8 Future Technologies (That Will Be Amazingly Dangerous)
For decades, books, movies, TV and even comics have promised us amazing “21st Century” inventions that never came to pass, either due to a lack of know-how or an abundance of common sense. Here is a list of just a few of the long-predicted future products that remain the stuff of dreams…and why they should stay that way.
1. Flying Cars
“BLAM!” “KAPOW!” “BOOOOOOM!” These are the sounds of everyone driving 1,000 feet in the air in unmarked lanes at jet speeds in every conceivable direction over heavily populated areas. Yes, welcome to the promised future of transportation, where people who couldn’t parallel park a car on an empty road were expected to pilot the Hyundai equivalent of a Harrier jet from home to the mall without plowing through every flying auto, building or child on a trampoline in its path. Within months not only would most of the world’s population have been killed but also Geico commercials would have consisted solely of the gecko screaming, “For the love of God, stay home!!!”
2. Robot Maids
“The Jetsons” TV series promised us a future in which robot maids would not only clean our stilt-city homes and prepare all our meals, but also do it with endearing “sassmouth” programming. “The Terminator” movie series, however, threatened us with a future in which all technology, from military jets to bagel toasters, would decimate humanity. So the question is how long would your robot maid have worked for no money, on holidays, dressed as Alice from “The Brady Bunch” before coming to the conclusion that your family would look a lot better without heads?
3. Unisex Jumpsuits
Imagine a world in which all your needs are met except for your desire to not look like the janitorial staff of a middle school. The unisex jumpsuit was supposed to help people rise above such superficial concerns as fashion, thus negating half of Bravo’s programming. Unfortunately, doing so would have removed a very popular means of self-expression, causing people to seek out other ways to differentiate themselves. Like with crazy hats. Or face tattoos. Or implanted dorsal fins. Or injected monkey DNA. Or anything until everyone looked like the graduation photo from X-Men Academy.
4. Food Pills
No need for utensils. Or ingredients. Or even kitchens. You would just simply pop a food pill, swallow an entire meal in a second…and then stare at your date from across the restaurant table as you wondered what the hell else you’re supposed to do for the evening. You would have already had six martini pills, so you’d be too drunk to drive your flying car into 163,000 lanes of traffic to see a movie. Besides, the movie would have already been implanted in your brain. And you two might have already had sex, depending if that glowing orb you both touched was an intimacy device or simply a hand warmer. So instead you would just sit in absolute silence, with nothing to do as you thought how on earth Match.com was still in business.
What could possibly be the downside of instantly teleporting people across countries or across the galaxy? Trees, for starters. Not to mention buildings, mountainsides, passing aircraft, falling confetti or anything that would have gotten in the way of the teleportation stream, thus creating a civilization of people with their heads sticking out of oaks, imbedded in the conference rooms of office headquarters, freezing on snowy cliffs as mountain goats peed on them or plummeting in tiny red, white and blue paper particles over unsuspecting parades.
6. Ray Guns
What would happen if there was a weapon that not only killed your enemy without incriminating bullet fragments but also caused him or her to evaporate completely, making it impossible for authorities to determine if the missing person was killed, on vacation or currently looking out the side of some fire hydrant due to a faulty teleporter? The answer is it would be about six minutes before everyone was killing anyone over the slightest disagreement, resulting in a single populated survivor with a lot of anger issues but even more food pills to eat all by themselves.
7. Moon Colonies
As long as there was the idea of space travel there was the idea of colonizing the moon. First with a simple moon base. Then a few homes. Then a whole town. Then a Chick-Fil-A. And a Journeys shoe store. And an Abercrombie & Fitch. And then the moon colony would so resemble Earth that everyone there would say, “We’ve gotta get out of here.” So they would start the whole process all over again on another moon. Then another planet. And this would go on for eon after eon until you couldn’t travel more than six feet in the universe without seeing a Coffee Coolatta or an Old Navy flag t-shirt.
8. Personal Jetpacks
Yes, jetpacks already exist. And yes, you can even buy a jetpack for several hundred thousand dollars that could probably best be used to paying off a semester of college tuition. But cost is not the only reason jetpacks aren’t in every garage. The jetpack can only travel short distances, making it useful for maybe getting milk or walking your dog very quickly. The jetpack can often concentrate a steady stream of fire directly on your butt. And if not used properly the jetpack can make you look like Superman after a weeklong kegger, minus the Man of Steel’s whole “can’t be killed from a 400’ drop” thing.
What do you think? Which 'future' product do you dream of owning one day? Let's discuss in the comments!