You were lied to about the future as a kid.

[Luna 831 466]

We were lied to about the future as a kid. I watched a tv show called the jetsons . I thought the future was going to be like that. But instead it is 2014 and we still live in a dark and gloomy world .I think the past was better.

[Snow Frostflame 3,568]

personally I wish time would stand still 2014 is probably my favorite year in life so far and as for the futuristic stuff you were promised as a kid may not happen in your life time maybe when your very old depending how young you are

[Codelyy 1,286]

I guess that's what a lot of people thought the world would be like years ago but we are still a lot more advanced now then we were back then, We have more tech and we know more about are world and space but it's just not the future everyone was thinking it was going to be like with flying cars and such.

[Luna 831 466]

I disagree we have all this technology. But it is also what is dumbing our society down.

[Miles 2,512]

Sorry it's not in HD, but, just deal with the 480p and humor me here...

 

 

Despite skepticism, the overall idea seems better than other proposed high speed train plans out there.  I think the future you see in the Jetsons is closer than it appears.

[Jeric 46,858]

 

 

We were lied to about the future as a kid. I watched a tv show called the jetsons . I thought the future was going to be like that. But instead it is 2014 and we still live in a dark and gloomy world .I think the past was better.

 

I have an African American neighbor who may find issue with a broad statement like that.

 

I don't know about the Jetsons. My wife sleepwalks ... and I would be a nervous wreck living in that fictional world.

[Nulln 755]

They actually do have hovercrafts and all that fancy future stuff.  it's just too expensive for anyone to afford.

[Professor Annabella 330]

Well we haven't reached 2015... We still have time to make these:

 

[Hovershy 3,814]

Well we haven't reached 2015... We still have time to make these:

 

 

You beat me to it!

 

 

I was just about to post this. 

 

 

We better have these by next year 

Edited August 12, 2014 by Hovershy

[ReverseFaller 2,484]

I think we live in a decent enough time period. I'd pick my current life over one spent in medieval Europe, or ancient China. I personally enjoy electricity, and the internet. I don't think I could live without all of the modern day conveniences. 

[TenorSounds 832]

We were lied to about the future as a kid. I watched a tv show called the jetsons . I thought the future was going to be like that. But instead it is 2014 and we still live in a dark and gloomy world .I think the past was better.

 

You most likely have a supercomputer in your pocket, called a "Smart Phone" that anyone 20 years ago would think comes straight out of Star-Trek. It's all a matter of perspective.

[Jadefire 2,797]

Ah, nostalgia filter. Back when beating your wife not only was socially acceptable but actually encouraged, the internet didn't exist, being a poor person was pretty much a death sentence,  and all those great world wars killing millions upon millions of people to keep you on your toes. Those were good times.

[NotoriousSMALL 1,984]

psh are you kidding me? Ugh, there was one of those old cartoons where this doctor guy had this thing that was basically an ipad. But I can't remember it for the life of me!

[Sanctified Absence 126]

If I'm perfectly honest this might be the best it's going to be for a while. The next few centuries are either going to be really good, or really bad, mostly depending on how resources and the technology based off them goes really.

[Luna 831 466]

Technology we have alot of it . But it is dumbing society.

[Shanks 10,816]

I disagree we have all this technology. But it is also what is dumbing our society down.

Not necessarily, technology is being misused there is no doubt about it but I think society would be every bit as stupid and dumbed down even without things like smart phones or the internet. If anything the internet is humanities greatest savior, for the first time ever there is an alternate media to counteract the mainstream media. There is some BS there too but it is actually bringing attention to a lot of critical issues that would otherwise not get attention, it is the biggest thing in granting humanity knowledge and equaling the playing field since the invention of the printing press. 

Edited August 13, 2014 by EarthbendingProdigy

[I used to be a stranger 7,994]

We think we'll find our wonderful selves in the future, but we keep bringing our present selves along in the search, tainting the reality.

 

The principal reason why the present looks different from past imaginings of [this time] is because their imaginations are driven by artistic interpretation and drama. As Alfred Hitchcock said, "What is drama, but life with all the boring bits cut out?".

 

If we had reality -minus the boring arduousness and +creativity par-infinite, then absolutely right now we'd have flying cities, electric turbo-trains that transport grain from Mexico to Somalia, hoverboards, weather control and directed-sunlight space stations.

 

However our reality is currently grounded in practical application, economical scale, margins of safety and ecological constraint. Spaceships for the next two hundred years are only going to be as-big-as-they-need-to-be, and not a micron larger.

Underwater cities, giant anything (other than factories and warehouses) and hovercars are never going to happen.

Wide-scale adoption of the fantastic would probably cost an Amazon rainforest or three, so it will get protested to heck and back before it leaves the drawing board.

 

It's not as much we were lied to, as much as we as children believed in miracles. Miracles do happen, but it is not because of the conscious effort of people or society.

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,162]

Yes, I was lied to.

 

I was told the world would've been destroyed by now. I was led to believe that we would be inundated with floods, parts of America would disappear, we would be experienced civilization-ending famine, volcanoes would erupt without end, tsunamis would kill millions, etc.

 

Seriously, all these fuckin' doomsday shows on the History Channel can kiss my ass. I see hope for the future and good times ahead.

 

Ugh, it still pisses me off to this day...that stuff scared me to death as a kid...

[Banul 3,831]

In Back to the Future Part 2, the year 2015 is full of flying cars and cloths that fit themselves to you. When I was a kid I thought all that stuff would totally be here by now. I was convinced that the first flying car would exist the moment it was the year 2000.

 

 

Well, it's not 2015 yet. There's still time!

[RockinRarity 1,605]

A musician who I like on Facebook asked her followers one day if people preferred today's technology or if they preferred analogue technology from a couple of decades ago.

 

The number of people commenting on Facebook about their preference for analogue astounded me.

 

Partly because, of course, these people fail to see the irony of their posts. It's like how a while ago it was popular to tell everyone how terrible social media was for society... using social media to spread awareness of that viewpoint. I mean seriously, does no one see how stupid that is?

 

But it also astounded me because I just can't imagine ever going back in time, before cell phones, before laptops, before high-speed Internet, before Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome, before Netflix, before Amazon MP3 and iTunes, before Pandora and Spotify... are these people saying that the world is a better place when we don't have this technology? Just because some people like to glue their eyes to it? Just because parents don't know how to teach their kids moderation or because adults don't know how to practice self-control? Just because something may have negative effects, it doesn't mean that the notion of its existence is evil or somehow worse than the way it used to be.

 

Because what about when cable news stations will not report on certain stories? If CNN and Fox News aren't going to report something that people should know about, does that doom the rest of us from ever finding out about it or spreading awareness? No! Because we have the power to go on Facebook and share the story and spread awareness.

 

I have an example from my personal life. A young woman from a church group that a group of people that I associate with was on her way to World Youth Day from Mexico to Brazil. Unfortunately, she had her passport stolen and she needed to be sent back to Mexico. But on top of that, drug smugglers switched the name tags from her luggage to one full of cocaine, and she was arrested immediately. In Mexico, you are basically guilty unless you can be proven innocent, so there was no mercy for her. Her friends from Mexico raised awareness of her situation and started a Twitter hashtag for people to beg to free her. The story got enough attention from the media, and she was let go from prison about a week later. If Facebook and Twitter did not exist, would she have been saved? I'm not so sure, but I know for a fact that because of those sites and the impact that social media has in our culture, she was indeed saved from false imprisonment.

 

So people who believe that the past is better - keep in mind that technology is simply a tool that people can use in their lives. It is neither good nor evil. But, these tools can be used for good, and they can be used for evil. They can also be used for neutral purposes. But that's all they are - tools. They don't make people impersonal, they don't make people say stupid shit, they don't make people do great things for others. Ultimately, it is still us who decides what we do with our lives, not the technology.

[Odyssey 5,717]

Personally, I'm pretty thankful with what we have at the moment. These days technology has helped us with things that would be otherwise impossible to do centuries ago, from spreading awareness on the Internet to using a map installed on your smartphone. Granted, there are some things that technology has affected us negativity such as Internet addiction, but I think people should be happy about how much technology has helped us these days. It's certainly better than living in an era where domestic violence is okay and being poor makes you the scum of the world, that's for sure.

[~Asuka <3~ 867]

I wasn't lied to as a kid.  I'd rather live in the present than in the past.  It's not all doom and gloom in the world today.  

[RockinRarity 1,605]

Also, for what it's worth, at some point in history, people were against words being written down.

 

Point is, there's always some people who are against changes in technology no matter how practical and useful technology changes are. Just because someone likes the past better, it doesn't mean that the future is bad. Especially since, at some point, the future becomes the past, and people will look on that past fondly when people used to look upon that same time period with fear.

 

Can you imagine 30 years from now people saying, "Back in my day we only had iPhones and iPads to keep us occupied! Now you kids have this new-fangled technology and I refuse to keep up with it!"

I wasn't lied to as a kid.  I'd rather live in the present than in the past.  It's not all doom and gloom in the world today.  

 

I, too, am a present-oriented person.

[Invincible 2,091]

If you compare our technology today to what we had 10 years ago, you'll find out that the rate new technology is researched and developed itself has increased. We, as a species, have a lot more to discover. Why not research what's out there instead of getting down over what you've been lied to about?

[CheeryFox 23,822]

We're a bit behind on technology these days. I don't think I was lied to though. The fact of the matter is, you need time. When you get a new computer, it's already considered old. We make strives throughout short intervals. The core of everything can last a lifetime, renewing of the sorts are built upon, and built upon, and built upon. Our aspirations far exceed our capabilities. That's good because it fuels more achievements down the road. 

 

If people depict a world of tomorrow on TV (fake or not), and that flying car with lasers never comes around - really whatever because, there was no guarantee.