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Welcome to The Future - by Noah Smith - Noahpinion

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The years of my youth must have been such a disappointment for sci-fi fans of my parents’ generation. They were raised on stories of spaceships soaring between the stars, and they grew up to see the space shuttle explode and humankind abandon the moon. They grew up expecting flying cars and robot servants, but as they reached middle age they were still trundling along the ground and doing their own laundry. What happened in the 1970s that seemed to rob the future from the Boomer generation? Energy. With the end of cheap oil in 1973, and the failure of nuclear power to get cheaper as volumes scaled up, the dreams of the sci-fi authors of the mid-20th century failed to materialize. Those dreams had partially been based on fantasy physics (faster-than-light travel, gravity control, time travel),1 but partly they were based on the expectation that energy would keep getting more plentiful and engines would keep getting more powerful and compact. But in the 1970s, humanity suddenly stopped b

Welcome to The Future This time it arrived right on schedule. Noah Smith May 01, 2025 542 62 67 Share The years of my youth must have been such a disappointment for sci-fi fans of my parents’ generation. They were raised on stories of spaceships soaring between the stars, and they grew up to see the space shuttle explode and humankind abandon the moon. They grew up expecting flying cars and robot servants, but as they reached middle age they were still trundling along the ground and doing their own laundry. What happened in the 1970s that seemed to rob the future from the Boomer generation? En

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