Where did the "They promised us flying cars" thing come from?

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@Apocalypso

Again, I wasn’t there, but I’ve never heard of any reputable scientists promising all of the above. I think it was all fiction perpetuated by sci-fi writers, and people sort of believed it would happen because, hey, anything’s possible [dramatic chord] in the future

No, this is simply wrong. You can read a huge literature of respectable people - scientists, engineers, architects, designers, academics, people in government, pretty much any group you can name - saying all this stuff first, from any time after the second half of the 19th century. Where do you think the sf writers got their ideas? By making the stuff up? It didn’t happen that way. They extrapolated from the articles they read in the newspapers and journals and books, exactly as writers do today.

I would go so far as to bet that there’s not a single idea that appeared in any sf story in the Golden Age that didn’t have a non-sf origin. Not one, no matter how far out it seems. I can’t prove this, because the research is too formidable for any one human, but I’ve done extensive research on the subject and I haven’t found anything yet.

[dropzone]

@Exapno Mapcase

I would go so far as to bet that there’s not a single idea that appeared in any sf story in the Golden Age that didn’t have a non-sf origin.

Yeah, and the same old conflicts, too! Nothing but Man Against Horrifying Monster Whose Technology and Intelligence is a Million Years Beyond Our Own, Man Against Unimaginable Non-Nature From Beyond Time and Space, and Man Against Alien Mind Inside His Head.

Then there’s the Universal Standard Plot: Boy Meets Alien Girl Who is Somehow Just Like a Human Girl Except More Beautiful, More Pneumatic, and Wearing Less; Boy Loses Alien Girl; Boy Gets Alien Girl. Nothing original at all.