We’re Living in the Hollywood Future
"Why aren't we living in Hollywood's vision of the Year 2000?"
Except that....we are. But people who ask that question are just thinking of the wrong genre. The Hollywood vision of the Year 2000 we're living isn't the Buck Rogers genre. We're living the Science Fiction/Comedy genre.
Actually, that's not quite right. Even the most talented comic writers from the 50's, 60's, and 70's couldn't have come up with some of the whacky realities we live every day.
Consider these facts:
Technology
Every large corporation has a huge database (often ominously called "Oracle"), but it isn't a threat because there's so much data that nobody can figure out how to use it for nefarious purposes.
There actually were talking cars, but nobody wanted to buy them, so they got taken off the market.
Ditto for the telephone/wristwatch.
We have video phones, but most people would prefer to type a message--even if the recipient is sitting at the next desk.
Banks are mostly run by computers, which regularly offer to loan money to dogs, cats, dead people, etc.
We have a really cool space-plane which is best known for exploding repeatedly.
Everyone has a computer on his desk, but very few people really understand them. And they crash all the time.
We can talk to our computers (and they can talk back), but it turns out most people would rather type (and read).
We have a permanent, manned space station, but nobody's really sure what it's good for.
Politics
Our current President is known for his religious faith and moral clarity, meanwhile his underlings write memos on how to torture.
The biggest political scandal of recent years was over a blow job.
We went to the Moon, but stopped going because of budget cuts (that and there wasn't much to see).
Our government is planning to build a super-sophisticated missile defense system to protect us from ICBMs, except that it can't hit anything.
But that's not so bad, since we've been turning our missile silos into houses .
The USSR went from being run by Communists to being run by the Mafia.
Culture
Steak is considered a health food (this was actually in a Science Fiction/Comedy: see Woody Allen's Sleeper ).
NASA has done serious research on sex in space .
Tourism is considered the most promising avenue for keeping the manned space program alive.
People try to sell porn, sex drugs, and mortgage refinancing through electronic mail. But nobody wants the ads. So there are computers which do nothing but send billions of advertisements to other computers which do nothing but erase the ads before a human has to read them.
Fertility treatments mean that almost anyone who wants a baby can have one. Despite this, the birthrate has been dropping and the global population is forecast to start declining in a few decades. And we still haven't figured out how to feed the starving children in Africa.
Computers have replaced actors for some movies, but it turns out that computers are more expensive so most movies still use humans (even though the computers are usually better actors than people).
Civil rights have come so far that women and ethnic minorities can be found in nearly every job. Some people now worry about discrimination against white men.
Housewives drive vehicles which look like armored personnel carriers to buy groceries. But it turns out that the small cars are actually safer .