Its the future! Where are the ray guns?

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Listen up kids, we've made it to Space Year 2001: the future is now.

I don't know about you, but I expected more than this. I can live without the bacofoil suit, and I'm not that sorry that hover cars aren't more abundant, but where's my robot? Shouldn't I have an indoor water-ski and a holographic harem? And a cup that will adjust the temperature of my latte?

What should have been invented by now?

― He's Not Here, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

We should definitely be able to peel off Ally's outer layer of plastic skin by now.

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Your robot: paperclip man on MS office.

Your holographic harem: "HOTTEST XXX SLUTS ON THE WEB" in your inbox.

The future is indeed now, man.

What should have been invented? A hangover pill that works.

― Tom, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I wish I had plastic skin :(

― Ally, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Where are the gay runs?

― Kris, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

we have they gay gaymes here next yr - I'm thinking of leaving town for the month - not because they're gay, but because the fuckers exercise - i f that's the future...blah

― Geoff, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

> What should have been invented? A hangover pill that works.

They have ... it's called Gatorade.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Friday, 3 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I tried that once, paying a fucking ludicrous import price for it - didn't work at all and tasted repellent to boot. So much for our Earth science.

― Tom, Friday, 3 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

We have the world games here. We should have left not because they excerise but because they werent gay.

― anthony, Friday, 3 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

As I have said to people before, the Tinklers had a great track called 'The Future is not as good as it used to be' that nailed the death of all the techno dreams pretty damn well.

Unfortunately, it appeared on some obscure compilation that even Napster couldn't reach.

― Nick, Friday, 3 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

there was a story about this in Viz about 10 years ago. It went all like 'suburban mother of three delcelia whittaker believes that scientists should be financially culpable. 'I promised my kiddies we'd be living in satellite communities and eating a pill for breakfast. Now what do I tell them?'' and stuff like that bla bla bla

― maryann, Friday, 3 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What came first, Viz or the Onion? For some reason I never thought about the two in connection with one another until this moment.

― Nick, Friday, 3 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

five years pass...

A perfect thread to revive thanks to this book review in Salon by none other than Simon Reynolds.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 13 May 2007 15:37 (eighteen years ago)

Here's the closest thing to a raygun the military has. It's called the VMAD and they've been flogging it, trying to get it down the chute for about half a decade.

I also have a wargame, developed for the Air Force, partly designed to illustrate how rayguns would be used in combat against terrorists. No, it's not a joke. Your taxpayer dollars paid for it.

― Gorge, Sunday, 13 May 2007 16:08 (eighteen years ago)

But instead of aquadome cities nestling on the ocean floor and a massive exodus of pioneers emigrating to settle the briny depths, all that remains today of the dream is a solitary subaquatic hotel, the Jules Undersea Lodge, located just off Key Largo, Fla.

!! who has been here??

― rrrobyn, Sunday, 13 May 2007 17:38 (eighteen years ago)

Find out more!

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 13 May 2007 17:39 (eighteen years ago)

omg
clearly no expense has been spared

― rrrobyn, Sunday, 13 May 2007 17:41 (eighteen years ago)

'the abyss' on the tv screen is killing me

― rrrobyn, Sunday, 13 May 2007 17:42 (eighteen years ago)

Just to enter the Lodge, one must actually scuba dive 21 feet beneath the surface of the sea.

:/
20,000 leagues or nothing

― rrrobyn, Sunday, 13 May 2007 17:47 (eighteen years ago)

but yeah, this book sounds interesting but i'm pretty sure this article is better than it. (/semi-jaded academic returning to journo)

― rrrobyn, Sunday, 13 May 2007 17:48 (eighteen years ago)

I'm thinking similar. And it is a question that's cropped up in my head every so often. I still believe in a hazy version of the space dream, I guess.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 13 May 2007 17:49 (eighteen years ago)

i just want to live in a dome

― rrrobyn, Sunday, 13 May 2007 17:54 (eighteen years ago)

one more important note re: underwater hotel

Guests of the Lodge have included many celebrities, including former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau; rock stars Steve Tyler of “Aerosmith” and Jon Fishman of Phish.

― rrrobyn, Sunday, 13 May 2007 17:55 (eighteen years ago)

At the same time?

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 13 May 2007 18:08 (eighteen years ago)

20,000 leagues or nothing

20,000 leagues is about 50,000 miles out from the other side of the world.

Sorry.

― ledge, Sunday, 13 May 2007 18:14 (eighteen years ago)

leagues are a measurement of distance not depth, the book is about travelling a distance of 20,000 leagues under water at various depths.

― Ed, Sunday, 13 May 2007 18:15 (eighteen years ago)

hey guys jokes are funny

― rrrobyn, Sunday, 13 May 2007 18:25 (eighteen years ago)

i wld also go 50,000 miles out from the other side of the world yes

― rrrobyn, Sunday, 13 May 2007 18:26 (eighteen years ago)

as long as there were cramped temporary living quarters and a vcr playing 'aliens'

― rrrobyn, Sunday, 13 May 2007 18:27 (eighteen years ago)

Sounds like my flat.

― ledge, Sunday, 13 May 2007 18:32 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.hollywood-north.net/wessni2.jpg

― kingfish, Sunday, 13 May 2007 18:40 (eighteen years ago)

why do ppl all make the 'its the future, where's my jetpack/flying car' joke all the time??

― and what, Sunday, 13 May 2007 19:19 (eighteen years ago)

― and what, Sunday, 13 May 2007 19:20 (eighteen years ago)

pedantic quibble time:

Better still, the classic science fiction fantasy of the space elevator that carries us from the Earth's surface 300 miles up to the threshold of outer space is already perfectly feasible, just prohibitively expensive.

actually, the idea wasn't really written about until 30 years ago:

http://www.civilbrights.net/static/a/17/21/200x300g-fountains-of-paradise.jpg

There was a handful of papers figuring out the math in the 60s, but that was it.

And we can't actually build one yet; our version of Clarke's "hyperfilament", carbon nanotubes, won't be mass-producable for a while. The tubes are strong enough, but we have yet to nail down a strong-enough epoxy to make a good composite out of all of it yet.

And solar mirrors were actually tried somewhere in Russia, weren't they, or were those just plans?

But there are no modern equivalents of Buckminster Fuller or Alvin Toffler.

I agree with this bit, tho. Bruce Sterling is a notorious buzzkill, esp. with all op-eds like his "uncontrollable climate change is already underway, and we're fucked."

― kingfish, Sunday, 13 May 2007 19:31 (eighteen years ago)

As to answering Salon's whats-his-name question on Toffler, re a book the man wrote -- well, within the last decade or so, "War and Anti-War," a copy of which sits upon my shelf. I do seem to recall the tome being big in early Wired, the famous tech comic book.

Whats-his-name in Salon misses a little in not recognizing Americans, and perhaps also himself, believed all the fanciful rubbish years ago because they're so crappy at understanding real science. So when they read about flying cars and ray guns or elevators into orbit, whatever Larry Niven and Arthur Clarke -- two among many of the hard science sci-fi authors, writers I sometimes enjoyed, were on about, they took it far too seriously.

Wired's not the only mage for it. The old reliables are still around. If you look at the issues of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics in the supermarket, they're still full of basically fanciful fictions. And one can count on the New York Times Sunday magazine having one issue a year devoted to future inventions which auto-turn into howlers a year later.

Even Rolling Stone had a big story of this nature a few months ago.

They dug up a notorious crackpot from one of the national labs who allegedly had a plan to cure global warming by building huge burners on the ground. The burners are to belch soot and the soot would be pumped into the upper atmosphere through seven mile high kevlar soot stacks.

― Gorge, Sunday, 13 May 2007 20:23 (eighteen years ago)

I want the future to have affordable medicine, fuck a jet pack.

― Abbott, Sunday, 13 May 2007 20:26 (eighteen years ago)

</fun killer>

― Abbott, Sunday, 13 May 2007 20:26 (eighteen years ago)

i had a somewhat charitable theory that maybe ppl older than me actually were promised a jetpack or flying car in the year 2000 enough times for it to be funny or relevant to make that joke more than once but then ppl my age also say it

dunno how old you are, kid, but in the textbooks i had in elementary and even in high school, we were totally PROMISED lunar colonies (duh, why else did we go to the moon) and flying jetpacks -- there even was a photo of this dude flying his jetpack out of a crowded stadium.

...and all we got was tang and moon sticks! of course, this doesn't make a lame joke funny.

you think because i worked at amazon for 4 years bezos would let me ride on his space ship? that would be cool. i don't understand why all billionaires aren't building their own spaceships, really.

http://a.abcnews.com/images/Business/DN10701032336_nr.jpeg

― Mike McGooney-gal, Sunday, 13 May 2007 22:22 (eighteen years ago)

Are there any underwater houses? Seems like it would be totally feasible in a lake or on parts of the coastline if you had enough money..

― milo z, Monday, 14 May 2007 01:55 (eighteen years ago)

one year passes...

http://www.datarealms.com/devlog/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/fog.gif

― DG, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 23:34 (seventeen years ago)

"it's the future, we were supposed to have jetpacks! where's my jetpack!?" has reached "didja know the song ironic isnt actually about things that are ironic?" levels of stfu

― and what, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 23:36 (seventeen years ago)

^^^
this

― latebloomer, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 23:52 (seventeen years ago)

tru although hoverboards rip ;_;

― strgn, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 23:54 (seventeen years ago)

"it's the future, we were supposed to have jetpacks! where's my jetpack!?"

replace 'jetpack' with 'single payer health care'

― Oilyrags, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 23:56 (seventeen years ago)

I want the future to have affordable medicine, fuck a jet pack.

-- Abbott, Sunday, May 13, 2007 8:26 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

― Abbott, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 23:57 (seventeen years ago)

I would also accept free medicine.

― Abbott, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 23:57 (seventeen years ago)

why do ppl all make the 'its the future, where's my jetpack/flying car' joke all the time??

-- and what, Sunday, May 13, 2007 8:19 PM (1 year ago)

let go

― DG, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 23:58 (seventeen years ago)

I love the kid in Africa playing draughts with the kid in New York via the power of liquid crystal displays.

― chap, Wednesday, 11 June 2008 23:59 (seventeen years ago)

i like the way the 'ultimate game' back then would be a space sim when these days it'd be a 3D rape simulator

― DG, Thursday, 12 June 2008 00:01 (seventeen years ago)

with an option to go bowling

― DG, Thursday, 12 June 2008 00:01 (seventeen years ago)

Silent E
He turned my cap into a cape
Silent E
He turned my rap into a rape

― Abbott, Thursday, 12 June 2008 00:02 (seventeen years ago)

one month passes...

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080729/capt.b51126b779854a01973660d8005f8e3f.jet_pack_unveiled_wimg102.jpg?x=231&y=345&sig=26CBXnRe8p3hYXYz7v_4cQ--

― velko, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 04:42 (seventeen years ago)

*want*

― grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 08:36 (seventeen years ago)

the video on that site's so unimpressive. are you not meant to be able to see the three guys who pick him up and carry him around the garden? like stagehands?

i want the backpack sized jetpack. scientists saying 'this will never happen' only gives me hope.

― schlump, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 09:55 (seventeen years ago)

gyuh, thread immediately reminds me of horrible local folk singer singing 'i thought there would be robots', but that aside this shit is awesome. in a really clunky 'the future is...now?' sorta way.

― RabiesAngentleman, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 10:01 (seventeen years ago)

I don't want some lame-ass Rocketeer jetpack, I want a flying car that turns into a suitcase like in the opening sequence of the Jetsons

― latebloomer, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 10:35 (seventeen years ago)

I want fucking teleporting. Where's the fucking teleporting? Sheesh.

― moley, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 10:39 (seventeen years ago)

two months pass...

Seriously, can anyone even slightly grasp or handle what could possibly exist on Earth in a few thousand years from now - or even just a thousand?

Came up in an overheard conversation this morning, just got me thinking wow I don't think I could even picture it

― Ant Attack |=| (Ste), Monday, 27 October 2008 13:20 (sixteen years ago)

i predict the hitler moustache will finally make a comeback.

― Roberto Spiralli, Monday, 27 October 2008 13:30 (sixteen years ago)

otherwise, much the same

― Roberto Spiralli, Monday, 27 October 2008 13:30 (sixteen years ago)

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