Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 17:39:54 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Alternative reality v SF
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 02:16 PM 4/28/05 -0400, Michael Walsh wrote:

>"Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future"
>
>Enormous skyscrapers will house residents and workers who happily go
>"for weeks" without setting foot on the ground.

Other than the happy workers part we could do that today.

>Streamlined, "hurricane-proof" houses will pivot on their foundations like
>weather vanes.

We could do those too.  People have built houses that rotate before, so the
problems have been solved.  I keep wondering why Floridians keep building
stick houses...I guess the Three Little Pigs wasn't required reading down
there.  You don't need the weathervane house though...just build one that
looks more like a turtle than a cracker box...

>The family car will turn into an airplane so easily that "a woman
>can do it in five minutes."

Flying cars exist and have for 50 years or more.  Drive up to the wings,
back under them, hook up the controls, get in and fly away.  Other designs,
where the wings fold, exist too.  And then there's Moller's flying car
design that's been in the prototype stage for a few decades now...but which
has flown.  (His main problems are legal (FAA approval, zoning, etc.) and
control related (making it automatic enough that those people you see
everyday on the roadways who can't operate in 2D can fly it).

>Our wars will be fought by robots.

Well, the robots are helping out a lot now, though they can't do it all
yet.  Want to see an attack on an Al-Queda base in Afghanistan directed
through a Predator flown by guys in Turkey?  Wasn't someone here just at a
military robot conference?  Active development is happening for purposes of
scouting and supply convoying.  We also have "robotic" loaders for naval
guns to limit the size of the servicing crew and AI systems in tanks to
track and help prioritize targets as well as aiming the guns at them
despite tank movement.   These work really well (ask the Iraquis).   I
think Bolos will be a while yet though.

>And our
>living room furniture--waterproof, of course--will clean up with a
>squirt from the garden hose.

We had that in the 70s.  Naugahyde couches clean up that way just fine if
you don't go too overboard with the water soaking (main problems are seams
and buttonholes...and any "breathable" bottom covers).  I washed my beanbag
chair that way more than once too.  My "coffee table" today would survive
that just fine...glass and painted steel.  Now that I own a welder I'm
expecting more furniture that can take rough and wet treatment.  I think a
bender is next on the list of useful toys... ;-)

>Filled with vivid color images and lively text, the book is eloquent
>testimony to the confidence--and, at times, the naive faith--Americans
>have had in science and technology.

Science and technology have come through pretty well.  The "failure" in
those predictions happened due to politics, economics and fashion fads.

The future that emerges here, the
>authors conclude, is one in which technology changes, but society and
>politics usually do not.

They do, just more slowly.  Therein lies a big set of problems.  We see
that today with the internet where technology has outrun law by a wide
margin.  Thus craziness like the Millenium Digital Copyright Act as a
reflexive attempt to keep up by lawmakers who don't understand anything
about what they are trying to regulate.  Sort of like grabbing one of the
tribe from _The Gods Must Be Crazy_ and putting them in charge of the
Northern Virginia Highway System.

>from a 500-passenger flying wing

It's not a flying wing, but Airbus's new 525 seater just flew yesterday
with no problems.  4 hour flight.

>to an anti-aircraft flying buzz-saw,

Exploding shells and guided missiles work better on modern planes...though
the "Frisbee with razor blades" is a frequent concept among younger
conceptual weapon designers... ;-)

-- Mike B.
--
It's better to be an optimist and a fool, than a pessimist and right.