Where's my flying car, dammit!?  It's the 21st century and I want my flying car!  Weren't we supposed to have flying cars by now?

Remember when the Jetsons were prime time?  Most likely you don't -- no, that was too many years ago.  Their debut was in 1962, as a matter of fact  -- most of the world was born after the 1960s, or at least most of the world online.  Today, in America, over 56% of the online world is 34 or under; born in 1968 or later with no reference to the Jetsons beyond the yet-another-cultural-artifact-that-was-here-when-I-got-here sort of relic.  As such, the Jetsons may have less of the cultural impact than I would like to imagine, given their childhood influence on me and my now relative elder status.  I turned 10 in 1962.  Growing up in the late 50s and 60s, the expectation I internalized was that of a future filled with exciting technologies, like jobs that require only buttons to be pushed, and robot housekeepers and robot pets, and flying cars; vehicles that fly through the air like large glass bubbles, carrying passengers quickly, safely and quietly to all sorts of futuristic destinations.  That was what the future used to be.  Now that we're at least part of the way there, the future has changed -- or has it?

Outside my Reno window is a wetlands area -- a protected one, so I've heard -- roughly 150 acres of dried out grasses that harbor untold creatures.  We've seen hawks, coyote, geese, occasional wild horses, dogs, and copious smaller birds over the past few weeks.  And there must be rodents.  The hawks must be hunting rodents.  A significant portion of a mile away is a "freeway," highway 395, a U.S. industrial strength tar and asphalt network substrate upon which fly packet bubbles of steel and plastic and rubber and people -- the traffic here is smooth and happy.  I feel the pain of those waiting for the Lincoln Tunnel, or parking along Interstate 101 into Silicon Valley, or the nightmare-winding of central London streets and waits.  The list of cities on this blue ball that choke on the congestion is growing longer every year.  China has over 50 cities with over 5 million people.  The U.S. has .... 2? If that.  Okay, maybe between 7 and 9 if you count extended urban areas and not "cities" per se, but considerably less than China.  Yet we find our own congestion to be worrisome, even for us urban-expats.   Having been to parts of China, India,  Industrial Europe, Japan, Sao Paulo, Moscow and parts of Africa, I can report that thick urban congestion is very much a component of the 21st Century human condition -- deep municipal homo concentration coupled with abject, pervasive poverty.  That urban, impoverished sap is 21st Century h. sapiens sapiens, represented with as robust a modality as is the wealthy connected sub-species emerging online.  Of the 3.5+ billion adults on our planet, fully half are illiterate.  That's not supposed to be true in the future...

We are in the midst of a cultural war.  It's not about "morality" in the traditional sense - not about pornography, not about divorce, not about drugs, not about sex, not about the long list of socially perverse behavior, if viewed from that putative traditional perspective.  No, it's about wealth and the propagation thereof.  We are in the midst of a cultural war that will determine whether we live or die as a species; is the future a Star Trek utopia?  A techno-paradise where wealth abounds?  Or are we doomed to live out our fundamental premise of conqueror, learning too late the lessons of community, relationship and complexity?

"I'm an American.  I believe in the American way."  That's how Jim Allchin of Micro$oft justified a rabid anti-Open Source stance recently.  Wrapping themselves in the American flag, M$ appears to be attempting to play the "Government Intervention" card even as they protest their own immunity to such measures.  Would they seriously advocate laws prohibiting Open Source?  Probably.  In a shameless, pathetic attempt to foster the illusion that the Redmond giant is the victim, guilty  of simply serving customers too well, how ironic that they would turn to such a sophomoric  rhetorical device.  But then again, if you believe the 2 Big Lies, you're likely to believe anything.  Me, I'm just glad to be here...just glad to be sitting at the window, watching the cars in the distance happily scoot by, flocking like geese sometimes, flying nonetheless, obeying their own rules.

Next week, I'm headed to NYC; then off to Singapore, Bangkok and Bangalore....17 days on the road, every day of which will be devoted to the singular mission; moving daily closer to reasoned, open interfaces that we all share for the benefit of all.  That foundation is critical if we are to begin to address the misery that motivates most of mankind.  The future could still be made of real flying cars.  But only if real innovation is encouraged - not the crap Gates and company continues to tout with astonishing presumption.