Where is my hoverboard?

I have been thinking on this for a while, not specifically "Where is my hoverboard?" but on the general question that it implies. "Why is our world so boring?"

Fiction promises us in fantasy, Dragons, magic, Heroes and Villains. We are presented with a clear cut world where we know who the demons are and who we have to route for. But taking it out of fantasy read any thriller on the shelves at the moment and our world should be chock full of secret societies and conspiracies to over throw the government/steal all your money/bring on the apocalypse etc.

Yet the world keeps on turning. We are in a bit of an economic downturn but it is not exactly on par with being invaded by aliens. So what has gone wrong, are we not pretty enough for our alien overlords to bother with? Is it simply too much work to be setting up a secret society or just not enough profit to be found in beaming advertisements directly into peoples minds.



As I said I have been thinking on this for a little while now, I even have a poem that I might post in a couple of days, and this is what I have come up with. People are cowards. Now don't take that to heart or feel like I am marginalising the work of the visionaries who do manage to make some change but basically we are driven by two things. Fear and greed. Fear that terrorists will hurt our loved ones, fear that there will be war, fear that you will not be able to meet this months rent and even fear of that lump you felt in the shower. This fear encases us and stifles our imaginations. Why try to imagine your plan for taking over the world when it is two for one on trebles tonight?

Greed is the same, it is no coincidence that nearly every major development with a technology comes by military research. Without the second world war we would not have computers as we know them today, or the idea would have taken much longer to penetrate as far it has. What else has war given us, Jet engines, rocket science, radar, Atomic energy that is just world war II, heck WWI was know as 'The Chemists War'. Sure the research that gains funding via the military is ultimately going to be use to kill people more efficiently but eventually these developments find their way to the public.

The fear of losing the war makes us much more willing to part with that little extra cash to fund the effort. But in a relative peace time like we are in now? Put up taxes by the tiniest amount and people are up in arms. It is only with research can this world go from ordinary to extraordinary. I voted lib dem and what do they go and do as part of the coalition? Cut money going to the sciences and the arts. The only two industries that don't just accept with status quo but they dare to imagine. They understand that while in the short term sure they can take funding away and it might find some limited benefits in some areas, but it is almost like people see the sciences as a frivolous pursuit. That any money invested will be squandered chasing a pink elephant but science and the arts do not shape how society functions and therefore people are happy to ignore them. Yet stop to think who invents the chips that power your I-Pod what physicist designs the process for sky scrapers stand up straight.

Where is my hoverboard? It lost it's funding.