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

[wulf3n]

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.

I think the issue with the lunar colonies, is that we realised there's not really that much on the moon, and it would be incredibly expensive to set up colonies there.

We have the technology to put colonies on the moon, just not the incentive.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

We have flying cars. We're waiting on NASA for the flying traffic lights.

But honestly though, are you going to account for all the predictions other movies make as well? I'm pretty sure even by Death Race standards we're falling behind. We need to set up a vehicular arms race and start teaching prisoners to drive by last year. And in regards to V for Vendetta, we've only got at most until 2015 to unleash a horrific plague and become an oppressive, dystopic version of the 50s.

 

[Bob Thenecromancer]

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:

I think I'm crying...Thank you for showing me this.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Well, I have a perfect explanation for why that future hasn't come about!

It's very simple.

Spoiler: Spoilers for the movies, just in case

In that future, Marty had gotten into an accident involving a rolls royce, right?

And in the last movie he avoids getting into that accident...

Well...THAT FUTURE WAS DEPENDENT ON MARTY GETTING INTO THAT CAR CRASH. By not getting into it, HE CHANGED THE FUTURE FOREVER!!!

 

[IntangibleMango]

Well I think i'll just throw out the fact that we're right on track with what actual scientists predicted, and that what we have now is pretty damn fucking amazing.

Moore's law is pretty much spot on, and as wikipedia said, the term was coined in 1970!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law]

If you look at past movies for reliable predictions on future technology, then you're looking in the wrong place. ( A few exceptions where media has inspired the technology exist though! )

 

[Vigormortis]

You want to know why we don't have flying cars yet?

It's because our current, contemporary selves realized how incredibly stupid the idea of flying cars was. Simple as that.

We wreck our terra-firma-bound vehicles enough as it is. Add altitude to the equation and...well...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

On a serious note, has anyone noticed there's been an ever increasing dearth of cyber-punk science fiction now-a-days, especially when compared to the late 90's and early 2000's?

It's because we're living in world that's essentially cyber punk. We carry portable, "pocketable" computers with exponentially more power than the best machines from days past. The world is connected in ways many cyber-punk writers never imagined. Robotics, cybernetics, and virtual reality technology is advancing by leaps and bounds.

We're not trying to "catch up" to the future we envisioned in the past. We're in it already. In some ways, we're beyond it.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

All I want are those damn self lacing shoes. Is that so much to freaking ask for!?

 

[xDarc]

Meh, I'm not impressed. Using a smart phone many times reminds me of surfing the net in 1996 on a 66mhz DX2 PC w/ 4MB of RAM and a 28.8 modem. To me, the experience is about just as frustrating, although it's been getting been the last couple of years.

Still, the information and miniaturization age does not impress me. Show me something I haven't seen before and I will be impressed, like if I had been born before flight were invented- and then I watched a man take to the sky, to me- that's something to write home about. To watch computers get smaller for the past 20 years is pretty unimpressive from where I sit.

 

[DaWaffledude]

Is that thing accurate? If it is, then if 784'785.1 people donated one dollar NASA's budget would multiply by four hundred. FOUR HUNDRED.

 

[Da Orky Man]

Is that thing accurate? If it is, then if 784'785.1 people donated one dollar NASA's budget would multiply by four hundred. FOUR HUNDRED.

Looking at wikipedia, NASA's budget is 0.5% of GDP, at $18.724 billion, having recently had a budget increase. $784,785,1 is 0.04% of NASA's budget, using the short scale.
Methinks you made a maths error.

 

[Drake the Dragonheart]

I will say this, the clothing in BTTF's portrayal of what they thought 2015 would look like was an eyesore! I was unaware that BTTF's vision of what 2015 would look like was something everybody and their dog brings up, or many other films, games, comics predictions of the future. I will say I am glad George Orwell's 1984 was way off.

One thing that is really cool. Exoskeleton suits. We have the primitive, very beginnings of the battletech universe's BATTLE ARMOR!

If that and medical science take a few more steps, so that I can be put on a level playing field (I have a condition that causes me to have a slight muscle imbalance, so I have to work extra hard to be where most of you are without doing anything), I could combine my desire to serve in my country's armed forces with my love of the battle tech universe. I could be a battle armor pilot. would they call the suit operators, pilots? Infantry? The suits are basically highly advanced armors that you wear, so I don't know if you would "pilot" them. But that is aside the point.

We might not be too far from the very beginnings of battletech battlemechs. Need to get frozen and awaken in 3000. So I can be dissapointed we don't have battletech mech tech. Yet, we already today have some things more advanced. Iron Man's suit in the movies can go almost as fast as the battletech aerotechs. Our fighters today can reach d**n close to those speeds. Most mechs have a top speed that most of our cars can exceed. Then again we are talking machines weighing anywhere from 20-100 tons. We have weapons that can hit with pinpoint accuracy from across an ocean. The best snipers in the world can hit a target almost 2 miles away. The longest range mech weapon aside from indirect artillery has a range just under 2 kilometers.