What Future?
What's next?
We as a society have already passed our big dates. Our big goals for the future; those dates upon which we set for ourselves to be able to look back and see progress and change.
The dates I speak of would be the years 1984, and more obviously the year 2000. For some reason, perhaps some Orwell induced forsight, we saw 1984 as being a turning point date. I can't really say what we expected to happen at that point, but I do know that up until the 80s that's all anyone could talk about. How do I know this? Besides Orwell's book, I just skimmed a Playboy from 1963 and there's an article in it about the way the world will be in 1984. (I didn't read it yet, as there were more important articles to skim upon first 'reading')
As far as what we got out of 1984....hmmm, in hindsight, maybe the best Van Halen album ever. Other than that we were still trying for that big technology. After all, cell phones at the time were actually the size of suitcases.
Now the year 2000. That's where it really started to come together. Not everything flashy was quite ready at that exact moment, but now we met our date and we have credit card-sized wireless cell phone, wireless connectivity around the world from every home (internet), DVDs, GPS, we can speak with a vocabulary of emoticons, we cure bad eyesight with lasers, we've got spy-gadget-type everyday items like phones with cameras, electric/hybrid cars actually drive on the roads, auto design (which has always been deemed a yard stick upon which we gauge our progress) has finally lost the hard boxy edges of the 80s and stepped into the lozenge inspired designs of the sleek and silver. (reference Chrysler Crossfire, Audi TT, Chevy retro-futuristic truck thingy) Nice.
Sure we're missing flying cars, but that was a bad idea anyway. Why? Next time you're driving the highway and you see a broken down car on the side of the road, picture it breaking down while it was airborne. Yep, that trailer park chick with the beat-up flying Ford Escort didn't keep up with her scheduled maintenence. Now they're trying to retrieve her wreckage with a construction crew because the impact through that house she landed on put her atleast 30 feet underground.
Yep...no flying cars. We're morons, we'd fuck it up.
But now what? Our big turning point dates came and went. We made it a point to achieve certain technologies in time to pat ourselves on the backs when we pop the cork on our landmark dates, but where do we go from there? No one ever looked beyond the year 2000. Hell, Conan O'Brien is still looking towards the year 2000. But as a people, we don't have anything we're working towards now.
I suppose a great blogger would set that next date, or predict the next round of technological conveniences, or even point readers towards a source that could.
Nah. Not me, I don't need that kind of responsibility. I'm too busy snapping pictures of my watch with my kick-ass camera phone.
We as a society have already passed our big dates. Our big goals for the future; those dates upon which we set for ourselves to be able to look back and see progress and change.
The dates I speak of would be the years 1984, and more obviously the year 2000. For some reason, perhaps some Orwell induced forsight, we saw 1984 as being a turning point date. I can't really say what we expected to happen at that point, but I do know that up until the 80s that's all anyone could talk about. How do I know this? Besides Orwell's book, I just skimmed a Playboy from 1963 and there's an article in it about the way the world will be in 1984. (I didn't read it yet, as there were more important articles to skim upon first 'reading')
As far as what we got out of 1984....hmmm, in hindsight, maybe the best Van Halen album ever. Other than that we were still trying for that big technology. After all, cell phones at the time were actually the size of suitcases.
Now the year 2000. That's where it really started to come together. Not everything flashy was quite ready at that exact moment, but now we met our date and we have credit card-sized wireless cell phone, wireless connectivity around the world from every home (internet), DVDs, GPS, we can speak with a vocabulary of emoticons, we cure bad eyesight with lasers, we've got spy-gadget-type everyday items like phones with cameras, electric/hybrid cars actually drive on the roads, auto design (which has always been deemed a yard stick upon which we gauge our progress) has finally lost the hard boxy edges of the 80s and stepped into the lozenge inspired designs of the sleek and silver. (reference Chrysler Crossfire, Audi TT, Chevy retro-futuristic truck thingy) Nice.
Sure we're missing flying cars, but that was a bad idea anyway. Why? Next time you're driving the highway and you see a broken down car on the side of the road, picture it breaking down while it was airborne. Yep, that trailer park chick with the beat-up flying Ford Escort didn't keep up with her scheduled maintenence. Now they're trying to retrieve her wreckage with a construction crew because the impact through that house she landed on put her atleast 30 feet underground.
Yep...no flying cars. We're morons, we'd fuck it up.
But now what? Our big turning point dates came and went. We made it a point to achieve certain technologies in time to pat ourselves on the backs when we pop the cork on our landmark dates, but where do we go from there? No one ever looked beyond the year 2000. Hell, Conan O'Brien is still looking towards the year 2000. But as a people, we don't have anything we're working towards now.
I suppose a great blogger would set that next date, or predict the next round of technological conveniences, or even point readers towards a source that could.
Nah. Not me, I don't need that kind of responsibility. I'm too busy snapping pictures of my watch with my kick-ass camera phone.
posted by Charles Junk at 2:05 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home