Not A Blog™

This is an incredibly dangerous article to write. Eventually—perhaps in as little as fifty year’s time—it will be proven wrong, and everyone will laugh at me. (Including me.) Until that happens, however, I think it makes for a good rant.

I noticed the other day that there are a few things which are always representative of The Future. In fact, many of these things transcend the time period in which they were introduced: that is to say, a hundred years ago, people were imagining these things happening. Now, it’s a hundred years later, we’re still making science fiction, and we still imagine the future with these same things! In fact, many of these things are technologically feasible today, right now, and yet we’re not using them. Despite not using them now, we continue building future worlds in which we think these things represent the future.

I can’t help but wonder why this is. It makes me think that even if we are reaching some kind of technological singularity, we would still have science fiction because it would just be stuff that we don’t use in real life, even though we could actually be doing it if we wanted to. This means that there must be some other reason besides “technology” that’s preventing this stuff from taking hold.

I’ve compiled a few of these things into one list. I don’t intend to show that this stuff will never happen. Rather, I intend to explore why they’re not happening already, in the case that they’re technically feasible; and if we can’t do these things with current technology, what sort of problems we’ll have to solve when we get there.

The Video Phone
First seen in: Dick Tracy comics, circa 1930
Recently seen in: Star Trek

The video phone was around in the 1960’s—then known as the Picturephone—and it was offered to the public in 1970. It bombed. Twenty years later, AT&T offered the VideoPhone. It bombed. Currently, Videophone technology over regular analogue phone lines is being offered in Italy. It’s still bombing.

Part of the Videophone’s ongoing Hindenburg Syndrome is due to the fact that there’s really no reason to get one unless the people you’re calling have one, too. They’re not going to buy one until you get one, either, and so everyone just continues along with regular everyone’s- already-got-one phone, and the video phone never quite takes off. Additionally, video phones are more expensive compared to regular phones, while doing more or less the same thing. Plus, they introduce a myriad of other problems into two-way communications.

First of all, if the camera is even slightly off-center from the screen, when you look at the other person’s picture, you simultaneously look away from them on the camera. This is really awkward and—to me, anyway—it just makes it look like the person is paying even less attention than if you were just hearing them. There’s also the issue of having to appear nice on the video, whereas on the phone you can be naked and no one has to know.

But what it really comes down to (and, in fact, this is a reaccuring theme in all of these technologies), is that regular phones are good enough. I’ve already talked about how low-quality video and low-quality printers are good enough for most people most of the time. Regular phones are also good enough. (Personally, I can’t stand regular phones, but I don’t know if a video phone would make it any better. I’ve never used one, although I’ve seen them being used by other people.) Until video technology becomes so cheap and ubiquitous that it’s just there and it just works and no one really has to bother with it, then it might start to be used. Both regular cell phones having cameras and Apple including an iSight in the frame of their laptop screens is a step in this direction—but until the cameras are everywhere, it probably won’t really be adopted outside of specialized environments.

It’s also not going to be used on mobile devices like watches or cell phones. The reason? People aren’t cameramen. Imagine talking to your friend on your tiny phone screen. Suddenly they say, “oh, hang on” and the picture goes on a vomit-inducing camera ride as the phone is whipped around, flipped upside down, now there’s a shot of their crotch for three seconds, and a sudden whip-pan back up almost knocking into some other guy’s elbow and your friend’s face is back! Every time someone has to do something, the picture is going to be destroyed. In order to keep the picture usable, you have to walk around with your hand held out, camera pointing in the right direction. It’s way more of a hassle than it’s worth, and no one is going to put up with being a human tripod—or being the guy on the receiving end to watch the world go trippy every time someone needs to open a door. Easier to just not have the video rolling in the first place.

The Athletic Interface
First seen in: Metropolis (1927)
Recently seen in: The Minority Report

I hate that this won’t die. It goes against everything people stand for: laziness. I just read an article about it a few weeks ago. Some scientist was saying how, as we have more information to organize, we’re going to need bigger interfaces, and bigger interfaces are going to require bigger gestures. (?) Yes, as we get more information, we’ll need more effective ways of organizing that information, but that comes from graphic design, not (foremost) more screen real estate.

It doesn’t matter. People are not going to sit at their jobs for eight hours a day waving their arms around. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. People are going to adapt technology that allows them to move less. As I type this article, when I need to make little corrections to things, I move the cursor using the touchpad right below my thumbs. It’s not as easy to use as a mouse, but for quick zipping around the screen, it’s preferable because I don’t have to move my arm all the way over to the mouse and back. In the mid-90’s, when IBM came out with the dot-pointer in the middle of the keyboard, it was panned by critics. They hated it. And yet, computer users loved it. Why? Because you don’t have to move your hands anywhere to move the mouse around. Wintel laptops today often ship with both a trackpad and a dot, giving people as many options as possible to not move their hands.

Well, that’s not going to change in the future just because the future is futuristic. With all the talk about brain computer interfaces, we’re going to end up thinking our way through a computer before we move our entire body to operate it. Even if this doesn’t happen, the mouse/touchpad/dot all have an innate advantage over the gesture-face which is: they don’t go wonky when you move your hand to scratch your nose.

The Flying Car (Also: the Suspended Tram)
Originally seen in: Popular Mechanics (1951)
Recently seen in: Popular Mechanics (2005)

This is not future technology. This is a disaster waiting to happen. People can’t drive properly with cars that go in two dimensions. Adding a third will just flummox them beyond cranial capacity.

If you think about it, allowing people to drive at all is pretty ridiculous. First, you’re giving people a tank of gas, and all the explosive power contained therein. Then you let them propel themselves upwards of 60mph (twice that, illegally), and… that’s it. That’s the way our world works. Despite having thousands of people die every year in car accidents, we think it’s more likely we’ll tie in a terrorist attack unless everyone’s hand soap is confiscated.

Why don’t we curtail the driving that already exists? Well, that’s a simple answer: because without the widespread use of automobiles in the United States, the economy would collapse. We don’t have the public transportation infrastructure in place the way Europe does; we’re largely too far apart to ride bikes or walk everywhere; and so the use of cars must continue.

But flying cars solve a problem that doesn’t really exist: not being able to drive somewhere. Sure, when you’re stuck in a traffic jam and an hour late, it would be nice to have a flying car. But aside from that convenience of flying, there’s no real need for it. Maybe we would travel further and faster, but that’s a step we haven’t yet taken. In the same way that the economy was still working back in the hores-and-buggy era before cars expanded us across the country, so too will our economy continue to work in the absence of the additional speed and distance capabilities that personal flying transportation offers.

Not to mention, it’s really inefficient in terms of energy expenditure. Even though the technology is there (and, in certain cases, a legitimate need), it’s really expensive. It’s a lot more expensive than just taking an airliner. Until the day when flying cars are more or less automated; they have their own section of air space; and they can go somewhere without it costing 3 gallons to the mile, then we might start to see them around. Until then, everyone will fly the commercial skies—or drive.

The Mile High Skyscraper
Originally seen: The Illinois designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (1956) (Although it was implied earlier in Metropolis, again, not to mention countless other pulps from the era.)
Recently seen: The Fifth Element (implied)

While the Burj Dubai aspires to half this height, no one has yet seriously considered building this tall of a skyscraper. Arguably, The Illinois could have been built with contemporary 1950’s technology. Practically, it would have been absurdly expensive. In fact, skyscrapers continue to be absurdly expensive, which is probably why none of them have reached a mile high, yet. Even in places where space is at a premium we have failed to see anything even remotely approach this height. Dubai is mostly doing it to show off.

More importantly, the mile high skyscraper probably won’t materialize in any particular area of the world until real estate costs for a series of smaller buildings exceeds what it would cost to buy one piece of land and put a really tall building there with an equivalent amount of space. Otherwise, what’s the point? The point could be to show off—in which case Dubai might still take the honor—but as a whole, we’re not going to have futuristic cities with giant buildings until there’s not any less expensive land to expand out to. The mile high skyscraper isn’t any sort of trend or representation of the future, it’s just a hassle.

Meal in a Pill
Originally seen in: The Jetsons (1956) (Although probably early that than this; I just can’t think of any specific examples.)
Recently seen in: Okay, so I can’t think of a recent example.

I’m going to go ahead and argue that, even if it’s not portrayed in popular media as a literal meal in a pill, the idea is still considered the wave of the future. The only difference is that the concept has morphed into something more—um—palatable, so to speak.

There are two things which point to the trend of eating more without all the hassle of actually eating more. The first is the powerbar—a disgusting concoction of protein and carbs that may, on occasion, taste somewhat similar to a cheap knock-off of imitation chocolate and/or peanut butter. The thing is, though, they seriously are like a meal in a pill. If you’ve ever eaten one, you know they seem to expand in your stomach until you feel like you’ve actually eaten too much food, never mind that you only took five bites of this brown lumpy thing.

The second thing that is somewhat akin to the meal-in-a-pill are multivitamins. Here are pills that have so much of any nutrient you can think of (and many more you can’t), that you shouldn’t even eat more of that nutrient at any of your other meals because then you’ve exceeded your recommended daily allowance. This is incredibly stupid. You can’t eat anything else, even though you’re really hungry because you never actually, you know, ate anything. And yet, despite this mess, people still take them thinking about how much better their health will be—or how much worse it would be if they weren’t taking it. Here you have an entire industry built on people not knowing that too much of a necessary thing turns it into a bad thing.

But aside from all that—and aside from the fact that pills just aren’t appetizing in the least—there’s the issue of poor digestion. Food provides your body with stuff: raw materials to form a lattice with which to move waste out. It’s not just a matter of moving nutrients into the body. You also have to get the crap out. Pill food doesn’t do this because it doesn’t provide enough substance to help move the bad things out. Unless you’re a fan of perpetual diarrhea, you’re going to want to be eating actual things on occasion.

Time Travel
Originally seen in: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895)
Recently seen in: Star Trek (again).

According to various theories of physics, time travel isn’t really impossible. It might be. Or it might be possible provided you do it way out in the middle of nowhere and utilize a worm-hole. No one really knows.

But despite what people don’t know, there is one thing they do know, but continually overlook. I can’t figure out if this is willful ignorance—that people just ignore this inconvenient truth in order that they can keep telling their time travel stories—or if they actually don’t realize that this is somewhat of a problem. Either way, it’s pretty sad no one who does time travel seems to have considered this.

The Earth isn’t stationary, people.

If you’re doing time travel on Earth, you’re going to end up most certainly not on Earth when you hit that switch. Depending on how far you travel in time, you’re going to be at least few million miles away from the Earth. That’s not cool. (Although it does prevent the “killing your own father” paradox.)

But occasionally time travel is postulated as happening way out in space. That’s still feasible, right? It’s certainly more likely, I’ll give you that. But as to whether or not it’s feasible—and forget about actually doing the traveling through time, I’m talking about where you’ll end up—I’m going to go out on a limb and still say no.

You see, the solar system isn’t stationary, either. It orbits the galactic center at about 486,000 miles per hour. So even if you figured out where the Earth would be in relation to the sun after you made your jump, it still wouldn’t be there, because the entire solar system would have moved on.

But even if you take that into account, you’re still not done because, don’t forget, the entire universe is still expanding. We don’t even have a number to attach to this one. Just realize that, wherever you start your excellent time travel adventure, you’re going to end up in the middle of nowhere. If you’re going from nowhere to nowhere, as a space ship might, time travel could conceivably work. But the universe still isn’t going to hand Earth to you on a silver platter. You’re going to need to go hunting for it after you make that jump.

These are the thing which define our perpetual future. Even when we can actually do them, we don’t due to expense, inconvenience and comfort. There won’t come a day when these things happen—at least not without solve a few problems first, and that has nothing to do with weather or not the technology actually works. This isn’t the future; it’s other people’s version of what they think they want in the future, but actually don’t.

-Ted