Dude, where's my jetpack?

[Martinus]

So, this is a somewhat fanciful thread, inspired by my annoyance at the freezing weather outside.

With the technological progress going on around, what are the inventions that you think scientists should have figured out by now but there is none of that in sight?

I will start:
- weather control
- cure for cancer

[Eddie Teach]

- cure for cancer

We should get on that, +1 happiness in every city. 

[Martinus]

- cure for cancer

We should get on that, +1 happiness in every city. 

Yeah, no kidding. It's as if we went deep into one leg of the tech-tree, beelining for "HD in-cloud porn on a handheld device" wonder and neglected all else.

[Josquius]

Weather control we do kind of have right? Cloud seeding and all that does work, its just not worth it and causes dodgy side effects. I think. Not sure at all.
Really should read up more about that.

Maybe widespread feeder reactors? Nuclear paranoia has really retarded us heavily in nuclear technology

I remember reading a cool article on how mid 20th century sci-fi got things so wrong. One quote sticks in my mind- they expected an energy revolution, they got an information revolution. Really is weird how in so many ways we're nowhere near as advanced as they thought but we're lightyears ahead in so many ways.

[Neil]

Weather control?  We call that climate change.

[Warspite]

It's important we get to Future Technology 1 quickly, so we can start racking up the extra civilisation scores.

[Ideologue]

They make jetpacks.  Go buy a jetpack.

The thing about flying cars is also somewhat overstated, I think, as well--there are thousands of helicopters manufactured and sold every year, and have been since like 1951, and are readily available to the public, albeit expensively.  They're just onerous to "drive" and are highly regulated, which is precisely what you'd expect a flying vehicle to be.

[Ideologue]

I think the thing that annoys me most is the freezing or even expansion of the work week, despite enormous productivity gains (and related technological unemployment).  You'd think we'd be down to 32 hours a week by now.

[Neil]

I think the thing that annoys me most is the freezing or even expansion of the work week, despite enormous productivity gains (and related technological unemployment).  You'd think we'd be down to 32 hours a week by now.

Maybe if people were willing to continue on with their low quality of life.  People work as much, but get more out of it.