To wonder why futurists are so often wrong?

[LaudCodec]

And by futurists, I mean people trying to predict the future.

Even highly educated people in their field get it wrong a lot of the time.

This partly influenced by the AI thread. Lots of interesting and thought provoking stuff.

But why don’t we have flying cars, and rocket boots, and a permanent space station on the Moon?

What factors are there they can’t accurately predict and which affect what seems like the logical next step?

I think a lot is almost right but decades premature (?)

Making predictions based on technology is one easy thing to do. What most people making predictions don't do is factor in cost, particularly competing costs. Take a moon base. IT would have been really easy to have one at the end of the space race, but it would have cost trillions. Getting people to the moon cost about 15% of the US GDP each year. Continuing sending people and spending even more to keep them there was technologically, but not politically possible. Particularly with the Vietnam war in full swing, the money was needed elsewhere. It was hard to justify continued spending on the moon when, really, it's not that interesting.

Flying cars could also have been developed. But they would have greater fuel costs, require far more training and infrastructure (imagine the air traffic control requirements) etc. New safety regulations would be needed. To what effect?

Brilliant idea for a thread.

On the subject of flying cars, I am not an engineer, but I would imagine they "could" theoretically be manufactured especially now. I think the main issue is probably safety, as jet fuel is far more volatile, and how would one manage the infrastructure to accommodate them? Piloting a car would also require much more intensive training than regular driving. And the transition from ordinary cars to flying cars would take a long time, and likely be prohibitively expensive.

Would there have to be car "airports" or just a take off / landing point at the end of each road? It's actually fascinating to contemplate....

Similarly rocket boots - too much scope for chaos....

As for space station on the moon - that's a whole other can of worms 😁