I Have Seen the Future

While rifling through a box of long-forgotten papers for potential recycling I happened on a personal gem, a one-page time machine from the year 1982. Then, as an incipient sitcom writer, I was fiddling with an idea for a sitcom pilot set twenty years in the future, aptly named "2002" (because it was a catchy title). On this particular page I'd jotted down ideas for technological advances that would be part of the mise-en-scene for the sitcom. I do not consider myself psychic in any way, but, if I must toot my horn, I think my prescience is pretty noteworthy. I will list the 24 so-called "Two Thousand Two Advances" I projected then, along with my 21st century assessment of accuracy:

1. male birth-control pills [medically plausible, though I didn't foresee Viagra]

2. high-protein soda pop [available at any gym]

3. gasoline from grass, manure, etc. [not to mention corn]

4. flat projection TV/stereo/3D [two out of three, not bad]

5. plastic money [pretty much the norm now]

6. handheld computer consoles [yup]

7. space shuttle, colonies in space and moon [yes and no, blame Challenger]

8. phone/home TV/compute data link [yes]

9. recombinant DNA--growing insulin, etc. [a bit premature, I missed the stem-cell debate]

10. speaker typewriter [yup]

11. electric mail [bull's-eye]

12. all organ transplants [right, except for the brain and nervous system]

13. bicycle airplanes [pretty whimsical; missed here, but whatever happened to the Segway?]

14. solar energy/coal fuel [well those existed in 1982, so this is a cheat]

15. home holographic film [not quite, but digital photography is almost as cool]

16. telephone dialing worldwide [sure thing]

17. metric system [sorry; I underestimated how dumb and stubborn America would remain]

18. memory pill [does gingko biloba count?]

19. interferon--body's cure for colds, cancer. [I got sucked into early '80s hype]

20. electric car [yeah, but easy guess]

21. synthetic blood [it's around]

22. pocket translator [find them at Brookstones]

23. wrist TV/radio [ditto]

24. genetic engineering for human fetuses [oops, maybe I did foresee the stem cell debate]

I was a lot more accurate then, say, "Back to the Future," which had us running on cold fusion. Yet for all this wisdom I missed the concepts of the ubiquitous cell phone and the SUV. The former could be associated with some of my foreseen innovations; the latter makes no more sense now than it would have then.