Every day, frustrated people around the globe wonder via sarcastic t-shirt whatever happened to the future we were promised as children. A future in which everyone flies their hovercar to a four-hour workday at the cybermines, breaking off only to pop a protein pill and hop a transport tube to the exercise pods. After all, the iPhone is kind of like a Star Trek communicator (especially this iPhone) and some of those giant glass underwater hotels they’re building in Dubai rival Heinlein on a good day. But what about the rest? Our jetpacks, robots and laser guns? Were they just sweet fiction, the hollow promises of a society longing for the comfort and freedom of a spandex unitard?
Sadly, no. The disappointing truth is that the futuristic devices we’ve demanded for so long are already here. Just different … and kind of shitty. It’s like when you order something at Denny’s based on the picture on the menu, but when the food comes out it looks like a pile of phlegm smothered in gravy. Behold: the future (in phlegm and gravy form)!
As Seen In: Star Wars, Barbarella, Alien, Farscape, Dune, Doctor Who, anywhere lightsabers are unavailable.
What We Were Promised: There’s nothing more passé than eating food. We’ve been doing it for thousands of years now, and it’s time to move on. Soon enough, the only people shoveling food into their mouths will be out-of-touch Neanderthals watching tumbleweeds roll by at the abandoned food court. Meanwhile, the rest of us will be popping protein pills by the handful, saving us enough time to read books describing how stuff used to taste back in the primitive days.
The Pale Imitation: Tiny cans of ass-flavored soda, nutrition bars that virtually demand to be eaten four at a sitting, and the addition of the word “energy” to the front of nearly every food product imaginable. And while the food is getting smaller, it’s a long way from pill size. In the meantime, instead of focusing on cramming all that goodness into a single dot, food companies have taken to making shitty-tasting versions of all their regular foods.
As Seen In: Metropolis, Caves of Steel, Minority Report, Futurama
The Pale Imitation: The Segway. It moves you around at about walking speed, and instead of costing the government billions of dollars to install moving sidewalk technology all across the country, it costs rich douchebags a few thousand dollars to graphically point out that they are, in fact, rich douchebags (who shop at The Sharper Image no less). And in case you can’t afford a Segway, or don’t want to be seen riding one, you can get a taste of the future at nearly any major airport. That 100-yard segment of moving sidewalk is just long enough to let you slip into a daydream about shuttling effortlessly from place to place, but not long enough to let you actually enjoy it.
What We Were Promised: Health, beauty, strength, longevity, and, in some cases, immortality. Whether you rubbed it on your skin, ingested it, prayed to it, soaked in it, or shot it directly into your eyeball, it keeps you alive longer and that makes it all worth while. After all, you’re going to want as many good years as possible battling the zombie plague that has overrun the scorched and desolate Earth. Even better, unlike the medicines of today, futurejuice has no unsightly or painful side effects (unless you count the crushing loneliness of watching everyone you know and love perish while you live on).
The Pale Imitation: The secret to eternal youth has been sought since before Ponce De Leon stumbled around the swamp half a millennium ago, and we’re sad to report the search hasn’t progressed much since then. Of course, modern society’s got plenty of youth-restoring technologies: plastic surgery, miracle cream, a machine that will electrocute your stomach for hours on end (so that you don’t have to!). But what we were promised was something as easy as downing a restorative elixir or soaking up some healing rays, not getting our boobs injected with ass fat. And while scientific studies have shown that there is a method that can increase lifespan up to 50% in lab rats and chimps, it turns out that method happens to be a strict calorie-reduced diet and intense exercise regiment. What a rip.
As Seen In: Demolition Man, The 13th Floor, Tron, The Matrix, Lawnmower Man.
What We Were Promised: Cars. That fly. Is it that difficult a concept? It’s not like we’re asking for a fishing pole that fits in our pocket, or a television capable of cooking a brisket (although that would be nice). We’ve got flying things, we’ve got cars. Some simple arithmetic yields screaming streaks of red and chrome cavorting overhead at Mach speed. Or dozens of fatal mid-air collisions a day. You know, whichever.
The Pale Imitation: If you’re sick of waiting around with nothing but a private helicopter to satisfy your hovercar fantasies, then you’ve got two options. Either you can pony up half a million bucks to reserve one of the world’s leading brand of flying car, the Moller (may we suggest selling your private helicopter?), or you can look for cheaper alternatives. The Moller is, in all actuality, a car that flies. Downsides are the fact that they’ve been in production since the 1960’s and aren’t yet on the market, and the aforementioned half a mil. The cheaper alternative, the hovercraft, gives you all the rush of a flying car, just a few feet off the ground! Plus they mostly come in neon day-glo, and you get to wear a snazzy life vest!
As Seen In: A.I., Star Wars, Lost in Space, Futurama, Terminator.
The Pale Imitation: Nearly every category of robot has been produced, with resoundingly disappointing results. Instead of Rosie the feisty robot maid, we get Roomba, the vacuum that roams around your house running into walls. Not enough, you say? If you really want the full robot maid experience, go for a Japanese robot toilet as well. At least that’s one function we’re pretty sure the Jetson family didn’t get. The robot pet angle has been laughably covered by Tamagatchis and Aibo, one of which dies if you go 10 minutes without feeding it, and the other of which moves like your dog’s got some sort of horrifying bone disease. Sexbots? Real dolls. Robot factory workers? Illegal immigrants. Cyborgs? A guy who implanted a device in his hand that lets him unlock the door to his house (we assume the laser cannon arm is forthcoming). Everywhere you turn, a lackluster robot is waiting to confront you with its lack of functionality and dead eyes. Looks like the uprising’s a ways off.
What We Were Promised: What better way to use all these vacuum tubes and ray guns than the formation of a pan-global mishmash of human cultures and customs? Politics, race relations and language barriers will finally be blended into a monotonous gray paste, for better or (just as often) worse. Combining all of the world’s countries into one monolithic mega-state not only presents a united front to alien invaders and cuts out all the hassle of a transparent government responsible to the people, it also saves the future’s map and flag makers countless hours of work.As Seen In: Brave New World, Star Trek, Blade Runner, Logan’s Run.
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