Slightly Older Princess has a friend over, and a fragment of their conversation catches my attention.
Friend: “I don’t think the world is going to end in 2012. I think we’ll just evolve. Be able to move things with our minds, things like that.”
SOP: “When I get to be old, there better be jet packs.”
I know what you mean, kid. I’m still waiting for the Star Trek transporters, myself.
I don’t remember dreaming about jet packs as a kid thinking about the future. Flying cars, yes, and cars that went everywhere on a conveyor belt, kind of like the people mover sidewalks at PDX, so that you could kick back and read while your car sailed to its destination.
I probably shouldn’t be given the ability to move things with my mind, or I’d shift from couch potato status to full-on couch garden. But I still think it would be nice to be able to have a telepathic connection with other people (a voluntary one you could turn on and off at will, that is). It would be nice to be able to say, “Doctor, it hurts like this,” and really project how you’re feeling, or, “Hon, I can’t remember the name of that restaurant, do you recognize it from this thought-picture?”
What do you think? What future inventions/evolutions did you think we’d have by now when you were a kid? What would you still like to see?
2 comments
brmfalk says:
May 18, 2012
Teletransporting would be pretty nice, especially for those of us far from loved ones. Non fattening food would be good too.
Gergle says:
May 18, 2012
I watched the Moon landings, I thought there would be a self sustaining Moon colony by now, we should be building space staions at the Lagrange points and terraforming Mars.
Where are all the neat things we were promised?