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The Future That Hasn't Arrived
jonerik writes "MSNBC has this article on an exhibit starting this week at Philadelphia's Lost Highways Archive and Research Library. Entitled Radebaugh: The Future We Were Promised, the exhibit focuses on the artwork of the elusive A.C. Radebaugh, a commercial illustrator whose works promised us a glittering, shiny tomorrow from the '30s to the '50s; a helicopter in every garage, massive streamlined cars, vacations on Mars - in short, pretty much everything we didn't get. The exhibit collects examples from Radebaugh's portfolio, auto designs for Chrysler, DoSoto, and Dodge, ads, and 'Closer Than We Think!,' a syndicated weekly comic strip drawn by Radebaugh. I want my jetpack, dammit!"
What I can't understand is why mass-market car designs today have not achieved the kind of reduced drag that was gotten by the EV1 back in the 80's...
This seems like a no-brainer. But even the current crop of Hybrids like the Prius and Civic-Hybrid seem to have inefficient exteriors...
When we think of the future, we almost always think of technology. We think of starships and other things that are waaaaaay far off, so maybe the industrial revolution spurred this new way of thinking. Anyway, I'm justing typing randomly. I'll bet some historian will tell me I'm totally wrong.
Well at least one thing might come true if China has its way. Mining the Moon
The story of China mining the moon was on slashdot a few days ago. China Wants to Mine the Moon
Next time you're driving around, note the number of cars driving like idiots, barely running, NOT running, and with dents.... ...now put them above your house.
You wanna keep them on the ground now don't you?
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
Well, one out of two ain't bad. (*)
(Now where'd I park my SUV? Oh yeah, on Nebraska...)
(*) "ain't" may be intended sarcastically. YMMV. Oh baby may it ever vary.
Here's a couple of links to cool historic planning maps for San Francisco and Los Angeles. The will to do these things didn't last long enough to finish though.
Another interesting "roads of future past" link is interregional highways, which shows what the interstate system was meant to look like in 1944, before it was called the interstate system.
I like my beverages with warning labels!
Art imitates art imitates art too. When I found this article a couple of days ago, I told my friend Winston Smith that I had located one of his major influences. He was so happy! He said that he had "thousands" of Radebaugh's illustrations sitting around that he'd painstakingly culled from old magazines and books (his source material), and was thrilled to find out that we'd found the creator of the famous flying cars, etc. He said he'd never been able to find or read a signature on any of the illos before.
I do believe I made his day. Maybe he'll thank me on the end page of his next book too!
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
The "Closer Than We Think" series is great.
The above-ground transparent pool for example. And this one reminds me of the segway.
Ever read Arthur C. Clarke's book, "1984: Spring"? It was a collection of essays on the future and what he thought it would turn out to be. Some of it was total bollocks, but - in the early eighties, nearly twenty years ago - he predicted the meteoric rise of the cellphone and the way it would revolutionise modern living.
Well, for most of you at least. I ain't got one yet...
-Mark
Who exactly was going to "give" us these magical toys? The Government? Big corporations?
Flying cars are not largely a technological problem, but a regulatory one. One that looks less likely to be solved anytime soon as long as most people still fear things that can fall out of the sky. I would add irrationally afraid, since people seem more than willing to assume the much greater risks of getting into a car every day. Even though tens and tens of thousands of people die in cars each year, the plane crashes still make the headlines... why is that?
If you want a flying car, go make one. You'll be breaking the law, most likely, if you succeed, but you can do it with todays technology. But I wouldn't wait for anyone to hand you one... The current air traffic control system is just simply not expandable to handle the sorts of air traffic that could result from a lot of people using flying cars. The proposals of one sort or another all seem to envision very complex systems of centralized ground control, which seem untenable for wide scale use. Imagine thousands of airplanes being centralling controlled by ground computers... bad bad bad idea.
Until the governement gets out of the way on legal use of the airspace, then most of us will have to stick to the ground.
I think about that every time I read a Heinlein novel where people are flying all over the universe in space ships and using slide rules to check their navigation.
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It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Yesterland is a good place to see all the old, semi-forgotten attractions that seemed ahead of its time. Anyone remember those hovercraft bumper cars?.
Plus, Disney's got plenty of room to play around with right now. The old CircleVision attraction, the building right across from Star Tours, has been closed for a while and just sits there, probably only being used for storage. And whatever happened to those submarines in the lake?
Disney, take heed! Don't just devote an attraction to the newest technologies. The industry moves too fast these days to keep up. Instead, why not show mock-ups of these sorts of retro-tractions? I can think of a ton of cool interactive exhibits they could produce (think Jetsons), even with their cost-cutting mantra of recent. Now if only they'd bring back those RocketRods!
-Mr. Fusion
Progress is dangerous. If I make a product that will kill one user in a million, and everyone in America buys one, I'll face two hundred and eighty wrongful death suits, class action suits, branding as a mass murderer, and ghod help me if one of those failures happens during sweeps week.
Flying is fairly simple, but the consequences of error are rather specatular.
Cars were invented before lawsuits were so widespread; this is part of the reason Ford isn't bankrupt from all the innocent bystanders crossing the street in front of their potentially lethal products.
But the tort system in America is biased towards the right to be stupid and my obligation to accomodate your stupidity regardless of what you're doing with my product. So no, I'm sure as hell not going to build you a flying car just so you can sue me when you fuck up.
This is not my sandwich.
I've a book from my parents about live in the year 2000. It's from somewhere in the late fifties or early sixties and has a whole bunch of articles from then renowned people. At least most of them have impressive titles. ;-)
:-)
:-))
They wrote about almost everything: social stuff, controlling the weather, living in space, man like robots making all the domestic work and finding the final solutions for many environmental and energy problems.
They just missed one point: micro electronics, computers, internet and all the stuff that keeps most of the people here busy.
The only thing that comes near that, are robots. They are fascinated about robots. (They would like the first episode from the Animatrix.
They write lengthy about them doing all kinds of work, walking, speaking, grabing things, etc.
I'm just wondering: what did they think, the computing power behind that comes from? A room full of valves in every apartment to clean the floor and wash the dishes?
I think this essay by the great Bertrand Russell not only outlines the historical point you have made, but why the cult of efficiency and productivity which infects our society is so destructive and devisive.
Perhaps you read it, but for those out there who have not quite realized that the promise of technology, more free time, has not materialized, please read this essay.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
I seem to remember a story about a soceity that grew seperate, with everyone departed from the crowded cities, living via telecommunication.
Problem was the extroverts went fscking nuts.
Moral: Kill that asshole who won't shut up.
or not.
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They fail to see the problems that are going unsolved during their day, and puting that into the equasion of the future. And I'm sorry, a HUGE population is in our future.
I'm sorry, why do you think that? Let me ask you this: how many women (of childbearing age) do you know that have more than two children? How many women do you know that have less than two children? What is the average number of children per woman that you know? What if you limit it to women under 30 or 35? Because if it's less than two (across the board), population is eventually going to go DOWN, not up.
Did you know that the current birthrate in many Western European countries is less than 2.0? That means that babies aren't being made (in those countries) fast enough to replace people that are dying. There will of course be a lag of a few generations to make up for the fact that such a dramatic change in birthing behavior has come so recently. But change is certainly coming.
In the U.S., it's a slightly different picture, but not much. The only reason we have a birthrate of more than 2.0 per woman is because of immigration and the family practices of many American ethnic and religious groups. For example, ethnic minorities (especially Eastern European and Latino Catholics) often have larger families. Mormons also have larger families. But American families in general (of all races and religions) tend to have smaller familes, or none at all. Most of my friends from college are in their 30s now, and most of them don't have any kids. That's very common.
Now, in non-Western cultures, there isn't the no-child or few-child culture as there is in the West, so much of what I've said doesn't apply there. But it's coming. The growth rate (worldwide) peaked around 1970, when the annual rate of growth was 2.1%. By 1995 it was down to 1.5%. It's still dropping steadily.
In 1992, the World Bank predicted an excess of 10 billion people in the world by 2050. Just four years later, they changed their prediction to 9 billion. Wanna bet that their next estimate will be lower still?
Overpopulation is a scare tactic more appropriate to bad 19th century economics than to clear-thinking 21st century thought.
Belloc
I got more rhymes than Jamaica got Mangoes.
So from the 20s, we were promised helicopters in every garage, jet packs, flying cars, etc.
So during the dot-com era, we were promised several different things too, but nowadays, it looks like they all got integrated into other services (ie webvan, paymybills.com, etc.) I wonder if 20, 30, 40 years from now, whether we can look back to this period of time, and see "crazy ideas" that were proposed, but never delivered?
Now I feel ripped off. In fact, we have all been ripped off. If this future was promised, there must have at least been an implied contract. Can you say "class action lawsuit?"
That's silly. It's not a circular argument-- they don't take off because they weigh a lot, not because they lack smooth undersides. Go to a Honda dealership and test drive an Insight. Take it up to its maximum speed, and do it on a hill just for some added kick. You will not take off.
Consumer cars, even ones with all-aluminum bodies and reduced weight engines and components like the Insight are too heavy to leave the road.
I'm sorry I wasn't more explicit. Consumer cars don't have to worry about lifting off because the lift-to-weight ratio in a normal car is not high enough to matter. Race cars do not have 5 seats and a large trunk with a spare tire and a jack, or a stereo, AC, heater, headlights, interior wood trim, cushy suspension, 8 glass windows, or a heavy steel frame and body. It's not just because the bottom's rough that cars don't fly into the air all the time. It's because they're heavy and not travelling at 230mph.
Now, you are correct about doing it for added traction. People who take their cars out to drag race are interested in having *additional* downforce, since your force of friction is directly proportional to the downforce, and your engine is so big that drag means nothing to you. But still, nobody except crazy high-end cars is actually worried about leaving the road.