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It's a pet peeve of mine that people think that sci-fi authors writing decades before the tech exists somehow got the design right, just because Hollywood made
by jerf 5y ago
It's a pet peeve of mine that people think that sci-fi authors writing decades before the tech exists somehow got the design right, just because Hollywood made some pretty moving pictures that fired up your imagination.
It's hard enough to design things in the real world when you've got the tech in hand. There's no way to think that people got it right decades earlier with even larger disadvantages.
The reality is we don't have jetpacks because jetpacks suuuuuuuuuck. Paramotoring turns out to make a lot more sense. It may not be the picture in your head, but it can be real.
Also, we don't have flying cars because flying cars suuuuuuuuuck. We don't have heavy-duty voice interfaced computers because they suuuuuuuuuck. We even have the tech now for those, and they suuuuuuuuuck as the only interface. (They can work if you're dedicated and have no alternatives, as people program with pure voice interfaces, but they only use them because they're the best alternative they have.) Computer interfaces don't look like LCARS Star Trek interfaces because those interfaces suuuuuuuuuck. And so on.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y agoThe other side is my own pet peeve: thinking that sci-fi authors were visionaries for putting something out there before anyone else makes it real. One reason we don't have flying cars could be battery tech, taking your example. There's a ton of cool shit happening in aviation as batteries improve.
- Ekaros 5y agoFlying without lift from wings or like as people think of sci-fi flying cars isn't practical, unless we break the physics as we understand today. I honestly can't think of anything more wasteful than hovering flying car...
- namlem 5y agoEven if you fix all the other problems with flying cars, you're not gonna fix the noise issue. They are simply too loud to use in populated areas.
- dredmorbius 5y ago"How many angry hornets does it sound like?" "All of them." I love flying car demo videos with dubbed-in music rather than live audio....
- sean2 5y ago> you're not gonna fix the noise issue Firstly, I wouldn't be so sure about what future tech might bring. Perhaps if "flying cars" get closer to something consumers could use in a neighborhood, it will be profitable to look into and maybe something can be done about it. Secondly, for many of the young men living near me, noise is more of a perk than an issue. You could probably sell them on the idea that the whole town gets to hear that they're rich enough to afford a flying car.
- the8472 5y agoJetpacks only suck due to the lack of a compact power source, one of the things that's commonly handwaved in scifi. If we had a magical power source they'd provide a more dynamic flying experience than gliding.
- jerf 5y agoThey have a poor backup if a component fails, they're either going to be blasting something hot or something very fast out some set of ports which raises a lot of practical issues, they're always going to be very loud, greasing them up with enough AI to be safe for a normal person is going to be a massive problem, they'll always be difficult to control because such a small, fast thing is going to be super responsive and thus very twitchy and difficult to fly (or, to put it another way, "more dynamic flying experience" is a con, not a pro), and the list goes on. Basically, a jet pack what you get if you take a minimal safe flying vehicle based on jet propulsion, then you strip away a huge number of components. The result is intrinsically unsafe. Paramotoring isn't the safest thing either, but at least it's humanly feasible.
- stickfigure 5y agoIn fairness, if you let the word compact do a lot of heavy lifting, I don't see why a sufficiently compact power source would have to be dangerous to fly. Give it enough redundant cells and enough AI to keep you upright, sure why not? From an abstract physics perspective, flying is only a little more complex than keeping a Segway upright. Look at what modern ejection seats can do. The problem is that we are orders of magnitude off in terms of power density, and it seems unlikely that we'll bridge that without some sort of major revolution in physics. So sci-fi it remains.
- benjiweber 5y agoAndroid is starting to look quite LCARS https://twitter.com/benjiweber/status/1457039757112922115 https://twitter.com/benjiweber/status/1457039757112922115
- idontwantthis 5y agoWas listening to a comedy podcast and they mentioned the famous Minority Report hand waving interface and the host responded with “Wait we have that now, but you do it on a desk instead of above your head. Isn’t that a lot better?”
- shawabawa3 5y agoWe have flying cars, they just don't look like what sci fi authors imagined, and we call them helicopters
- tpoacher 5y agomost of the things you mention suck not because they're bad in themselves, but because they require infrastructure in place before they can be effective, let alone better. and we don't have infrastructure in place, because we have other solutions that work already, and the cost to change them would be too big and even if we wanted to we'd have to find a way to slowly phase them in over many decades. you're basically that guy from 20 years ago who yelled "fossil fuel is good because solar panels suuuuuuuuuuck " :p
- tablespoon 5y ago> It's a pet peeve of mine that people think that sci-fi authors writing decades before the tech exists somehow got the design right, just because Hollywood made some pretty moving pictures that fired up your imagination. Many people who believe in science actually believe in science fiction.