Customer Reviews

Your Flying Car Awaits: Robot Butlers, Lunar Vacations, and Other Dead-Wrong Predictions of the Twentieth Century

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This breezy survey of over-enthusiastic predictions utilizes a certain number of cheap shots - the hyperbole of ad copy and the fanciful speculation every age indulges in - but many other ideas were seriously imagined at the time, even researched.

Some - like the electric car a century ago - were within reach until derailed by market forces or public inertia. An automated highway system was actually set up in 1997 as a demonstration project and proved it could handle twice as much traffic as the normal chaos. Safer too. Funding was cancelled, however. Too expensive.

Some predictions - the much-vaunted fleet of dirigibles - were vanquished by history or politics. After the fiery crash of the Hindenburg dirigible construction everywhere was abandoned - despite the fact that volatile hydrogen was only used in the Hindenburg because the US banned the sale of much-safer helium to Nazi Germany.

Other pipe dreams we simply haven't been able to achieve - the miracle of cold fusion, for one, a cure for the common cold. The paperless office and the five-day weekend.

Milo touches on dreams like the automated home, the underwater home, the global language, the personal helicopter, synthetic food and much, much more. Those of a certain age will remember and smile at many of these pipedreams - in some cases amazed at how close we've come. Younger readers will be amused at our delusions as they continue to assume technology can cure just about anything, given a little more time.

I've lived long enough to remember reading and hearing about the kinds of futurology Milo discusses in his book. I've also wondered why the U.S., at least, has strayed so far from these visions of a radically different and arguably better society.

Apparently, according to Milo, a lot of those ideas would either not work in practice, like using nuclear explosives for mining and civil engineering; or they face harder challenges than we first thought, like a cure for aging; or else they run up against the fact that societies have homeostatic mechanisms which tend to suppress extremes from long term norms, like a lot of the lifestyle experimentation propagandized in the 1960's. Biological human nature plays a role in this conservatism as well. For example, I came of age in the allegedly swinging 1970's, yet I've never met anyone who acknowledged to me that he or she lived in a polyamorous household like the ones Robert Rimmer, Robert Heinlein and F.M. Esfandiary promoted in the 1960's and 1970's, though some of them engage in other kinds of sexual bohemianism.

Milo could have written a better book if he had looked to other countries for glimpses of what some now call the paleo-future. The French live in a version of it, with their pervasive use of nuclear power, bullet trains, universal health coverage and lengthy mandated vacations. And China shows signs of becoming another paleo-future country with its massive new infrastructure, a manned space program (while the U.S. cancels the Space Shuttle with no successor technology to put people in orbit) and efforts to solve problems in artificial intelligence and radical life extension which Western scientists have given up on or object to morally.

Perhaps the American people have stopped believing in "the future" as a symbol of progress. Our tendency towards short-range thinking -- a high time preference for consumption, no backup planning for emergencies, no personal savings, etc. -- certainly does point in that direction. We shouldn't despise a society which does well enough, but we should also consider the costs of living below our potential as envisioned by 20th Century "futurists."

Paul Milo's "Your Flying Car Awaits: Robot Butlers, Lunar Vacations, and Other Dead-Wrong Predictions of the Twentieth Century," published in 2009, bears a good deal of thematic resemblance to a book that came out in 2007: "Where's My Jetpack? A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Arrived" by Daniel H. Wilson. But the newer book is the superior one.

While Wilson focuses solely on over-optimistic technological prognostications, Milo tackles much broader themes and explores them in far greater depth. The former aims primarily for the funny bone, usually referring to popular movies and TV series, but the latter seriously considers the many reasons that experts anticipated such rapid changes, both positive and negative, and the reasons these expectations were so hard to fulfill. He quotes scientists, historians, politicians, business leaders, and other people whose opinions were once so respected. In addition to technology, he addresses medical, ecological, social, political, domestic, and international predictions, and concludes with a chapter on those that actually came true. Finally, "Flying Car" is a much more substantial book at over 300 unillustrated pages, whereas "Jetpack" has less than 200 pages, only 125 of which have any print on them, the rest being filled with cheesy cartoon clip-art. (It is amusing, though.)

Here are only some of the many topics that "Your Flying Car Awaits" takes on: childbirth, cloning, diseases, transplants, life span, ESP, drugs, genetic engineering, cars that drive themselves, flying cars (as advertised), hypersonic planes, overpopulation, water supplies, climate, lunar colonies, space tourism, war in space, nuclear power, weather control, nuclear fusion, animal communication, cities, household appliances, communications, labor, leisure, education, the family unit, fashion, mind control, eugenics, war, world government, political parties, and the end of the world.

It's unfortunate that several Amazon reviewers have given low ratings to this fine book as a result of their own political biases or because they evidently did not bother to read it. It does lack an index, which would have been useful, but is so full of interesting ideas that I can't bear to downgrade it just for that. If you enjoy a wide-ranging, thought-provoking discussion of the past and want to appreciate the difficulties inherent in speculating about the future, this makes an excellent read. It will help to engender a healthy skepticism for the perennially overblown announcements from corporations, academics, and governments about developments coming "right around the corner." The next time you hear such shiny promises, you'll be less likely to salivate with anticipation or rush out to invest in the latest technology, and you'll be more likely to say, with a shrug, "I'm not holding my breath!"

Your Flying Car Awaits is my favorite read for 2010,and I hope I can reread it in 2020 for some good laughs and embarrassed nostalgia for all the things I thought would happen but still haven't. Paul Milo appeared on a Wisconsin Public Radio talk show - - otherwise I might not have heard of the book. It's a scholarly, well written and researched little book without footnotes or pedantry. Milo also gives credit to those writers whose predictions need to be taken seriously. If you are into science fiction, utopian literature, and remember the dire predictions and ecstatic dreams of wonders to come, you will love this book. Milo is witty and up to date on predictions and assumptions that just weren't right. It's fun to compare the movies and political harrangues of the past and see how many were dead wrong - - fortunately. As a theologian, I loved the final review of what might have been, "The World Will End . . . Pretty Soon." I'm still saving up for my electric car anyway.

Mr. Milo mixes his perfect dose of good-natured humor with equal parts scientific fact and historical events. The book, while covering a wide array of topics from space travel to human lifespan, gives the right amount of attention to each chapter to keep you up to speed, but not too bogged down with unneccessary facts which your average reader may not care about or understand. It's the perfect balance of funny and interesting, and I was eager to get to the next chapter to read the author's opinions on past predictions. It was written so well that I was able to imagine myself in the past, trying to think of how the present and future would be. Very well-written and definitely though-provoking. It's a must-read for anyone from age 12-212! :)

This book is incredibly lightweight. It is nothing more than a collection of trivia -- a hundred or so failed predictions, almost all of them described in "Look! How silly was that!?" style. Which is very disappointing, because it could have been much more.

Paul Milo spends very little effort explaining why this or that prediction had failed, and nowhere does he attempt to see why it seemed plausible at the time, to serious and educated people. Fewer examples, but more in-depth analysis of how social trends change or reverse with time, might have shown a reader how to avoid making similar howlers about future yet to come. Had Paul Milo been an intellectual lightweight incapable of in-depth analysis, I would accept the book as just what it is -- a collection of amusing trivia. However, I had listened to NPR interview with Milo, where he demonstrated that he CAN do such analysis; that 10 minute interview held more explanation WHY experts are often wrong, than the entire book does. After listening to the interview I concluded that Milo was either lazy, or thought sensationalism sells better than serious discussion. Neither is flattering.

Sheer amount of facts is the only reason I am giving this book 2 stars rather than 1.

Growing up in the 1960s was exciting because of all the bold projections for what the future would hold for us. Within the next couple of decades, we were promised that we could honeymoon in space, zip from continent to continent in a matter of minutes, and live to be 200 or more. Obviously something went wrong somewhere.

Paul Milo's fascinating book examines predictions and prognostications made during the early to mid twentieth century, analyzes the thinking behind the people who made them, and summarizes where the thinking went wrong or where things got off track. Sometimes the predictors were just overly enthusiastic, like the many who thought we'd have moon colonies and be making Mars expeditions by now. Other times cooler heads prevailed, as with the fortunate realization that using nuclear bombs to dig canals and build highways through the Amazon rainforest wasn't such a good idea. And sometimes things didn't work out the way the predictors thought because of unforeseen developments, like the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The book is scholarly and detailed but has a lighthearted, witty tone that makes it a delight to read. Although I'm still a little disappointed that I won't be able to take a vacation on the Moon, nevertheless its exciting to realize just how much really has changed in the world and how much better off most of us are because of those changes.

Reading this book reminded me of 40+ years of reading Popular Science magazine. Every issue seemed to breathlessly review "new" products that would change our world. It didn't take long to realize that few would ever come to pass.

Overall a fun read, light and entertaining.

Finally, someone writes the definitive book debunking all these so-called experts predictions for the future. Hey, any book that reminds us of Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb nonsense that was shoved down our throats in the '70s in high school deserves a gold star.

I didn't believe that hogwash then basically because whenever I traveled I saw reams and reams of empty space even in so-called overcrowded nations like India and Japan. This is why this book deserves your attention--it debunks all these crazy notions people had for the future and also does it in a fine, fair and entertaining writing style.

the book is also broken up intro short of short chapters within chapters so it's easy top absorb the science or technology in short bursts (not that it's an overly technical book). It's also super up-to-date with even the current US real estate meltdown mentioned.

Just a sheer joy for anyone who loves the wild and wacky future we all were supposed to be living with our flying cars, robot chefs and domed cities.

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I picked up this book with high hopes, which were quickly dashed.

Milo has merely cataloged a lot of predictions from various sources, then says they haven't been fulfilled and, in a few cases, attempts to explain why.

Unfortunately Milo apparently didn't do a lot of research. His recitation of facts is often wrong, incomplete or, surprisingly for a book of this kind, larded with political propaganda. I think the last is the result of inadvertence in that Milo himself doesn't realize that he perceives as his knowledge is politically skewed. In other words, he has been indoctrinated and doesn't know it. A more rigorous scholar and researcher might not fall into that trap.

One example of this is Milo's recounting of the United States' achievement in putting men on the Moon in 1969 and shortly beyond. Milo then tries to explain why predictions of the time of space travel, colonies, etc. didn't pan out. Milo correctly points out that the space program was hugely expensive, but fails to even mention that Lyndon Johnson's Great Society welfare programs and his constantly expanding war in Vietnam were sucking up all the dollars in the economy. Instead he offers a comparison with the Spanish colonial exploitation of South America which is partially correct until, as if he is driven to be politically correct, lurches into a diversion on the importation of African black slaves into South America. In other words, Milo was doing okay until he inexplicably throws in cant.

Unfortunately, Milo employs this kind of false explanation throughout the book. When he undertakes a chapter on why global government hasn't come into being, it all becomes far too much to endure. Milo not only commits major sins in reporting established historical fact, but overlays it with what amounts to nothing more than political sloganeering.

Finally, a small criticism: imagine a book of this nature without a single illustration. As it happens, there have been prototypes of flying cars which were successful. You would think that they would at least license one for use as cover illustration. Nope. Not there or anywhere. Some of the fanciful artwork that accompanied the original predictions remains striking today, perhaps even more so than at the time of original publication.

In sum, the idea behind the book is terrific, the kind of thing many people would be interested and fascinated by.

The treatment here is superficial, often inaccurate and frequently marred by political nostrums that should have no place in this kind of work.

If you'd like an overview of the predictations made for out time 50 or more years ago, the book has some value. But approach Milo's explanations with a great deal of caution.

Jerry