But to be really practical, the core problem with Jet Packs and other bold new inventions is that few companies are willing to fund research to meet a need without a viable market in place. Auto makers are happy to dole out incremental improvements to the combustion engine, even a hybrid engine (as long as it uses gas). But without even considering the kind of corporate scheming that dismantled the LA trolly system, the basic market forces that drive companies result in no jet packs until some _other_ company makes them and pays for the R&D. Dean Kamen is a good example of someone who breaks that rule, and sometimes suffers the consequences (e.g., the ban on Segways). But he’s a rare one.

The fact is, there would be no internet if the government hadn’t seeded the market. There would be no computers. And Google Earth wouldn’t exist if the gov’t hadn’t also seeded the public aerial imagery and computer graphics markets 20-30 years ago.

It’s not even a question of military initiatives. Free markets have simply proven themselves unable to take on big projects like that. It’s much cheaper for big pharma — who may put the most money into R&D of any major sector — to find new uses for Prozac instead of designing new drugs to better meet our needs.

The problem we face today more than ever is that corporations have so much control over how we spend our public funds, they can literally prevent us from taking on new big projects that might jeopardize their rackets. I have some more on the corporate angle and maybe how to fix it here if you’re interested.

Anyway, the other big change we’re dealing with may be more related to the gender dichotomy Ben mentioned. But it’s more subtle than that. It’s the fundamental optimization — Clarke’s aphorism on technology and magic mixed inextricably with Moore’s Law: All technology is destined to become invisible. All the most important technologies will simply work without us seeing them or even reflecting on how amazing they are.

And so we may not ever see the equivalent of Jet Packs, but we may simply want to know things and information will come to us; or want to build things, and assemblers will manufacture for us; or want to go places, and we will see ourselves virtually there — even high up in the air — and all without worrying about fuel feeds and the flammability of one’s ass…

So I think the thing people misunderstood about their Jet Pack fantasies was that it’s all about activation energy and energy wells, in chemical terms. Getting over the initial hump to do something big is very hard. And even then, everything tends to settle into local minima — the simplest and easiest ways we can imagine.

I would really like to see a study on the number of new trees (by species, region, etc.) needed to offset the rise in CO2. If it were something in the billions let’s say, that wouldn’t be so hard to do. Three trees for every American is about a billion trees. That may seem like it would be expensive, but consider that New York State has a tree planting program. You can buy 250 trees for $40, or 16 cents each. We could therefore plant 1,000,000,000 trees for $160 million. Much less than a day of war in Iraq.

There certainly are always unintended consequences, and so you don’t want to just run off and start dumping iron filings in the oceans without any study at all. On the other hand, refraining from acting also has unintended consequences. It seems like the perfect is the enemy of the good, you need a varied set of tools, and too much caution can sometimes be just as dangerous as too little.

I haven’t seen any realistic plan for cutting global CO2 emissions (or even levelling them out!) that doesn’t require a *big* investment in alternative energy, a *big* regulatory or market-driven reduction in usage, *and* some form of sequestration (which, you know, can include relatively noncontroversial stuff like growing more trees).

Matt, I too am concerned about magic bullet solutions to environmental problems. I especially dislike the idea of fiddling with the oceans by dumping specific microbes into them. Nature is chaotic. To think the law of unintended consequences won’t bite us in the ass if we start fiddling with the ecosystem like that is pure foolishness.

Lauren, I reposted the LHJ article on my blog because I liked it so much. I think one thing we must be aware of as we face environmental problems is thinking of “silver bullet” solutions. A few years ago everyone was touting “carbon sequestration” which is just a fancy way of saying they’re going to pump all the CO2 underground and let the polluters, well, pollute. Now they’re talking about huge mirrors/shields in space to deflect the sun and cool the planet. Um, how about lowering your fucking energy usage???

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/03/robot_limbs_for.html

It’s unfortunate that such advances can’t have a more peaceful genesis, but historically conflict drives science faster than anything else.

You should have a look at the LHJ article that Benjamin referred to. One of the really interesting things about it (aside form its incredible prescience) is the extent to which it seemed to celebrate the conquest of nature. One of the things I think we have learned is that nature will not be conquered. It will modify but ultimately we destroy it at our own peril. The rise of responsible agricultural practices and the enviroinmental movement as a whole is a sign that we are belatedly coming to accept this.

Why hasn’t the future arrived and why are we “looking back” as Lauren says? Because we can’t go forward without bringing everyone along for the ride. Some don’t want to go, and well, it’s just good humanism to want to bring the standard of living up for everybody before we spend a few trillions on a trip to Mars. But, and note this, that the Earth can’t support 6 billion people living the same way that 15% of us do with our computers and toasters and refrigerators. Something will have to change. (But not if it means I can’t drive my SUV and have that second AC in my home!!)

Good point about the jet pack. I don’t actually want one. I think it would be airborn chaos. But, Benjamin, I’ve never heard of this butch vs. femme approach to technology and it’s utterly fascinating. Basically, when it comes to moving away from each other, progress has stopped but when it comes to connecting to each other progress is accellerating. What an unexpected source of good news. I just read on the BBC yesterday that women outnumber men on the internet, which took many by surprise. But really, it shouldn’t surprise us at all.

Glenn, it looks like an interesting book. Thanks for sharing.