The Future We Didn't Get

[ecosophia]

There are times when I wonder why so many people seem so freaky these days, and then I remember this. 

This is the future we were supposed to get.  Two generations of Americans grew up being told that this was what they could expect, in newspaper ads like this one and in countless other venues. Next time you go for a walk or even look out the window, compare what you see to the image above, and measure the gap between them. The cognitive dissonance between the future we were told we were going to get and the one that's actually arrived is, I think, the single largest cause of the collective nervous breakdown unfolding around us right now. 

Comments

[stcathalexandria]

The Jetson’s cartoon was a regular part of my childhood TV viewing and we are nowhere close. Even Disney moved Future World part of the park away from “the future” to more a space themed rides place.

Did you see Elon Musk called for a carbon tax yesterday? People are freaking out it calling it a betrayal. He now probably wants to get into carbon capture technologies and the government told him no.

Working class people don’t seem as affected by this societal mental breakdown.

[ecosophia]

Working class people know there's no rosy future ahead; their standard of living has been plunging since the 1970s. It's only among the comfortable classes, who have been able to maintain their lifestyles by means of the policies that impoverished the working classes, who have been able to cling to the delusion this long.

[neptunesdolphins]

I couldn't relate to the Jetsons. I did not know anyone who had that lifestyle of stay at home wife, dog, husband in management, two kids. Everyone I knew worked - mothers and fathers, and children if they could. Poverty was our environment. My uncle was very proud when he became head rut cutter - i.e. installing rugs in people's homes. He was the closest to management we had.

[hearthspirit]

the funniest thing is, have you ever heard a Tesla? There are a lot of them where I live, and like all electric cars, they had to add a sound to them so people - especially blind pedestrians - can hear them coming because they don't have an engine sound.

The sound Tesla uses is the Jetson's flying car noise.

I picture all the drivers like the end of the 90's movie The Craft, with the one witch who abused her powers crazy, tied to a bed in a mental institution, just repeating "I'm flying! I'm flying! God has given me powers!" over and over again.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, I thought that was a theatrically "spacey" sound! We have several of those "flying saucer cars" in my apartment complex. They make that noise when in reverse gear.

That's from the Jetsons?? Too funny.

- Cicada Grove