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kleinbl00  ·  3755 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: I want

It's funny. Futurists have argued for about the past 20 years that we've forgotten how to dream. You read articles like this and you have to side with them.

What do I want? I want a flying car, a jetpack, a holodeck, a TARDIS and a replicator. I want a car made out of mutherfucking diamond that runs on sunbeams. I want a communicator watch - no, not skype on an iPod nano, I want it not to SUCK. And I want it somewhere I can live forever surrounded by people who look like the China Air stewardesses who were buying groceries ahead of me last night.

Your reach is supposed to exceed your grasp. I mean, look at this shit.I put it up without context because the context is kinda funny, kinda heartbreaking. That's a concept painting of a Boeing 2707circa 1966. 'cuz 5 months before he got shot, Kennedy said "let's build crazy fast crazy awesome airliners" and Boeing said "fukkit, how 'bout a 300-passenger all-titanium swing-wing monster with 200,000 lbs of thrust that will go New York to Paris at Mach 3?"

They were high, of course. High as fucking kites. The OXCART was still secret back then and only Lockheed had an inkling of what a bona fide nightmare it was to get one guy up to mach 3 and keep him there but fuckin' A - it was a dream. A legit dream. Plan was, that gorgeous painting (mine's a lot more yellowed - we'll see how the replication comes out) was supposed to be a stone cold reality by the time I was due to be born. Of course, it got cancelled in 1972 because, well, supersonic transports are stupidly impractical. Neither the French nor the British ever made money on it and the Concorde was banned from New York until '78. But back in the '60s? Back when The Jetsons were on Prime Time?

…well, nobody was "wanting" a recommendation engine that would tell them what toasters to buy.

Michael Gerson's a stone-cold sonofabitch, no doubt. But he'll always have a place in my heart for coining the phrase "the soft tyranny of low expectations." I mean, yay for wanting things, but…

Someone once asked Gene Roddenberry why Picard was bald. I mean, 500 years in the future, won't they have cured male pattern baldness? Gene responded "in the future, no one will care." I suspect Gene wouldn't have come up with a pill that uses up your excess calories (pssst - they're called tapeworm eggs). He'd have come up with a societal change that keeps us from being gluttons.

Dunno. I think if Elon Musk wanted "cheaper hotels" or "drones that deliver tomatoes" the world would be a much less interesting place. Yeah, all these things would be nice to have, but if there's someone out there trying to choose between "devote my life to creating an internet-enabled wristwatch" or "devote my life to rawking the shit out of this stratocaster" I hope he chooses the strat.

related, the iPhone-compatible christmas tree in the line in front of me today.