Kinda interesting that jetpacks and flying cars have never been more than cosmetic elements of sf. They don’t generate much narrative potential. Background greebles. Nonplayable design fictions. They’re not that interesting either as sci-fi or tech.
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I think they represent social determinists idea of tech determinism. Pure wishful thinking extrapolating family sedans and motorcycles naively. That’s why they work better for parody (Jetsons) or camp (James Bond) than serious tech, either fictional or real.
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The cars being flying cars is just cosmetic. It makes no real difference to the plot or the structure of the underlying societies in those movies.
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Curious if you ever wrote/came across anything exploring « narrative potential » as a concept?
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did a whole series that revolves around their potential to create a geography-less nation, and what their removal does to a world used to that
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flying cars and their use/misuse in reshaping social order is a gigantic plot point in ada palmer's 'too like the lightning'
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flying cars would definitely cause some kind of crazy hypersuburbanization where everyone feels entitled to empty 1000 acre homesteads and the only affordable housing is in the middle of Death Valley or something.
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