Where's the future?

It’s another lazy Sunday here. I had a chance to catch up on some reading, and found something I wanted to talk about in today’s post.

A recent article in Reason magazine asks a question I have been hearing a lot lately. “What happened to all those sci-fi prophecies” about the future we are supposed to be living in now?

The article, titled “From Sky Flivver to Hydropolis : What happened to the science-fiction future?” by Katherine Mangu-Ward, is in the October 2007 issue on page 70 and 71. (As soon as the article is available on their website, I will post a link to it.)

The article starts by discussing a book called “Where’s My Jetpack?”

“Popular Mechanics columnist Daniel Wilson moans ‘it’s the twenty first century, and things are a little disappointing.’… Wilson begs ‘all the scientists, inventors and tinkerers out there’ to ‘please hurry up’ (emphasis in the original)”

The reason article continues with what is available, but doesn’t really delve into the why the future hasn’t arrived to the mainstream.

I remember a few years before this article was published a series of ads from IBM, where Avery Brooks was practically screaming “WHERE ARE MY FLYING CARS?!?”

So. What happened?

Well, there are flying cars. There are jetpacks for sale. And invisibility cloaks are almost a reality.

I’m no rocket scientist, but I think the future never arrived in the mainstream for three reasons.

REASON NUMBER ONE : MONEY

I would love to go flying around the town in a jetpack. I could find the perfect place to open another store. Cut across traffic and get to work with a few jumps. Give the border patrol something new to freak out about. Or just shoot straight up for 30 seconds and parachute back down.

I can think of a lot of things I want to do with a jetpack. But since they run in the upper $250,000 range, I just can not afford one. And I doubt many people who would get the most enjoyment from a jetpack have the $250,000 to spare.

This also applies to that Segway personal scooter thing Dean Kamen invented.

It’s a fantastic product! Perfectly balanced, manages most terrain, and moves pretty fast! But $5,000 to $9,000? No. I don’t have that money to spare, either.

All new bleeding edge technologies cost money. If it is new, and if it is in limited production because it is new, it’s going to cost a lot of money.

The solution? Mass production.

Only when items are mass produced do they become inexpensive. Yes, they tend to suffer in quality as opposed to a custom made unit, but they make up for it in quantity and low pricing. Look at the automobile industry. Ford, Nissan, Toyota… all mass produced.

You can see these cars everywhere on the road because just about everyone in this country can afford some model from these manufacturers.

REASON NUMBER TWO : APPLIED LIABILITY

Let’s say you get a jetpack. Right off the bat, if it flies, you’re regulated. The FAA says you need a pilot’s license to fly in just about anything over ten feet off the ground. Then there’s that little thing about appropriate airspace. You can’t just rocket around high and low without checking in. You might bump into a low flying plane! Here comes the federal government asking you where your radios and travel lights are going to be on your jetpack to warn other pilots of your whereabouts.

Then there’s the question someone is going to ask about “what happens if you cause an accident while flying that jetpack? Who’s going to pay?”

And let’s not forget to plan for those special people who will be looking up in the sky as you zoom overhead in your jetpack, get distracted, have an accident, and then sue YOU for causing their feeble minds to wander!

Don’t believe me? Look at the Segway. All the lawsuits and all the critics, detractors and outright sourpusses that came out of the woodwork. I give you exhibit a, exhibit b and exhibit c.

Now only certain police departments have them, and only in limited quantities and only in certain cities.

And look at the M 200G flying car from Moller International. It may require a pilot’s license to operate and it only flies 10 feet above the ground! Their skycar, which “will fly at 400 miles an hour … and can climb at 6,000 feet a minute” will definitely require a pilots license. And getting a pilot's license is a whole other can of worms.

Everything has an applied liability in this day and age. Long gone are the times when an adventurous soul could take a risk with their own life and take responsibility in their own hands and reap the rewards (or penalties) of their own actions. Now it’s all about who you have to answer to.

And everybody, by law or by lawsuit, must answer to someone these days.

The only way around this is an allowance of good faith. I think a Federal Good Samaritan style law should be enacted for inventors and their associated inventions for one year.

This would allow a timeframe where a reasonable liability can be attached to the item on a state by state basis. Like auto insurance for cars.

Since each item would have to be folded into the community, each state would have to set their own rules for managing the new item and the individuals who pursue them.

States love making new laws. It keeps the politicians employed! It’s just getting the new items to that legislative point that’s the difficult part.

And the only way to have the adventurous souls return to push the boundaries of society is to give them some room to run in.

REASON NUMBER THREE : FEAR

This is a big one. Fear.

Fear of change. Fear of something new. Fear makes people panic and act stupid. Let’s say a mass produced jetpack is announced that's not too expensive. Farmers Insurance and Geico have insurance policies ready to go.

The next day I bet there would be some idiot on the TV screaming bloody murder about how the jetpack will be the end of the automotive industry! How do you know the jetpack will not cause cancer of the spine or upper back? Nobody knows the full effect the jetpack will have on the environment!

You know. Pretty much the same old hand-wringing and knee-jerk whining every time something new comes out.

The solution? People tend to be perfectly calm when they have a full understanding of something. When they know it inside and out. So offer every iota of information there is before the item goes mainstream.

Tell everyone everything there is to know about the product. Give lectures. Diagram every inch of the machine and print it in a “Chilton” style book. Sell books with advanced tips and techniques. I bet “Jetpacks for dummies” would be a bestseller!

No secrets. No mysteries. No surprises.

Education is a fantastic fear killer. And with education comes 99% of the answers to the initial questions and solutions to 99% of the initial problems of a new item.

If the automobile was announced today, in today’s mindset and environment, it would be regulated to high heaven, and only the super rich would afford them. And even then, since there would be no roads, they could only be driven in specially paved courtyards.

The automobile was a success because it was mass produced so everyone could have a chance to afford one. A reasonable applied liability was agreed upon for these automobiles to run on the roads and highways. And people were educated about them.

And look at what a success automobiles are now. Since everyone started to own one, roads were paved to allow their use not only between towns, but between states, and eventually, between adjoining countries. Now automobiles are as big a part of Americana as McDonalds and Monday night football.

Automobiles are no more alien than the family dog, and are not considered an “extravagant” expense since there are at least two garage shops in every town to work on them as needed. Automobiles even make money for people outside the direct automobile manufacturing industry! Look at all the car radio options, all the specialty rims and tire options, and all the in-vehicle TV sets... just to name a few.

17 is the agreed upon age to use an automobile in most states, and, for better or worse, there is no “cutoff” age I know of.

The automobile industry is here to stay.

So why can’t the jetpack be just like the automobile? Seriously?

For the true future to arrive, it has to be mass produced, it has to hold a promise of reasonable liability, and it has to be something people can understand by reading a manual.

And that’s my rant for Sunday.

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