Yes, But Where Is My Flying Car?
from the ah,-to-be-a-futurist dept
You have to love the futurists. When they're not thinking about putting iPods into womens' breasts they're complaining about how there are too many futurists competing with them, and how they need to set up some sort of certification system to make sure the futurists you rely on are certifiably futuristic. So, when these brilliant futurists finally get around to making their predictions, why do they all seem so pointless? The same futurist who came up with the musical breasts idea is now touting "simplicity" as a futuristic concept, claiming that the age of adding functionality is now over and it's time to simplify. Then we've got fairly obvious ones like better speech recognition (as if that hasn't been named every year for the last thirty years) and better mobile tools for communications (as if that hasn't been obvious for the past five years). All in all, it basically sounds like the same set of predictions you hear from these guys every year, but which are either about as likely to come true as what you used to see at Tomorrowland or are so obvious that it doesn't take a futurist (certified or not) to point them out. At least they're not trotting out the tried and true flying car issue... oh wait, maybe that's because it's actually for sale (though, actually getting it to fly is another story).
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Flying Cars
On any given day, at any hour, you'll like find some a-hole backing up because he missed the exit.
With folks like that, I am thankful for not yet having flying cars....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The Future, the only game in town.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The Future, the only game in town.
Dyson's Version 2.0 (I think that's what it was called), Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines, and Gates' The Road Ahead were three that I read. The first two are very big names in futurism, and Gates is big period. All of these books were total trash--every bet is hedged with a bunch of "perhaps"es and "maybe"s and "could"s.
Of course they have to do this to avoid looking like morons later on, but then what's the point? It's just a whole lot of "I personally think it would be cool if suchandsuch, now somebody might maybe invent the tools to make it possible..." So what? No wonder they want a certification standard. Legitimacy is easy when it's for sale.
Predicitons are impossible, but your little ramblings are just as worthless as anyone else's.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
3.5 Million
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: The Future-the only game in town
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The Future Reprised
I'm all for patterning brain tumors, the circulatory system (blood vessels) and filtered combustible tubes which emit smoke intended to be inhaled for the smooth rich flavor of 16 carcinogens (cigarettes and the like).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]