4 ms·

I was born nearly 50 years ago. The only reason it may seem "slow to arrive" is that the dramatic visuals are absent, and that some of the expected technology p

I was born nearly 50 years ago. The only reason it may seem "slow to arrive" is that the dramatic visuals are absent, and that some of the expected technology proved a lot more boring/problematic than expected. Instead of rockets taking the staggeringly long time to reach staggeringly boring destinations (Moon & Mars are dead rocks), we've brought most of human knowledge & communications from racked hidden ink-on-paper to instant access anywhere on the planet via a pocket wireless supercomputer - something so amazing that most people spend much of their time staring at it (mostly for porn & cat videos...ARGH!). 5-minute food is the norm. Electric cars are on track for massive market penetration. Nearly-free worldwide-coverage videophones are available (just nobody actually wants to be seen). A lifetime of cinema, much in 3D, is available in your living room for an hour's pay per month. A couple days' wage can fly you to the other side of the planet in a few hours. 72F indoor temperature is so ubiquitous it's practically illegal to not have it. Thousands of books are trivially stored on a $35 e-reader weighing ounces. Heck, as an middle-class kid growing up back then, we had wood-fired heat (no A/C), well water, grew half our own food, walked miles to town, and 4-digit phone numbers. Home computers didn't exist early on, the closest being hobby kids with maybe* hundreds of bytes of storage; when "personal computers" finally appeared (Apple II and IBM PC) they were, well, paltry. I don't remember a milkman delivering, but do recall returnable glass bottles. We could have rockets and Moon bases etc as the norm, but when we got to the Moon early on we realized it really wasn't that interesting. Infinite cat videos in your pocket - that's what people really wanted.

ido 10y ago
well water, grew half our own food, walked miles to town This is simply due to growing up in the country side though, isn't it? Nobody living in any at least semi-major western city in the late 60s would have had these experiences.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Half of America lived in the country in the 60's.
  - Veedrac 10y ago
    And there were almost half as many.
kiba 10y ago
We could have rockets and Moon bases etc as the norm, but when we got to the Moon early on we realized it really wasn't that interesting. Infinite cat videos in your pocket - that's what people really wanted. It's not that moon isn't interesting, it's that we decided that the moon isn't interesting. Now, we are on the verge of commercial reusable rocket and launch cadence is going to dramatically speed up in the next decade or so.
cableshaft 10y ago
I was born a little over 30 years ago and I remember milkmen delivering milk to our door. In fact, in the Chicagoland area there's Oberweis, which still offers milk delivery to your door.
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  In bigger cities it is possible to order other groceries as well. Though since people are less trusting of having their groceries not stolen, you might have to receive in person.
VLM 10y ago
"the dramatic visuals are absent" Some examples: My mother is active and healthy and doing the grandma things after her heart operation instead of being a tombstone, and after the laser operation my MiL is not blind. I'm mystified how you'd even visually express that, but it is a pretty big change over the last 50 years. Modern cars are horrifically ugly and character-less compared to my grandpa's cars, but they last roughly 10x as many miles and require far less than 1/10th the maintenance and get about twice the MPG and I'm almost certain to survive most car crashes (whereas in my grandpas day, a car crash was only about as survivable as an airplane crash). Its easy to express the bland ugliness of modern commuter cars visually, but how do you express that the hood may as well be welded down compared to the bad old days?
- melling 10y ago
  Sounds like slow and steady progress. Seat belts weren't even mandatory until the late 1960's; more common sense than technology. Cars could go 100k miles 50 years ago. They aren't going 10x the distance today. Progress to be excited about: Wright Brothers flew in 1903, Yeager went supersonic in 1947, and we were on the moon in 1969. Commercial flights were crossing the Atlantic at 2x the speed of sound in the 1970's.
- ctdonath 10y ago
  I was referring to decades-past "artist's rendition" pictures depicting the future. Scenes of dramatic rocket launches and moon hotels, exotic-looking personal vehicles, surreal attire, and sporadic inclusion of alien life forms. You're making my point. Your mother is simply alive. Your MiL sees like anyone else might. Cars are kinda ugly, but in a character-less way instead of "OMG that's butt-ugly", and simply travel farther and kill fewer people. The reality of being in the "future" is that it's not visually a dramatic difference ... yet it is dramatically "futuristic" precisely because percentage-wise more people are leading normal lives, living on the Moon isn't interesting to most, and instant access to the near-sum-total of human knowledge just means more porn & cat pictures to amuse oneself with.

ido 10y ago

well water, grew half our own food, walked miles to town This is simply due to growing up in the country side though, isn't it? Nobody living in any at least semi-major western city in the late 60s would have had these experiences.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Half of America lived in the country in the 60's.
- Veedrac 10y ago
  And there were almost half as many.

kiba 10y ago

We could have rockets and Moon bases etc as the norm, but when we got to the Moon early on we realized it really wasn't that interesting. Infinite cat videos in your pocket - that's what people really wanted. It's not that moon isn't interesting, it's that we decided that the moon isn't interesting. Now, we are on the verge of commercial reusable rocket and launch cadence is going to dramatically speed up in the next decade or so.

cableshaft 10y ago

I was born a little over 30 years ago and I remember milkmen delivering milk to our door. In fact, in the Chicagoland area there's Oberweis, which still offers milk delivery to your door.

AstralStorm 10y ago
In bigger cities it is possible to order other groceries as well. Though since people are less trusting of having their groceries not stolen, you might have to receive in person.

VLM 10y ago

"the dramatic visuals are absent" Some examples: My mother is active and healthy and doing the grandma things after her heart operation instead of being a tombstone, and after the laser operation my MiL is not blind. I'm mystified how you'd even visually express that, but it is a pretty big change over the last 50 years. Modern cars are horrifically ugly and character-less compared to my grandpa's cars, but they last roughly 10x as many miles and require far less than 1/10th the maintenance and get about twice the MPG and I'm almost certain to survive most car crashes (whereas in my grandpas day, a car crash was only about as survivable as an airplane crash). Its easy to express the bland ugliness of modern commuter cars visually, but how do you express that the hood may as well be welded down compared to the bad old days?

melling 10y ago
Sounds like slow and steady progress. Seat belts weren't even mandatory until the late 1960's; more common sense than technology. Cars could go 100k miles 50 years ago. They aren't going 10x the distance today. Progress to be excited about: Wright Brothers flew in 1903, Yeager went supersonic in 1947, and we were on the moon in 1969. Commercial flights were crossing the Atlantic at 2x the speed of sound in the 1970's.
ctdonath 10y ago
I was referring to decades-past "artist's rendition" pictures depicting the future. Scenes of dramatic rocket launches and moon hotels, exotic-looking personal vehicles, surreal attire, and sporadic inclusion of alien life forms. You're making my point. Your mother is simply alive. Your MiL sees like anyone else might. Cars are kinda ugly, but in a character-less way instead of "OMG that's butt-ugly", and simply travel farther and kill fewer people. The reality of being in the "future" is that it's not visually a dramatic difference ... yet it is dramatically "futuristic" precisely because percentage-wise more people are leading normal lives, living on the Moon isn't interesting to most, and instant access to the near-sum-total of human knowledge just means more porn & cat pictures to amuse oneself with.