (TCO) and safer with other nuclear technologies, e.g. pebble-bed reactors?

Did we, even decades ago, take some wrong turnings because of short-sighted bean-counting already?

Or does it come from having mastered the science and, in principle, the engineering, but not government, accounting, finance, society....? E.g. we can make the machines that let you have lunch in Australia, but even if we did make them we don't know how to set them up for people to use. I did read an interesting article by a British writer (Noel Barber, brother of 1970s chancellor Tony Barber) where, during French days in Vietnam, he discussed the situation with a French general. He met the general at an event in Paris, and asked him for an interview. The Frenchman said OK: next Tuesday for dinner, white tie. In Saigon. And he sent a plane to collect Barber and take him back after dinner.

Today, we half-think that's wrong, and completely think it's not feasible; instead of thinking of How? and doing it.

[swamp]

We were promised 500 kph magnet trains.
We were promised hypersonic jets to fly to Australia in a few hours.
We were promised flying cars.
We were promised manned Mars missions and moon colonies.

Instead of 500 kph trains we got 500 kt budget airlines.
Instead of hypersonic jets we cancelled Concorde.
Instead of flying cars we got... the Internet
Instead of manned Mars missions and moon colonies we got unmanned space probes.

[sasguru]

What we will have shortly (is here already?) is the ability to make better humans using various bio-tech techniques like gene manipulation.
Perhaps only then will be able to make the emotional/societal changes to really progress...It's clear that the human psyche has not kept pace with technology/knowledge and remains essentially unchanged since we were roaming the savannah.

[cailin maith]

Yes..