Yesterday’s Tomorrowland

It’s pretty easy to write the Walt-Disney’s-version-of-the-future-didn’t-happen article and several people do it every year. But few write so cleverly, or have such a science-fictional eye for detail, as Joel Garreau in his take on the subject for the Washington Post (registration required):

But this is absolutely not the future in the research pipeline. No genetically modified critters here that eat carbon dioxide and poop gasoline. No nanobots smaller than blood cells, cruising our bodies to zap cancer. No brain implants that expand our memory. No cellphones that translate Chinese. No dragonfly-size surveillance bots, no pills that shut off the brain’s trigger to sleep, no modified mitochondria sustaining our energy while making obesity as quaint as polio.

Not only can’t Disney predict the future, it seems to be having trouble predicting the present.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the link.]