I was told there would be flying cars.

It occurred to me the other day that certain industries have become very stagnant.




Don't get me wrong, information and scientific progress may be going at a "blistering pace," but there are just certain things that make you wonder.
Sure, everyone these days seems to be aware that humanity is making huge advances all the time.
Everyone seems to be aware, but how many people can name them?

Let's take a look, to put the potential growth into perspective.
I'm 22. Let's say I lived 20 years ago - 1991.
If I was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, I could expect (optimistically) to live 3-5 years.
Today, I can expect to live over 40. If that doesn't put things in perspective, nothing will.

But here is the realization I made...while certain industries - military, medical, bioengineering - are skyrocketing, others haven't done anything of note in quite some time.
Sure, we've got electric vehicles - stupidly expensive and inefficient - but electric vehicles.
But beyond that? Most of the 'advances' running your car are more than a hundred years old.

Distributors and alternators are based largely on technology that Tesla patented, and the internal combustion engine (even in its current state) is well into the several-century mark. We've made some advances in steering and suspension, and certainly in luxury...but the basic components have not changed significantly -at all.-
(Note: I am discounting the Wankel rotary engine, because to be completely blunt - almost no one uses the damn thing.)

So what? We can map the entire human genome, make Earth-to-Moon flights seem almost unimpressive, create weapon targeting systems that are accurate to millimeters from hundreds of miles away, but reinventing the automobile is beyond our capacity?

That's to say nothing of the other stagnation points. Let's face it - we've gotten complacent. Everyone is content to sit back and watch technology grow like a wild forest. Barely anyone is paying attention to where it's going, or - more interestingly - why it's going that way.

It's time for the scientific community to wake up. We're better than this.

- C