We fell way short (the future (2015)as envisioned in Back To The Future)

[Drake the Dragonheart]

A short while ago, I was watching the back to future movies, and came to a stark realization:

Unless technology just absolutely takes off in the next year, we are going to fall remarkably short of what back to the future envisioned 2015, then 30 years from when the film takes place, would look like.

Flying cars, hoverboards, 80's nostalgia cafe, (ok that one might actually exist somewhere), pizza that is delivered in a tiny pouch and cooks to a full size pizza after 5 seconds in an oven, video call walls? (we might actually have something very close to that one as well, not sure though)

Point is our tech level is not even close. What do we have? Smart Phones? Really? That's as close as we are?

 

[Lionsfan]

I dunno....smart phones/internet seem pretty damn impressive to me.

Flying cars are overrated anyway, and in Back to the Future they were still using Fax Machines in the future. I mean c'mon...


Also, xkcd solves everything

[sub]PS - The 80's sucked anyways[/sub]

 

[HardkorSB]

The makers of Back to the Future II said that the year 2015 was purposefully exaggerated for comedic effect.

 

[Kolby Jack]

I don't understand everyone's obsession with BTTF's future predictions. Countless works of fiction have predicted the future, many of which have done so in years that have already passed, and in some where the year is still far off we've already surpassed them technologically (in most ways). Don't even get me started on works set in the future that have historical events from the future-past that never happened. Why is BTTF special? Because they have hoverboards? Hoverboards sound dangerous and impractical as fuck! Instead of slipping and busting your face from 3 inches off the ground, you'd rather slip and bust your face from a foot off the ground? How would you grind? Hell, how would you even do a fucking ollie? HOVERBOARDS ARE A STUPID IDEA.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Speaking as someone who grew up in the 80's and 90's, I say we're living in the future right now. Hell, the internet is still goddamn magical to me. I can communicate to people around the entire world nearly instantly. I have access to basically the entire spectrum of human knowledge with just a few clicks of the mouse. I can watch Jack the Potato's mesmerizing dancing horse-man avatar for minutes on end. If you had gone back to 1992 and told my six-year old self that, his mind would have been well and truly blown.

And that's just the internet. Let's not even get into smart phones, cloning, 3-D printers, space tourism, Oculus Rift, etc.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I dunno....smart phones/internet seem pretty damn impressive to me.

Flying cars are overrated anyway, and in Back to the Future they were still using Fax Machines in the future. I mean c'mon...


Also, xkcd solves everything

[sub]PS - The 80's sucked anyways[/sub]

I actually use a fax machine on a regular basis. Anyone who has to deal with financial aid and university bureaucracy and also owns a nice enough printer probably does. If you only have to send it one way, it's considerably more convenient than scanning the document and sending an e-mail. Especially if you're sending the document not so much to a person as a faceless office somewhere, since those don't tend to have easily accessible e-mail addresses. It pretty much takes as much effort to send a fax out as it does to do the initial scan with an ADF equipped scanner, completely leaving out things like saving the file and sending it as an e-mail. If you're using a flatbed scanner for some reason, the fax machine will have the whole thing where it needs to be before the scanner even has the first preview done.

Randall Munroe speaks truth, however.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

I want my hoverboard :c A bit more OT, yeah, it seems we're not at that point; but at the same time, we've really come a long way from where we were. I mean, just look around you when you go into an electronics store. I still wander into my local Future Shop and Best Buy in a form of awe as I look at all of the things I've seen a million times over, but still get a kick out of looking at. It's fun, and I like passing time like that~

 

[Lucky Godzilla]

Come 2014 the U.S will begin deploying solid state lasers on it's B-1 bombers.
Yup we're starting to see laser guns, yet people are still complaining that we are not far enough.

 

[Radoh]

What exactly is the purpose of a hoverboard? I've asked this same question multiple times and every single time the response is that "it's cool"
It's a regular skateboard, except a billion times more expensive and requires batteries. Whoooo, how futuristic.
Also, you want to have your pizza delivery guy bring you a pizza in a hammer space container and cooks in five minutes? Do you really want to spend $700 on your pizza? Because tech that defies the laws of physics and spatial reasoning is some pretty damn high end stuff right there, no real way that would be cost effective unless the pizza is cray expensive.

 

[teebeeohh]

I dunno....smart phones/internet seem pretty damn impressive to me.

Flying cars are overrated anyway, and in Back to the Future they were still using Fax Machines in the future. I mean c'mon...


Also, xkcd solves everything

[sub]PS - The 80's sucked anyways[/sub]

I actually use a fax machine on a regular basis. Anyone who has to deal with financial aid and university bureaucracy and also owns a nice enough printer probably does. If you only have to send it one way, it's considerably more convenient than scanning the document and sending an e-mail. Especially if you're sending the document not so much to a person as a faceless office somewhere, since those don't tend to have easily accessible e-mail addresses. It pretty much takes as much effort to send a fax out as it does to do the initial scan with an ADF equipped scanner, completely leaving out things like saving the file and sending it as an e-mail. If you're using a flatbed scanner for some reason, the fax machine will have the whole thing where it needs to be before the scanner even has the first preview done.

Randall Munroe speaks truth, however.

Something being used is not the same as being in widespread use (I have never seen bttf so I have no idea how common those are in the movie). I also send quite a few faxes but I have never owned a fax machine, I always use my scanner.

And while we are talking about wrong predictions: thank god Roddenberry was wrong, star trek universe sucks in the early 21. Century.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

2001: A Space Odyssey said that by 2001 we would have AI, a colony on the moon, and commercial space stations for work and vacation. I can do without a hoverboard if we could have colonized the moon already.

 

[KrossBillNye]

2001: A Space Odyssey said that by 2001 we would have AI, a colony on the moon, and commercial space stations for work and vacation. I can do without a hoverboard if we could have colonized the moon already.

We would have gotten there by now but a certain PC kept telling NASA that it: "Can't let them do that."

 

[Yopaz]

I dunno....smart phones/internet seem pretty damn impressive to me.

Flying cars are overrated anyway, and in Back to the Future they were still using Fax Machines in the future. I mean c'mon...


Also, xkcd solves everything

[sub]PS - The 80's sucked anyways[/sub]

I agree with this.

We might not have flying cars, but we have the technology. The problem is that there is really low friction and breaking would be really dangerous because we can't predict well enough when we have to stop. This has actually been tested and it has been declared that it's not ready for public use.

The internet and smart phones is a lot more impressive than hover boards. How easily we connect, how small our computers are, how much power we can bring with us in our hands.

I actually use a fax machine on a regular basis. Anyone who has to deal with financial aid and university bureaucracy and also owns a nice enough printer probably does. If you only have to send it one way, it's considerably more convenient than scanning the document and sending an e-mail. Especially if you're sending the document not so much to a person as a faceless office somewhere, since those don't tend to have easily accessible e-mail addresses. It pretty much takes as much effort to send a fax out as it does to do the initial scan with an ADF equipped scanner, completely leaving out things like saving the file and sending it as an e-mail. If you're using a flatbed scanner for some reason, the fax machine will have the whole thing where it needs to be before the scanner even has the first preview done.

Randall Munroe speaks truth, however.

Sure, fax still serves some uses for a small fraction of the population, but if we look at how it was used in Back To The Future it wasn't used for those purposes you describe. It was used to send a simple message to an employee. Things more easily accomplished by email.

 

[Da Orky Man]

A short while ago, I was watching the back to future movies, and came to a stark realization:

Unless technology just absolutely takes off in the next year, we are going to fall remarkably short of what back to the future envisioned 2015, then 30 years from when the film takes place, would look like.

Flying cars, hoverboards, 80's nostalgia cafe, (ok that one might actually exist somewhere), pizza that is delivered in a tiny pouch and cooks to a full size pizza after 5 seconds in an oven, video call walls? (we might actually have something very close to that one as well, not sure though)

Point is our tech level is not even close. What do we have? Smart Phones? Really? That's as close as we are?

Hello. I live in Wales, which is roughly 6800 miles from where you live. We are communicating using a world-wide network that connects every nation on this planet together. I know that Green River is 6800 miles away because I used a free service, provided by Google, that lets me pick any two places on Earth and see the distances between them. It can also give me directions, and allows me to see a satellite view of anywhere on Earth.
Not only this, but I know that the population of your city is around 12,515, it was incorporated in 1868, and that there was a kerfuffle in 2007 due to the handling of a smoking ban by the city council. I know this because I can access a free database that contains information on almost any place and subject mankind has ever been or studied.

And you think this isn't enough?

2001: A Space Odyssey said that by 2001 we would have AI, a colony on the moon, and commercial space stations for work and vacation. I can do without a hoverboard if we could have colonized the moon already.

We would have gotten there by now but a certain PC kept telling NASA that it: "Can't let them do that."

You mean 'kept telling NASA 'Can't touch this'.

Also:

 

[Redd the Sock]

It's not as bad as the Jetsons botched their predictions of the early 21st century.

Actually most futurist predictions seem to miss. Even serious educational books written in the 70s were thinking of Lunar colonies by now. We just never seem to go the way we think.

Though I do want hoverboards. If I never have to hear all those wheels grinding on cement again it'll be too soon.

 

[Squilookle]

Highly relevant and obligatory video:


Sums up my feelings on the matter pretty well, though I'd prefer the flying cars, personally.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

To the people mentioning lunar colonies...

WHY?

Why would we want to colonize a big lump of fairly useless rock? Is there any evidence that there is anything at all useful up there?

Now Mars... if you want to ***** about no manned mission to Mars, then I'll get behind that one. The Moon has always seemed kinda useless though - more of a vanity colony than anything useful (unless it was used to launch a Mars Mission from).

 

[Tayh]

Hoverboards are just daft, the idea of something that small being able to lift some 50 times it's own size and store the fuel to do so is insane, never mind the thing would probably be a safety hazard.

You do realise that's the exact same thing that people thought 50 years ago about modern computers and vehicles?
If the current rate of technological advancement continues, I'm pretty sure that we will some day see functional and viable hoverboards; it is merely beyond our imagination today.