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We’re not quite at flying cars yet

Growing up, I always envisioned the future being similar to The Jetsons with high-tech houses, moving sidewalks and flying cars, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize this may never be the case.

Don’t get me wrong—society has come a long way in my 22 years on earth, with the advancement of bulky word processers into a thin the MacBook Air and the development of land line phones into multifunctional iPhones and BlackBerries.

But realistically, North America can only develop so much before we hit a wall. This wall I speak of is metaphorical, but will exist at an intersection between the advancement of our society technologically with our advancements socially.

I don’t foresee North American society advancing so far that we are driving around in flying cars, while thousands of people in Africa are dying because of malnutrition or while clear social issues exist in Canada, such as the divide between the rich and poor.

I cannot imagine a world where people in Toronto don’t need to walk anymore because there are moving sidewalks everywhere or have the ability to fly to Florida in the matter of hours in their flying cars, while across the Atlantic Ocean in Senegal people are worrying about basic health issues like contracting malaria.

According to the World Health Organization, in 2005 there were approximately two million cases of malaria and more than 2000 deaths attributed to the disease just in Senegal.

If this doesn’t mean much to you, just think on average, 487 Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer every day. With numbers like these I would rather see people finding ways to combat malaria and cancer rather than spending their time and money inventing and mass producing a flying car.

What benefit would a moving sidewalk or a flying car have if our society is not healthy, or people are living below the poverty line? I believe that as we will continue to advance technologically, but not socially, and we will reach a breaking point—a very dangerous breaking point.

In the 1989 film Back to the Future II the filmmakers predicted that by 2015 we would have hoverboards, thumbprint currency and flying cars everywhere, yet we are far away from reaching the Back to the Future II predictions and, to be honest, I don’t want to live in that particular world.

My hopes for the future have changed since my childhood dreams for a Jetson-esque utopia, but I think my dreams are much crazier than a flying car.

I hope for a world where a divide between the rich and the poor does not exist, for medicine to advance so that malaria, HIV and AIDS are not a daily concern for a large proportion of the population, and a world where people don’t fight over religion, money or resources—but realistically, a flying car might be more feasible.

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