Trent Ruble's Blog: The Other Way It Is - Posts Tagged "change"

In my opinion, the most rapid and dramatic change to our society occurred between 1880 and 1900. While there have been many great advancements before and since, there has not been a time that so radically changed our lifestyle and landscape as the late 19th century. There were many catalysts in this revolution but the primary instruments of change were in the fields of energy, especially electricity, and transportation. Unless we're in a very remote location, it's likely we can see the influence of these 100-year-old innovations everyday, all day long. Think lights, electronics, cars, roads, bridges, airplanes, etc...

Of course, peering into the other direction is much more cloudy. When I was young, the idea of "futuristic" involved a Dick Tracy wristwatch, video telephones and flying cars. None of these things seemed remotely possible in my mind but were common in science fiction and my futuristic day dreams. Now we're on the verge of having all three.

The first of these to become possible was the video telephone, which was actually introduced in the 1930s ( TV Tropes ). This means that, technically, they were in existence throughout my childhood. Even so, no one I knew had a video phone. The problem was that, even if someone was to obtain one of these modern marvels, no one else had one which meant there wasn't anyone to call. Another drawback was the perception that users must be presentable at all times in case an unexpected call would come at an inopportune time. Now, programs such as Facetime and Skype have made video telecommunications commonplace. Evidently, people have overcome the threat to their vanity.



In 1946 Chester Gould introduced the two-way radio watch to his famous comic strip hero, "Dick Tracy," and then upgraded it to a two-way TV watch in 1964 (Dick Tracy and American Culture: Morality and Mythology, Text and Context, by Garyn G. Roberts) thus sparking the fascination of millions of kids everywhere. Now, with Fitbit and Apple Watch, this once novel idea is also commonplace.

But, the flying car has eluded us. That is until now. I'd always imagined the flying car would operate on an electomagnetic cushion much like Luke Skywalker's does in the 1977 Star Wars film, A New Hope. Instead, the first flying cars are going to resemble over-sized drones like the hover bike pictured below. And, they will soon be everywhere! The FAA and/or the NHTSA will be hard-pressed to keep up with this technology as there will soon be vehicles flying in every direction, speed and altitude. I can see many mid-air collisions in our future. In any event, this will change our society more drastically than what occurred in 1900.

A "hover bike" being tested by the Dubai Police

So, what do we envision today when looking to the future? I think genetic engineering and artificial intelligence are prominent in the short term, as well as their scary repercussions. In the far future we may travel faster than light as we explore the galaxy. However it turns out, the future promises to be very different than today. It's too bad we'll never see the end of this ever evolving story. This is going to be like walking out half-way through a good movie. Nobody does that.