Why Can't I Fly?

In 1899, French artists presented the world of 2000. They see the 21st century filled with flying fire fighters, postal deliveries, and the police catching the bad guy. School teachers feed books into a machine that will speak the books to students wearing headphones. Everything has wires - no wi fi here - yet. 

These drawings remind me of the original Superman - Action Comics No. 1, July 1938. Maybe it is the printing. The pictures were printed as "illustrated trade cards" for public consumption. 

Whenever I see pictures or stories like this, they are always filled with flying vehicles and people. But I always wonder where is my flying car or my wings? While we don't have people with wings delivering packages and such, we have gone a step further further, removing the human equation and allowing drones to deliver packages and unmanned cars to deliver us.

It's interesting that these futurists never remove the human element in their visions. People are always present; the maid with her magic wand, the fire fighter with his hose, the farmer incubating chicken eggs.

Why have we removed humans from out future? Is it to free us up for all the wonderful things we can do in our free time? Like Twitter and Tik Tok? (yes, that's sarcasm). How do you see the future? Are people like Wall-E sitting in oversized loungers waiting for a food delivery? Or are people out hiking through nature? Creating beautiful art? Flying their private cars? How would you draw the future? 

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