What ever happened to the jetpacks and flying cars we were prommised?

[Randoman01]

It seems like during the 1950s many people imagined that life in 2000s onward would be full of flying cars, jetpacks, personal robots, moon vacations, underwater cities, Virtual Reality, Holograms, food pills, and so on. Why have these predictions failed to come true? What happened? Where are these kinds of technologies?

TLDR: I WANT A JETPACK!!!!

 

[Thaluikhain]

Isn't a small helicopter a flying car, or good enough?

Also, you are using the internet. You could translate this into a dozen different languages in seconds, you could argue this point with people via webcam (and have the NSA and GCHQ monitor you) like a videophone.

 

[Scarim Coral]

There are many answers for this like maybe because they didn't realise the economy was going to be in the decline in the future or that most comapnies played it safe with their money thus no risky investment in trying to make flying cars and etc?
Also I suppose it is like any other dreams that some people have, they start soaring high at the wonder of possiblity until the weight of reality and realism plummet them back to the ground.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Common sense happened.

You know how Mr. Plinkett called Coruscant "home of the mid-air collision"? You give the public access to personal flying vehicles, and everyone might as well start living in a bunker.

As for the rest, just because we have the technology to do something doesn't mean we actually want it. Like robot cars.

 

[Qwurty2.0]

Common sense happened.

You know how Mr. Plinkett called Coruscant "home of the mid-air collision"? You give the public access to personal flying vehicles, and everyone might as well start living in a bunker.

As for the rest, just because we have the technology to do something doesn't mean we actually want it. Like robot cars.

Who doesn't want robot cars? Their safer and pretty much guaranteed to be the way we are going in the next decade (with Google's self-driving car and others getting the green light to drive it on city streets).

 

[Encore]

Yes, Google driverless car hasn't had a single accident. They will certanly make something out of it.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Who doesn't want robot cars? Their safer and pretty much guaranteed to be the way we are going in the next decade (with Google's self-driving car and others getting the green light to drive it on city streets).

I doubt people will so easily give up control over their own car. Having a computer making all the decisions on the road is likely to scare a lot of people. And I would imagine that the sensation of driving is something most would miss. It might be well suited for cargo vehicles or the like, but personalized cars... I doubt it.

 

[Amethyst Wind]

It seems like during the 1950s many people imagined that life in 2000s onward would be full of flying cars, jetpacks, personal robots, moon vacations, underwater cities, Virtual Reality, Holograms, food pills, and so on. Why have these predictions failed to come true? What happened? Where are these kinds of technologies?

TLDR: I WANT A JETPACK!!!!

We inverted our priorities. Instead of working to find better ways to go places, we increased our ability to have everything come to us without leaving the house.

 

[DoPo]

You are two years late.

flying cars

Impractical, mostly. Also costly.

jetpacks

We have them but are costly. Do buy one, if you have the means, nobody is stopping you.

personal robots

We have those. A robot does not need to be a humanoid walking can to be a robot - there are lots of robots that are employed all over the world. While not personal, there are loads and loads of robots used in manufacturing, too.

moon vacations

Not moon ones, but apparently money can buy you going to space.

underwater cities

Like flying cars, they are impractical and expensive.

Virtual Reality

We have virtual reality. We have lots of virtual realities, actually. Games are a virtual reality. There is also Oculus Rift which catches up to the 60s-70s perception of "VR goggles". But we also have phones that can already do augumented reality for us.

Holograms

2Pac appeared as one already. We have those.

food pills

Yes. It's just that your body must get used to not having solid food, otherwise it craves it but you can subsist on pills and tubes without putting anything in your mouth.

Why have these predictions failed to come true? What happened?

I wouldn't call them "predictions". Some of them were merely wishes.

Where are these kinds of technologies?

Right here? Well, most of them, at least.

 

[Tono Makt]

Common sense happened.

You know how Mr. Plinkett called Coruscant "home of the mid-air collision"? You give the public access to personal flying vehicles, and everyone might as well start living in a bunker.

As for the rest, just because we have the technology to do something doesn't mean we actually want it. Like robot cars.

Who doesn't want robot cars? Their safer and pretty much guaranteed to be the way we are going in the next decade (with Google's self-driving car and others getting the green light to drive it on city streets).

I dunno... people who like driving? I know I'll never buy a car that drives itself because I just plain like driving. There are probably other concerns, like how if the car has the wrong directions (5255 Main instead of 5525 Main, or 4144 Main) it's quite possible the passenger will be too busy masturbating to realize the car has the wrong instructions and is taking them to the wrong location, or the potential for viruses causing havoc with the operating systems, etc.

 

[Wackymon]

Longform:
Simply because people tend to see prototypes being applied in mere years, rather than decades, and that the future aesthetics are simply too far off. And many of the things folks want is simply too impractical at the moment.

 

[Qwurty2.0]

I dunno... people who like driving? I know I'll never buy a car that drives itself because I just plain like driving. There are probably other concerns, like how if the car has the wrong directions (5255 Main instead of 5525 Main, or 4144 Main) it's quite possible the passenger will be too busy masturbating to realize the car has the wrong instructions and is taking them to the wrong location, or the potential for viruses causing havoc with the operating systems, etc.

It's not like you won't be able to take control and drive when you need to. :/ I love driving, but the guy I quoted acted like self-driving cars were something most people hate, despite the fact that their becoming more complex and popular.

Wrong directions? Just enter in new directions and the car will change route mid-journey. I won't even comment on the stupid masturbation comment, lol.

While viruses are a legitimate concern, there are plenty of ways to protect the vehicle (and the driver). The driver could take control or you could isolate the driving systems from the the other components. That's like saying we shouldn't have moved business records to mostly digital because of viruses and hackers. Does it happen? Yes. Is it more efficient and generally safer? Absolutely.

I'm not saying in the next decade everyone will be in a driverless car, but studies show they are safer and will likely be used for public transportation and industry.

 

[HardkorSB]

Here are your jetpacks:

 

[The Funslinger]

Who doesn't want robot cars? Their safer and pretty much guaranteed to be the way we are going in the next decade (with Google's self-driving car and others getting the green light to drive it on city streets).

I doubt people will so easily give up control over their own car. Having a computer making all the decisions on the road is likely to scare a lot of people. And I would imagine that the sensation of driving is something most would miss. It might be well suited for cargo vehicles or the like, but personalized cars... I doubt it.

I don't even like the idea of automated cargo hauling. But that's more because I don't like making jobs autonomous when one of our biggest societal issues is difficulty employing everyone.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I don't want to reiterate the points other people made above and on the first page etc...what I want to know is why we don't have Lunar colonies. Ideally civilian colonies/cities but I would settle for any kind of living space on The Moon where people live and work. Haven't we been that we have the technology to form Lunar colonies for the past couple of decades now?

 

[Qwurty2.0]

I don't want to reiterate the points other people made above and on the first page etc...what I want to know is why we don't have Lunar colonies. Ideally civilian colonies/cities but I would settle for any kind of living space on The Moon where people live and work. Haven't we been that we have the technology to form Lunar colonies for the past couple of decades now?

I think the main reason for that would probably be 1: The cost of maintaining a colony would be extremely high and wasteful (unprofitable from a corporate standpoint and a waste of taxpayer money from a government standpoint), and 2: there's not much point beyond saying "See? We did it!". What little resources we could gain by doing would be offset by the costs of setting it up and maintaining it until it became self-sufficient.

I'm sure we'll see one soon, though. With corporations starting up for space flight and exploration (beyond the government and NASA), it won't be long before someone decides to build one. I've seen some companies already have goals of getting one set up in the next decade or so.

 

[viranimus]

Thought we just gave up on that vision of the future 14 years ago when we hit the year 2000. Honestly I would say that we as a species have enough difficulty controlling a vehicle in two dimensions, adding a 3rd is going to require a hefty cost in blood before the masses get the hang of it.