Doctor Hall begins discussing the book “Where is My Flying Car” by telling us he grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. He told the audience that there were cartoons, books, etc. that had pictures of flying cars on them making everyone during that time-frame believe they would have flying cars in the future during their lifetime. The Jetsons was a vital cartoon that was hot during this timeframe that shaped a lot of the technology and ways of travelling while Dr. Hall was growing up. Dr. Hall got an airplane before writing his book to learn to fly it and see how difficult it was. He then went on a helicopter ride, which had the same number of seats and many of the same aspect as his airplane. He wondered why everyone didn’t use a helicopter, but it was much more expensive to use. Looking at the Jetsons, it predicted nearly everything about the future and the ways of travelling, but they didn’t predict that everyone would be able to have a flying car. Technology continued to have the ability to improve, but no one continued to follow through pursuing the idea of flying cars.
Traveling in the U.S.
In the United States, it was calculated that the average person travels 1.1 hours per day. This is much more than any other country, because we all have cars, and we don’t have many places that are strictly walking. There was another chart Dr. Hall pointed out that showed a helicopter was twice as valuable as having a car and that it was also the most valuable thing to have.
Why Don’t We Have Flying Cars?
The Industrial Revolution changed people’s lives dramatically. All we need to do is for the industrial revolution not to flatline, which will ultimately m8ake the price of a jet $30,000 instead of 3 million dollars because the productivity will become 100 times better. The average price of a flying car is $30,000. The Industrial Revolution flatline was ultimately the reason that we don’t have flying cars. Dr. Hall explains that we are aware that the Henry Adams curve was the aspect that killed the flying car, but what caused the Henry Adams curve to die? No one actually knows what caused the Henry Adams curve to die, but Dr. Hall believes it may have been regulation and liability exposure.
The Machiavelli Effect
The Machiavelli Effect is a set of traits, such as morality being disregarded and manipulative. The Machiavelli Effect affected people who were trying to build atomically precise machinery. Overall, the Machiavelli Effect affected lots of people and the potential flying vehicles.
Robots
One of the accurate predicted things from decades and decades ago was that robots would be in our lives today. Along with that, AI is also a large part of our daily lives now. I know that AI and robots help with a lot of things in our lives today that ultimately benefit us, but being a college student, I see everyday that AI is taken advantage of and used to do their homework, exams, essays, etc., which is not helping them learn. Sometimes AI is allowed in work, but most of the time, students use it when it is not permitted.
In 1968, the vision of what our lives will look like in 2001 is now doable by 2050 if we begin now with all of the needed technology and such.
My Opinion
Overall, I think the idea of flying cars is scary, unreliable, and is bound to cause many problems. While I understand the thought is interesting to want to get places 10 times faster, have sort of your own airplane in a sense, and have a much larger atmosphere to travel, I feel it is just a huge catastrophe waiting to happen. Although there is a much bigger space to travel with the air and the ground, I believe the number of wrecks will increase drastically. Whether there is a height level of air for one direction and another height for another direction, at some point each car will have to come down to the ground, which will cause many drastic wrecks. I think we as society are safer traveling on the ground in a car than in the air in a car. Maybe it is a good thing that flying cars haven’t been produced and available to society yet, although they were predicted to be available by now. While Dr. Hall believes we should be optimistic about technology and what our world could be like with possible advances, I agree to a certain extent. I know that our lives would be very different if we didn’t have the technology we have even today, but flying cars is a no for me.
Image Source
Gurstelle, William. “Dude, Where’s My (Flying) Car? Part 1 - Make:” Make, 11 Aug. 2009, makezine.com/article/home/fun-games/dude-wheres-my-flying-car-part-1/.