When I was a boy, I had a book. It featured the Transrapid (look it up!), the Shuttle, the Concorde ... as heralds of the future.
The 2000s, when all of these things slowly were phased out, were a hard time, making me feel old for the first time. Sure, we got the Internet, we got vertically-landing rocket boosters, we got huge improvements in medical procedures ... but they all look so ... non-futuristic.
There are few things more futuristic than the vertically-landing rocket boosters.
But futurism has itself taken a massive knock. The 80s was the era of popular realization of the downsides of technology (Chernobyl, Bhopal, phaseout of CFC and tetraethyl lead, global warming, environmental issues generally) and the 2000s the era of realizing that progress is not a ratchet and the simplistic view of bombing countries into democracy wasn't going to work.
You can't present people with an unalloyed utopia and expect them to believe in it. People will ask the same questions of technology as were asked of Concorde - cost and safety - but be far less impressed with the raw concept of highspeed travel.
None of the problems with Chernobyl, Bhopal, phaseout of CFC and tetraethyl lead had anything to do with technology. In each case the problems were understood and technical solutions were available and had been for many years. The problems were social, political, financial, and had a lot to do with vested interests being much more powerful than those who wanted change and safety.
That is, people have realised that you can't treat "technology" as some kind of standalone magic that would, of itself, deliver a better society. People themselves will not be remade in technology's image.
Not that I'm consciously aware of, but I may have subconsciously lifted it from somewhere. "Made man in My image" is of course from Genesis.
The idea of technology making or remaking man rather than the other way round is definitely part of Futurism, Modernism and to some extent Bolshevism. I'd suggest reading Bruno Latour on the subject, especially "Aramis, or the Love of Technology".
A Falcon 9 returning from past the Karman line at near hypersonic speed, flipping around, balancing itself like a pencil on a fingertip, and landing back at the launch pad isn't futuristic?
We are living in a second golden age of aerospace innovation.
Fun fact: the Falcon 9 cannot throttle its engines low enough to hover. That means it lands at >1g, cutting thrust the moment it touches the pad to avoid taking off again.
There's a real transrapid up for auction right today, one of the original test trains. so if you have a little spare cash in your pocket you could get your childhoods herald of the future delivered right to your front door. You'll have to be quick though: https://www.vebeg.de/web/de/verkauf/suchen.htm?SHOW_AUS=1643...
There's a long-distance maglev train line under construction in Japan from Tokyo to Osaka, scheduled to be partially complete (Tokyo-Nagoya) in 2027 and fully complete in 2045 (if you're lucky and win the chance to buy a ticket, you can ride the bit of track that is complete already):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D_Shinkansen
Actually, I am toying with the idea to fly to Shanghai (instead of Hong Kong) once in my life just to be able to take the Transrapid... Can you tell me when those high-speed time slots happen?
The Shanghai airport transrapid is surprisingly loud and rumbly, kind of like a roller coaster with its rubber wheels. Or like the Montreal Metro.
(in Montreal they also believe that heir trains are super smooth and quiet because of the rubber wheels, compared to steel train. I can not explain this belief.)
The German Wikipedia says that there are two 45 minute slots a day, but not when exactly. Maybe their web site tells it? I could find the information after a cursory look.
When I was 13, in 1996, I used to dream that everything was possible. I dreamt of a personal drone that would look at the streets from above (unthinkable at the time, energy-wise), and a mini-computer in my hands to drive it, so I would find my way in a new city, find out where my friends were, send them little objects, do awesome stuff on the little computer, never be idle while waiting for someone and never miss them just because you were waiting for each other on the wrong side of the building.
I often wonder what kids can dream of, today, given all of this happened. The only parts of my dreams which haven't yield are AI and infinite energy.
I'm pretty satisfied with the future we live in. But the global warming is coming too fast.
> Looking things up from different sources quickly while talking at the dinner table
we all get what you mean, it's great and whatnot, but this specific case you describe are new-age idiots - constantly checking cell phones, while sitting with each other, just because there is 'something important'... no, there isn't
Video chats are common, but actual eye contact is currently impossible: you either look at the other person's eyes, and thus you appear to be looking off, or you look at the camera, and then they see you looking at them but you aren't actually looking at them in the eye.
There's currently research going on to find out if there is any way to make eye contact possible, but I don't know of any proposed way so far.
I would think the only practical approach would be to precisely position multiple webcams around the perimeter of the screen, and then use software to merge and manipulate the video streams in real time to simulate eye contact.
Fair enough. My main point was that being able to look at a person while talking to them, even slightly off due to the constraint you mention, makes a big difference and is already a huge step in the "future".
The 2000s, when all of these things slowly were phased out, were a hard time, making me feel old for the first time. Sure, we got the Internet, we got vertically-landing rocket boosters, we got huge improvements in medical procedures ... but they all look so ... non-futuristic.