IN HER COLUMN in the last SUNDAY SUN, Ms Toni Thorne asks whether flying cars will be part of the landscape by Barbados’ celebration of 100 years of Independence.
As a teen of the 1960s, I well remember predictions that flying cars would be commonplace by the turn of the century.
Why this never occurred, and why even by the year 2066 we may still be searching the skies for flying cars, is hinted at by Ms Thorne with the following sentence: “Gossip has evolved from the days of Perlie looking out of her window. With technological advancements, information is readily available.” And there’s the rub.
The true age of inventiveness and innovation ran from approximately 1946 until the early 1970s. Just about everything that defines the modern world either came about, or had its seeds sown, during this time.
The pill. Electronics. Computers and the birth of the Internet. Nuclear power. Television. Antibiotics. Space travel. Mass aviation. Cheap, reliable and safe automobiles. We put a man on the moon, sent a probe to Mars, beat smallpox and discovered the double-spiral key of life.
Today, progress is defined almost entirely by consumer-driven, often banal improvements in information technology. We wanted flying cars; we got 140 characters.
– CHARLES KNIGHTON
