Description
Book SynopsisFrom an engineer and futurist, an impassioned account of technological stagnation since the 1970s and an imaginative blueprint for a richer, more abundant future. The science fiction of the 1960s promised us a future remade by technological innovation. We’d vacation in geodesic domes on Mars, have meaningful conversations with computers, and drop our children off at school in flying cars. Fast-forward 60 years, and we’re still stuck in traffic in gas-guzzling sedans and boarding the same types of planes we flew in over half a century ago. What happened to the future we were promised?
In
Where Is My Flying Car?, J. Storrs Hall sets out to answer this deceptively simple question. What starts as an examination of the technical limitations of building flying cars evolves into an investigation of the scientific, technological, and social roots of the economic stagnation that started in the 1970s. From the failure to adopt nuclear energy and the suppression of cold fusion technology to the rise of a counterculture hostile to progress, Hall recounts how our collective ambitions for the future were derailed, with devastating consequences for global wealth creation and distribution. He then outlines a framework for a future powered by exponential progress—one in which we build as much in the world of atoms as we do in the world of bits, one rich in abundance and wonder.
Drawing on years of original research and personal engineering experience,
Where Is My Flying Car?, originally published in 2018, is an urgent, timely analysis of technological progress over the last 50 years and a bold vision for a better future.
Trade Review“One of the best and most interesting books on technology.”
—Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution “There are many writers with optimistic visions of the future. However, the goals I most often hear are all the negation of negatives: cure cancer, eliminate poverty, stop climate change. . . . This is good, but it is not enough. [These techno-optimists] are content with bringing the whole world up to the current best standard of living, but not increasing it. In this context, I found
Where Is My Flying Car? refreshing. Hall unabashedly calls for unlimited progress in every dimension.”
—Jason Crawford, Roots of Progress "Whether there is 'tech stagnation' or a revolution about to swarm the skies,
Where Is My Flying Car? offers piercing questions and answers about what it might take to make the dream come true."
—David Brin, astrophysicist and author of Existence and The Postman "This book is an inspirational roadmap to an amazing future that can be ours if we will only reach for it. Hall’s bold new perspective on technological progress is a must-read for anyone who claims to be a futurist."
—Robert Freitas, nanotechnology scientist and author of Nanomedicine "America's 'golden quarter century' of technological and economic progress ended 50 years ago. Instead of flying cars, we got Facebook. J. Storrs Hall brilliantly explains the reasons for this Great Stagnation, and what to do to bring about another golden era of growth and prosperity."
—Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Beauchamp Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law, University of TennesseeTable of ContentsPart I—Profiles of the PastChapter 1: The World of Tomorrow
Chapter 2: The Graveyard of Dreams
Chapter 3: The Conquest of the Air
Chapter 4: Waldo and Magic, Inc.
Chapter 5: Cold Fusion?
Chapter 6: The Machiavelli Effect
Chapter 7: The Age of Aquarius
Chapter 8: Forbidden Fruit
Part II—Profiles of the PresentChapter 9: Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited
Chapter 10: Dialogue Concerning the Two Great Systems of the World
Chapter 11: The Atomic Age
Chapter 12: When Worlds Collide
Chapter 13: When the Sleeper Wakes
Part III—Profiles of the FutureChapter 14: The Dawn of Robots
Chapter 15: The Second Atomic Age
Chapter 16: Tom Swift and His Flying Car
Chapter 17: Escape Velocity
Chapter 18: Metropolis
Chapter 19: Engineers’ Dreams
Chapter 20: Rocket to the Renaissance
Appendix A: Energy Intensity of Predicted Technologies
Appendix B: Selected Readings
Appendix C: Epigraph Sources
Appendix D: Endnotes
Appendix E: Index
