Some things never change
Jan. 2nd, 2006 06:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lurkittyWhen I was younger, one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons was The Jetsons, hapless George and his wife Jane, boy Elroy and daughter Judy. With their flying car and their robot maid, Rosey, they lived in the sky in their posh apartment where George walked their dog, Astro on a conveyer belt. Unless you've been living on Gilligan's Island, you've probably seen an episode or two. Problem is, back in the 60's, we really thought we'd be getting flying cars by now. It's 2006, folks. Where the hell is my flying car?!?!!
Okay, flying cars notwithstanding, there are a few other things we thought would happen by now that aren't even close to being reality. Personal jetpacks would have been fun, but hardly practical. Even then we realized that the exhaust would burn your butt. Food cubes are another thing that most of us realized were doomed even back then. Why take away the pleasure of a meal? But we actually have something close: MRE's aren't much better.
Kind of thought, though, that infant mortality would have gone down by now. But last year, it managed to rise from 6.8 to 7.0. Even if this is a brief statistical blip, we've still got 2x the rate of deaths in Japan, Singapore, Sweden and Hong Kong.
And childbirth itself is still a risky business -- roughly 1 in 10,000 women die each year in the US from complications of childbirth and pregnancy.
You'd also have thought we would have automated hazardous working operations like mining. But I opened the news today to find that 13 miners are trapped in a coal mine in W. Va.
But, all in all, the future we have is a lot better that most of us predicted. We really thought that someone would have started a nuclear war by now. If I have to give up my flying car to live in a generally un-irradiated state, well, so be it.
Okay, flying cars notwithstanding, there are a few other things we thought would happen by now that aren't even close to being reality. Personal jetpacks would have been fun, but hardly practical. Even then we realized that the exhaust would burn your butt. Food cubes are another thing that most of us realized were doomed even back then. Why take away the pleasure of a meal? But we actually have something close: MRE's aren't much better.
Kind of thought, though, that infant mortality would have gone down by now. But last year, it managed to rise from 6.8 to 7.0. Even if this is a brief statistical blip, we've still got 2x the rate of deaths in Japan, Singapore, Sweden and Hong Kong.
And childbirth itself is still a risky business -- roughly 1 in 10,000 women die each year in the US from complications of childbirth and pregnancy.
You'd also have thought we would have automated hazardous working operations like mining. But I opened the news today to find that 13 miners are trapped in a coal mine in W. Va.
But, all in all, the future we have is a lot better that most of us predicted. We really thought that someone would have started a nuclear war by now. If I have to give up my flying car to live in a generally un-irradiated state, well, so be it.
