Confessions of a One-Track Mind

Here's something to think about...say you're a time traveler from 2048. You've arrived in this decade and you're interacting with the locals...what surprises you? What's different? What technology do you miss from your own time?

Given the lengthening life expectancy of people in the US, it's not implausible that you or I might still be alive? What might you ask a person from the future? What advice would you give them?

Just in my lifetime, I've seen a lot of technology become "obsolete". I remember reel-to-reel tapes, 8-tracks, cassettes, vinyl albums and 45s. Even things like digital cash registers didn't come along 'til the late 70s. I remember when the only computers around were the ones in the lab at the college, programmed by computer punch cards. I remember so-called personal computers with a whopping 4K of memory, using a cassette player as the hard drive for a Texas Instrument computer, 6" floppy disks giving way to 3" diskettes, long before CDs or USB drives.

40 years ago, computers were gigantic and took up an entire room. Instead of terminals on every office desk, there were typewriters. I remember typewriters being superceded briefly by "word processors", which *weren't* the same as computers, although they tried. Twenty years ago, a portable phone was the size and density of a brick and came with its own carrying case. A car phone was a status symbol, but it stayed IN the car. Even 10 years ago, most people would have scoffed at the notion of hand-held cordless phone wwith a screen that could access the internet.

I'm trying to invent a creditable future for my time traveler. How virtual is 2048? Instead of HDTVs, are they holographic? What are the trendy gizmos of the day, what are people wearing, how do their daily routines differ from ours? What are the world events of the day? I'd love to hear your thoughts, with the caveat that I may want to borrow them for a spot of fiction....

This is your chance to predict the future, although I suspect Jules Verne is going to stay the all-time master of that sort of thing.

It began with this poll about whether we are living in the future sci-fi predicted for us.

( And I commented at length. ) Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but the subject is sticking with me.

In some respects, I think we thought too small---or maybe I should say, not small enough, when you consider that today's average cell phone is about a third the size of a Star TrekTOS communicator. Or that the computers that got us to the moon are dumber than the calculator the average tenth-grader carries to math class. I remember taking computer classes back around 1980, where the first thing they talked about were bits and bytes and our programming assignments consisted of stacks of punchcards, which I never could get to work properly. I remember TRS80 computers, plugged into an old TV with a cassette player as the memory drive. I remember floppy disks giving way to diskettes. I remember when a Commodore 64 was the height of technology, being excited to get a 14400k modem and a couple years later, having Megs of memory, which was a Big Thing. Gigs? Srsly? Now that's old news and we're talking terabytes. Or have I fallen behind and it's something bigger now?

In light of the predicted smart homes, robot butlers and jet-packs it's tempting to say that the technology has failed us. We don't have flying cars, we're not vacationing on Mars, or even the moon. Our society has more problems, not fewer, than we did forty years ago. Unfortunately, it's true that those who don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it. Today it's the Middle East, forty years ago, it was Southeast Asia. Rising gas prices and a move to dump gas-hog vehicles? 1973, folks.

Technology hasn't failed us, we've failed technology, because we've been too busy bickering among ourselves about our own petty agendas. We may have mandated equality in education and employment, but not in healthcare. A wealthy hypochondric can have test after test run to soothe their fears, whereas a genuinely sick person of low income will go to great lengths to avoid expensive medical treatment, perhaps to the point that it's too late to cure them. We didn't have diagnositc MRIs 40 years ago, but if 6 out of 10 people can't afford to access them, is that really progress?

The 70s saw the first proponants of alternate energy sources trying to catch the attention of the masses---I remember a book I checked out from the library numerous times about building energy efficient homes (this was when I was dreaming of a career in architecture), advocating solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal energy. These things were possible, if somewhat costly then. They're still somewhat costly because we haven't troubled ourselves to make the technology more affordable---but the question we should ask ourselves now is, can we afford NOT to?!

We have a lot of nifty technological bells and whistles these days. While we're playing with all these funky new toys, though, let's not get so distracted that we lose sight of the global picture. Microwave dinners won't cure world hunger, a Wii won't save your ass in a war zone (and if I'm wrong, please explain this one to me), and for that matter, cancer, AIDS and H1N1 aren't going to be impressed by your paper-thin computer, your Smartphone or your iPod. People are still killing each other over religious differences, and we don't have an app for that.

The future? Today is the tomorrow we were worried about yesterday.

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Speaking of tomorrow...edited 1/8/10 to add (because it must be zeigeist):

An article from Slate about the future as predicted by Omni magazine
and a vid from YouTube about Fiskars luxury hybrid, the Karma (which ain't cheap, but it sure is sweet).
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