January 09, 2007
Right Now He Ask
I stopped by Casper's to confirm the detail's of tonite's Drinking Right, and his next most recent post is a review of unfulfilled science fiction promises.
Some of his complaints are old hat. "Where's my flying car?" is a cliche on the order of "I want a pony." The tragic failure to achieve meaningful space travel resulted not from overly wild vision on the part of those who predicted, but lack of vision on the part of those who should have implemented it.
There are things worth discussing about some of his other points. Monoraiils are not widespread simply because they really aren't an improvement. There was another sort of science fiction attire he completeley ignored, that of the scantily clad female. Closest thing I've seen lately was a grotty old tranny in a haltertop at Mayfair Mall.
As for computers and robots, this is something science fiction, and for that matter many scientists, simply got wrong. Artificial intelligence was a gimmick consisting pretty much of a person in a metal costume. My computer isn't self-aware, but it is more powerful and compact than the old predictions, and rather than requiring a second mortgage, as did some I've read about, I pulled it out of an office park dumpster. As for having an anthropoid robot to wash our dishes, a better sensor suite and embedded controller in our under-the counter dishwasher will do just fine.
Oh, one more thing I almost forgot. We are undergoing an alien invasion. It's just not as interesting as science fiction predicted,
Posted by triticale at January 9, 2007 08:30 AM | TrackBack