Fifty Years of the Jetsons | Hacker News Reader

Fifty Years of the Jetsons

blogs.smithsonianmag.com

60 pointsgruseom18 comments

What would the 2012 equivalent of The Jetsons be? How do we see "future people"?

The Jetsons was more cliche than prediction, playing up the average person's view of the future. Our version of that might be ultrathin (credit card) phones, fancy clothes, and pocket AI. You don't see nearly as many "world of tomorrow" concepts anymore, which might be telling by itself.

When I look at science fiction of the 60's, 80's/90's and 00's, I can usually identify three loose categories.

First you have the "techo-utopianism", as mentioned by the author. The structure of society is fundamentally different, a utopia that removes all traces of internal politics and war. The technology is dreams at best compared to anything they had in the day. Humans, and possibly earth, are the only real links back to the present day. Or you might have the alien race, often paralleling the future humans of other stories.

In the 80's and 90's you get a lot more cyberpunk. The utopia themes have disappeared, leaving more of a more realistic world of corporate greed and capitalism; often a dystopia instead of a utopia. Technology is usually more 'personal', effecting the everyday life of people. The story itself is often more personal, related to a person, and their experience of the world. People are much more 'human' then before. In other forms of science fiction, the aliens might be more human in their actions and technology.

The science fiction of late is more personal again. Technology is no longer the driving point of the story, but it is the interactions between people themselves that makes the story. In fact, the technology itself often has no form of scientific theory behind it. It's also much closer to reality, technology of the current day stretched to its limits by designers. If aliens are involved, they are usually used as the token bad guy, or simply another background plot piece like the technology; the stories are rarely about the aliens themselves.

So, I guess the answer to "How do we see future people" is "ourselves", for the most part. I must admit I'm not that versed in science fiction though, but this is what I have seen though my experiences.

I think it can be summed up as:

In the past we didn't know technology, but we knew people. In the Present we don't know people, we know technology.

I leave you with this example from shit_hn_says:

https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says/status/236755578901393408

I'd agree with the "How do we see future people" is "ourselves" statement. Look at the popular SciFi shows of the last few years. Namely Firefly and Battlestar Galactica. Both presented a future that was lived in, almost dirty. The content was about the characters and how they lived, not the shiny buttons they got to push.

This, I think, mirrors our own expectations of the future. We have more immediate access to amazing technology every day. We also realistically manage our expectations of future technology, making it harder to present the "future" with insanely advanced tech.

The creative content that does show "future" tech usually uses it as a MacGuffin. Namely, Terra Nova, Stargate, even Quantum Leap.

There are early examples, of course, like Philip K Dick. His books had a very strong focus on the experiences of the protagonist, and society itself. It's probably part of the reason over ten of his stories have been turned into films (even if some were just short stories).

"Look at the popular SciFi shows of the last few years. Namely Firefly and Battlestar Galactica. Both presented a future that was lived in, almost dirty."

Good point. One reason the first three Star Wars movies were so popular is that the places they showed looked "real". They looked reasonably lived in, solid places with actual inhabitants. The Falcon looked like my parents used station wagon.

It can go wrong, the Aliens movies always end up in a future that's positively filthy. Blade Runner, I think, sits just on the fithy side of the line. But future LA feels like a real "place".

My personal favorite vision of the future is the one presented in the Fifth Element loosely based on Valérian and Laureline. It's lived in, bustling, stylish (at various levels of fashion), shiny and bright where it counts, unfashionable where it should be and just dirty enough in the places that should be dirty. Small details, like the dirt Leeloo picks up when escaping the lab, add to this feeling of solidity. Popular culture is magnified to stand out amongst the crushing masses, and it seems like a place with endless nooks and crannies to explore. It's not utopian, but it's not dystopian. It feels like what the future would be like if it were the present...and somebody made a modern day adventure movie. It has an amazing tone.

It's amazing to me that more works haven't been created in that universe.

This is a great observation and something I haven't really seen put this way. It immediate reminded me of this graph

http://broadstuff.com/uploads/HypeCurve2008.JPG

I suspect it has something to do with the tremendous technological advances made post WWII. With "techology" being the curve. Or perhaps some more abstract thing on the curve.

I was musing on our 'future people' too! It's easy to see how kids back in 1962 and the context of the space race could imagine a Jetsons-esque future. (I'm still waiting for my jetpack). The concept of futurism is so fascinating - I'm picturing plenty of artificial intelligence, the dominance of nanotechnology, clean energy and finding new intelligent life in the universe.

Fascinating! 1961-2 was such a formative time, I look forward to following his Jetsons analysis. To put it in context of the times: The first human was sent into space, Kennedy vowed to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade, the first quasar was discovered at Mt Palomar California, people were building backyard fallout shelters in case of nuclear war, the first US rocket landed on the moon, the first American orbited the earth, the oral polio vaccine came into use, the first trans-Atlantic television signal was relayed, the US Airforce began investigating using lasers to intercept missiles...

I'm probably going to HN hell over this, but there's one aspect that isn't clear about Jetsons: http://anongallery.org/img/9/1/what-was-on-the-ground-in-the...

Every so often I try to discover how the flying car noise was made, or learn enough sound synthesis technique to recreate. No success so far, pointers and suggestions much welcomed.

It's amazing to me that despite having not seen an episode (or clip) of the show in years, on reading your comment I was still able to immediately hear that unmistakable "bubbling" engine sound in my head. Good luck in your search - that will be a fun effect to play with :)

I had a room mate who could reproduce the flying car noise with his mouth.

Always assumed the noise came from a person, recorded and looped.

I hadn't considered vocal origins, seems obvous in retrospect. Thank you

This should have more love on HackerNews - fascinating article.

Oddly enough, I let my kids watch this for the first time (on demand on TW) this morning. The only thing they really thought was interesting was how the kids dropped out of the car to go to school. My oldest said it looked really old, but I guess he was talking about the animation more than anything. For me, it was great to hear that theme song again and the cars bubbling around.

It's interesting to me to see things once deemed futuristic (in, say, movies, books, cartoons etc.) become reality years or decades later. I guess if you can think it, eventually someone can and will actually make it.

Judy. Hot.

Cogswell Cogs. Not.

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