• Ech
    link
    fedilink
    English
    12110 months ago

    They saw the invention of air travel and space travel within 70 years. As far as they were concerned, nothing was too extraordinary.

    • JJROKCZ
      link
      4110 months ago

      Really was a marvelous run, too bad we just kinda quit shortly after we got to the nearest solar body. We send drones for recon to mars and asteroids and deep space now but haven’t made huge leaps in some time.

      The promised lunar bases and Martian colonies are so far out still… the Jovian colonies/shipyards are still pure sci-fi dreams at this point

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    8910 months ago

    Make no mistake, that is the future that we were entitled to, but which was stolen from us by capitalists and despots.

    The old sci-fi writers weren’t wrong in their aspirations for us, we were wrong for letting our futures be taken away from us.

    • @abbotsbury
      link
      4610 months ago

      They thought automation would drastically reduce the amount of work someone needs to do to survive, instead of just increasing corporate profit and leading to layoffs.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        43
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        and it should have reduced the work as predicted

        The only reason we aren’t approaching Star Trek utopia is because of the unchecked greed fostered by our systems of capitalism.

        There is no reason that, in a world of finite necessary work, increased automation shouldn’t have freed us from the constraints of some of that work.

        The fact that it hasn’t isn’t indictment of automation, it’s indictment of unchecked capitalism.

        • VindictiveJudge
          link
          English
          2610 months ago

          Star Trek’s utopia came after economic collapse and a third World War, in that order. So we actually seem to be on track so far.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            3
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            I mean, sure, valid, but I am specifically speaking of the end state and don’t personally believe that is the only pathway there, though I do fear much the same as many of us that it might be the most likely.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              110 months ago

              At this point war and revolution is probably the only way forward. How else do we get rid of things like capitalism and nationalism?

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                110 months ago

                Real talk, aside from walking into a voting booth every few years, what actual real world effort have you put into changing the world and system?

                Because I’m gonna be honest, I hear this defeatist sentiment a lot, and it’s almost always from people taking other’s word on the matter, not from the people who are out on the ground enacting real change every day.

                Change isn’t impossible, it’s just hard. You just have to ask yourself if you care enough to put in the effort or if you’re just waiting for revolution because it’s the easy answer.

                • @[email protected]
                  link
                  fedilink
                  -110 months ago

                  I actually used to attend protests, meetings, try and convince people to join back when I was part of a marxist organization. From my perspective all the people on the ground wanted a revolution. I think if you actually looked you would find plenty of people like this. I left for several reasons, including not agreeing with the actions of Leninists in the past, but also because I couldn’t sustain the required time and energy to the cause.

                  What do you do to create change? What is your plan? I don’t have a plan anymore, perhaps because I don’t know enough. I am not sure it’s even possible.

                  I am not suggesting I have all of the anwsers. I actually think there is a good chance things won’t work out even after a revolution or civil war (see the soviet union for example). I don’t think it’s realistic to expect anything to change without one though. Almost all great leaps forward and changes in regime through history has been through violence and war. This didn’t always improve things either.

                  Revolution isn’t an easy answer at all. It seems impossible from my perspective no matter how much I try to tell people it might be necessary. Actually convincing people is extremely hard work and that’s just the start. There are plenty of cases where revolution didn’t work, and plenty of revolutionary ideologies to battle it out. None of this is simple and easy. It might be our only shot though, if we have a shot at all which I doubt very much. Honestly though I think if we do nothing things will collapse eventually anyway. The worst option is things become stagnant and stuck.

          • The Stoned Hacker
            link
            210 months ago

            as horrible as it will to live through that (as many of us may), one can only hope

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            110 months ago

            I think if you peer behind the curtain of that utopia, I see the shadowy outline of an authoritarian government controlling it all. And Star Fleet is the iron fist in the velvet glove. The utopia seems to exist to simply keep the masses fat, happy, and controllable.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          410 months ago

          Yep. Kill your masters, or youre killing yourself (and also literally every other living thing becauae climate change)

          There is no third option. I mean, you could ask shitty Jeff to give it all up and srop, just fucking stop, and be an aging beach himbo and fuckerberg to just run a cringe mma gym and maybe contribute to an obscure Linux GUI a couple times a year. But they won’t. Don’t think they can.

    • @Jimmyeatsausage
      link
      1810 months ago

      I wish we were exploring space more!

      The monkey paw curls. We get entitled pricks, destroying labor protections to build so much wealth they’ve bought everything worth owning on the planet and still yearn for more.

      I wish we had robots to do our work!

      Another finger curls. Wealth inequality cripples the working class. Corporations consolidate to the point that everything is profit driven… locked behind paywalls or subscriptions. The only publicly available art and literature are made by robots.

      I wish we could all communicate with each other!

      The last finger curls, and paw crumbles to dust. Democracies around the world flounder as their populations are brainwashed by greedy CEOs in the news and media…taught to fear their neighbors and mistrust those politicians who haven’t been bought and paid for. Online, they’re bombarded by misinformation campaigns on every topic until they live in different realities. Diseases and pestilence once vanquished through science and cooperation return when science isn’t trusted and cooperation with your fellow citizens is viewed as betrayal to your tribe. The world now burns, and it, too, crumbles to dust.

      This timeline sucks, yo.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          310 months ago

          Yeah, that’s knowledge available to you for 12.99 per month, or if you prepay for the whole year, only 129.99!

        • @frunch
          link
          610 months ago

          Oooh oooh do conservatism next!!! It’s gotta be something along the lines of “nothing but jacking off, usually in seclusion with other men since 1848” I’m sure you’ve got something spicier in store though

        • @CultHero
          link
          410 months ago

          You don’t even realize you’re evil and that’s the sadist part.

    • @the_grass_trainer
      link
      810 months ago

      Excuse you, i was a child when all of that was happening 😭

      • naticus
        link
        English
        710 months ago

        Hey everyone, this child fucked it up for us all!

    • @Dkarma
      link
      710 months ago

      Let’s look at which legislators have held progress back since we landed on the moon and it’s almost exclusively one party…

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        1310 months ago

        Facts. “Both parties” might definitely suck, but the scale and scope to which that suck remains entirely non-comparable. The democrats are incompetent and ineffective, yes, but the republicans are openly and enormously diabolical and hostile.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        3
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        No. One is worse. This does not absolve the other.

        Fight the worst bastards, but if you only fight them to the bosom of the less awful but still very awful bastards? Youre not winning. Youre not even surviving long.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        -210 months ago

        Democrats would rather lose to Republicans than risk a third party gaining traction. Make no mistake, there’s a mustache-twirling villain capitalist party, and a “I swear I’m trying, please vote for me on this most important election evar” capitalist party.

        Our most recent chance at lasting real change was the rail strike. Before that it was Bernie Sanders. They’re doing it on purpose and playing leftists for fools.

        • @Hoomod
          link
          7
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          This both sides are the same shit is so old now

          If you truly can’t tell the difference between them, I don’t know what will help you now.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            2
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            They’re different, but they’re good friends at the end of the day. One wants to kill me, the other doesn’t care and wants to make their friends happy. I die either way.

            They’re not the same, but they aren’t trying to be different.

            If the dems wanted to win, there would have been a primary, and anyone but biden on the ballot. They care more about perpetuating genocide and sucking billionaire dick than they do about stopping fascism at home, and they’re not willing to risk the former ending to do the latter.

  • @quinkin
    link
    7110 months ago

    It is the distant future of the year 2024. Our intrepid hero uses her pocket computer to argue that the world is flat.

  • @Anticorp
    link
    English
    57
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    I enjoyed how in Foundation novels they had mathematics that could predict the outcome of the future, had intergalactic travel, had personal shields, and a bunch of other fancy shit, but they were still using tapes to record information.

    For those of you born after, or near the turn of the century, you don’t understand how magical the year 2000 was. It was a completely different eon, and seemed so futuristic. Conan O’Brien had a whole gig about In the Year 2000. The term “2000” was used to indicate something was fancy, or ultimate, or high-tech. 2000 was the future, and therefore amazing. We did have a sense of optimism though, that is nowhere to be found nowadays.

    • The Picard ManeuverOPM
      link
      2510 months ago

      I loved it when he would continue to do it after the year 2000 had passed, without changing the format.

      • @Anticorp
        link
        English
        1210 months ago

        I still use 2000 like I did in the 90’s, which produces some really confused reactions from younger people.

      • @FordBeeblebrox
        link
        710 months ago

        Didn’t they switch to 3000 at some point? Feel like I remember Andy saying it

        • The Picard ManeuverOPM
          link
          410 months ago

          That sounds familiar. I don’t recall if it was a one time bit or recurring though.

          • @FordBeeblebrox
            link
            310 months ago

            Looks like it was recurring for a bit, I remember the hat move and trying to say “three thousand” with a frozen mouth after eating a bowl of ice cream is difficult

      • @Num10ck
        link
        English
        310 months ago

        so 2000 late

    • @cm0002
      link
      1510 months ago

      Tbf, we still do use tape to record information. For archival, magnetic tape is still far and away the undisputed king of high density storage. We’ve got single tape cartridges in the 60TB range.

      They just completely suck for regular access so they’re limited to archival only

      • This is fine🔥🐶☕🔥
        link
        510 months ago

        So it kind of works in the Foundation universe because tapes are used for messages. Basically email but in audio format.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      610 months ago

      I remember the show “Beyond 2000” or that 2020 was going to be this magical date that all things happened in.

      • @Anticorp
        link
        English
        4
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        Absolutely. It was the fuuuutuurre!

        • @jaybone
          link
          310 months ago

          What, you chumps don’t have flying cars? Psh later.

          zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

    • @samus12345
      link
      English
      510 months ago

      Or in old sci-fi books and movies when astronauts would be furiously writing calculations for navigation. Computers took most sci-fi authors by surprise.

    • @Shard
      link
      310 months ago

      Dracula 2000.

      I rest my case.

  • Diplomjodler
    link
    5210 months ago

    And here we are with people who think the gubberment made the eclipse happen.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    5210 months ago

    I’m actually super mad at the stagnation in the way of life.

    The first manned flight was 1903, Apollo 11 was in 1969. I’m still going to work by chasing an exploding machine on four round dinosaurs, the same way someone in 1969 would. I still get hungry and homeless the same way someone in 1969 would. I have an 8 hour, five day work week just like someone in 1969 did.

    This is bullshit.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      1810 months ago

      Almost like slave societies do not innovate, they just add slaves.

      If you want cool new gadgets; kill your masters.

    • The Menemen!
      link
      1410 months ago

      On the othet hand you have a super computer in your pocket.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          310 months ago

          On the other hand having a supercomputer in your pocket is a direct example of one way we’ve made huge leaps in technology since 1969, directly countering the original premise of stagnation.

    • @problematicPanther
      link
      610 months ago

      first successful manned powered flight was in 1903. People have been killing themselves by strapping into gliders for centuries. there was also that French guy who flew in a hot air balloon in the 1800s.

      Also, fuck the wright brothers.

        • @problematicPanther
          link
          410 months ago

          they were patent trolls, essentially. tried to patent the entire concept of an airplane, and tried to sue Curtiss over him creating a plane that actually didn’t use the technology they had patented.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            310 months ago

            Wait, really? I heard that what happened is they’d decided to be sneaky by patenting the control system for a heavier-than-air flying machine since they couldn’t patent the idea of the machine itself. Do you have sources I can research?

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            310 months ago

            Oh right, gotcha. I think I’ve read somewhere that they were pushed into suing by other outside influences, and that at least one of the brothers was opposed to suing at all, but that very well may have been from a whitewashed source. Either way, fuck patent trolls

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        410 months ago

        The question is if it’a for the better or for the worse.

        I think both, and we need laws to protect us from the worse.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      410 months ago

      Don’t you think that Commander Ryker had to get up and wade through all the paperwork, reports, and meetings every day for 8 hours, (plus mandatory OT), before he could get to screwing his way across that galaxy?

    • @jj4211
      link
      210 months ago

      Within your example, at least your four cylinders aren’t spewing lead and smog into your lungs and is massively more efficient. If someone runs a red in front of you, you are much more likely to survive. It can go much longer without any overhaul or tune up. You aren’t having to regularly manually adjust your valves. When you panic brake, you no longer have to pump your brakes. Your car is adjusting breaking to motivate roll over by vectoring brakes too. For other people, they have cars that can largely drive themselves, avoid combusting any gasoline at all, and are more likely to avoid some accidents altogether with automatic emergency braking.

      Going outside that, you have pervasive data connectivity, cheap high definition 100" screens, watches that would put the computers of 1969 to shame, a massively improved prognosis for many diseases notably including a whole bunch of cancers, brain implants that help Parkinson’s patients have better motor control. Air conditioning is much more likely to be available, affordable, and effective.

      Different areas have certain difficulty curves, basically moving a car is constrained by physics, the heavier than air flight and rocketry similarly have physics challenges that reared their heads quickly. Massive medical, computing, electronics, and connectivity have happened over the last 50 years, as well as a huge number of other advances I’m not thinking about. We have a number of issues that we haven’t fixed, or really can’t be fixed by tech.

  • @Blue_Morpho
    link
    4310 months ago

    And yet somehow the lead character smokes cigarettes.

      • @Blue_Morpho
        link
        1010 months ago

        Doesn’t everyone vape now?

        Cigarettes are as last century today as snuff boxes were to 1950’s authors.

        • JJROKCZ
          link
          710 months ago

          It’s certainly far more popular among the youth than traditional smoking but there are plenty of cigarettes being sold still.

          • @jaybone
            link
            410 months ago

            I’m a dinosaur and I like my cigarettes. I’m waiting for them to get banned altogether and I’ll have to grow my own tobacco :(

            • JJROKCZ
              link
              410 months ago

              Honestly it would be a fuck load better for your health to grow, hang dry, cut, and roll your own vs buying the literal poison from PhillipMorris. The tobacco itself isn’t good by any means but the real threat to your health is the additives not the plant

              • @jaybone
                link
                210 months ago

                I feel it’s the additives I would miss most. Not sure if or how I could recreate those.

    • @LeadEyes
      link
      510 months ago

      The uniform that both men and women wear in the movie are cut to show off the amazing fisique of the female lead but the cut is totally working on the male lead also.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    3710 months ago

    And then there’s Dune: it’s the year 40’000 (or something) and mankind is fighting a religious war in the desert over natural resources. Haha!

    • @orrk
      link
      2210 months ago

      to be fair, even the Dune universe had the human golden age, before the whole AI wars happened

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        210 months ago

        I’ve actively avoided reading the Brian Herbert stuff because I tried to read a Kevin J. Anderson book once and it nearly gave me an aneurysm.

        • @TrueStoryBob
          link
          1
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          The Brian Herbert books aren’t bad, but don’t go into them thinking that the writing will be the same as his father. I’ve read a few of them through the anti AI Jihad timeline. They’re not terrible but they feel a little rushed compared to Frank’s writing… not “we need to get these out for the sake of the IP” like how Disney is just printing Marvel movies, but more like “meh, it could be better, but that’s as good as we’re gonna get it for now, just publish it.”

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    3410 months ago

    Idiocracy sadly was the only futuristic story to get it right. Wall-ee probably a pretty safe bet too. At this point, any “blue future” sci-fi writers still out there are disillusioned dreamers.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      13
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      ‘Ministry of the future’ wasnt bad, by a typically Utopian writer. Parts of it felt plausible.

      • @baropithecus
        link
        110 months ago

        I haven’t read Ministry, but I’m not sure I’d call KSR a utopian. Aurora was some pretty bleak shit. (Great book though)

    • @Belastend
      link
      110 months ago

      Nah, idiocracy is weirdly eugenic drivel.

  • deweydecibel
    link
    English
    34
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    The Jetsons:

    George Jetson went to work everyday at Spacely Sprockets and pushed a button. A single button. That was his whole job. The whole businesses was automated to the point George did not have to do anything except sit and press the button.

    And he made enough money in that job to support a family of 4 in a nice house, as the sole bread winner.

    Imagine that: A future where the benefits of automation technology are not solely for the wealthy and business owners. Automation and AI making people’s jobs easier, instead of simply replacing them. Businesses that employ people to do jobs that could be automated, but don’t, because people need living wages regardless of how easy the work has become.

    • @JimVanDeventer
      link
      2410 months ago

      There was a joke I remember in the episode they bought Rosie, their maid-bot: Jane said she was exhausted by all the cooking and cleaning while simply pressing two buttons that said “cooking” and “cleaning”.

      I also enjoy the conspiracy theory that Jetsons and Flintstones exist at the same time, but Jetsons are upper class and live in cities above the nuclear rubble, and mutant, talking, dinosaur adjacent monsters below.

      • @Fredselfish
        link
        610 months ago

        The Jetsons meets the Flintstones proves that. I own dvd and remember it when I was kid. Apparently Leroy invited a time machine but he really didn’t its just telporter to surface.

          • @Fredselfish
            link
            210 months ago

            He called it a time machine but I like the idea that he and his parents just didn’t realize it isn’t.

        • The Menemen!
          link
          310 months ago

          Fuck. Now I have that “meet the flintstones” song stuck in my head and have to rethink my childhood media consumption at the same time.

      • @TrueStoryBob
        link
        110 months ago

        Thinking about it now… Rosie the Robot was presented to the viewer as a being that was basically sentient and fully self aware. In fact, she could and did fall in love at one point. Like… the family owned her. She was a possession. Was that slavery? Is the future depicted in “The Jetsons” a slave based one?

    • The Picard ManeuverOPM
      link
      1310 months ago

      UBI is starting to sound more and more appealing as AI technology has surged.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        1110 months ago

        Tbh, it was appealing to me the first time I heard of it. Its the most seamless way to transition from modern work society to post work society. It still has the same culture and incentive structure of what worked for society before, but removes the NEED to work in order to simply live

    • @disguy_ovahea
      link
      810 months ago

      Who’s to say there wasn’t a working class supporting their comfortable lifestyle, living on the ground, beneath the cloud-covered hi-rises?

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        110 months ago

        No. They don’t deserve it and I will die in filth and poverty before I let someone have something they don’t deserve!

        Except billionaires. They get everything and deserve less than nothing.

    • @son_named_bort
      link
      310 months ago

      The Jetsons lived in an apartment and George kept getting fired for stupid reasons. That very much resembles modern life where a lot of people can’t afford a house and have no job security.

    • @Landless2029
      link
      1610 months ago

      We could actually make flying cars. It’s just not sustainable.

      What’s missing is that garbage disposal food processor the Doc had for fuel conversion.

        • @problematicPanther
          link
          110 months ago

          and small planes. They aren’t all that expensive actually. I could buy a good used plane for less than half of what I would spend on a fancy italian sportscar of that same model year.

          Planes also are built to last, so you can keep it for decades without it showing much age.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      310 months ago

      Thank fuck. Those are a terrible idea in like every way.

      Also, we used them a lot in the attempted colonization of Vietnam?

  • @jordanlund
    link
    18
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    Back to the Future 2 is set 30 years in the future… in 2015.

    Blade Runner was set in 2019.

  • @radicalautonomy
    link
    1710 months ago

    They had such high hopes for the future of humanity, but their selfish-ass boomer kids ruined the fucking planet.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    1510 months ago

    it’s 2030, the world is notching but hurricanes abd forest fires, also we got 1 guy on mars

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      1010 months ago

      we got one guy on mars

      And he’s not coming back. We abandoned the program. Last food delivery gets to him in three years; after that its nothing.

      Also, most people alive are survivors of sharknadoes, zombie fire, and desert oceans.