Where Are My Flying Cars?
A reflection on lost futures and the long road back to hope
Author’s Note
This piece came to me early one morning, unfiltered and urgent, as I reflected on the journey we’ve all taken since those wide-eyed days of childhood wonder. In 1969, as a young girl watching humanity land on the Moon, I believed we were stepping into a future filled with possibility, compassion, and cooperation.
But somewhere along the way, that vision dimmed.
What follows is both a personal recollection and a broader meditation on how we lost our way—and why, perhaps, we’ve reached the moment where change is not just possible, but necessary.
Maybe we had to come all the way here, to this fractured and difficult place, to finally remember who we meant to become.
I’d love to hear your memories of the future we imagined—and how you see our path forward now. Let’s talk.
Where Are My Flying Cars?
When I was nine years old, in 1969, the future felt impossibly bright. We had already landed on the Moon. The world was modern, fast, and full of promise. In school, we were asked to imagine what the 21st century would look like. To us, it was obvious: there would be flying cars, clean energy, shimmering cities in the sky, and humanity—united, curious, kind—exploring the stars.
We were wide-eyed children raised on Star Trek and real-world space launches. The future was as big as our imaginations.
But that future never came.
Somewhere along the line, something shifted. It wasn’t a war or a great disaster. It was the pursuit of money. Slowly, subtly, the dream was sold off—piece by piece—until profit replaced progress, and greed became our compass.
As a child, I didn’t understand what was happening. But I could feel it. Society had once been invested in the future—in taking care of one another, in striving toward something greater than ourselves. But that ethos faded. By the time the 1980s rolled around, everything had been turned on its ear.
Reaganomics sealed the shift. Suddenly, corporations were granted the rights of people—just not the responsibilities. Profit wasn’t just a goal anymore—it was a religion. Employees became “cost centers.” Human beings were reduced to numbers. Compassion was replaced with quarterly earnings.
I remember the late 1970s. There was still a sense of mutual respect between workers and companies. Loyalty meant something. Employers offered advancement, learning, and security. You could build a life. But that relationship was already eroding. By the early '80s, it was gone. Workers no longer stayed out of loyalty—they stayed just long enough to gather skills and move on. Companies responded in kind, stripping away pensions, benefits, and stability. The bond was broken.
I took a different path. When I entered the workforce in 1980, I chose to become a specialist—an entrepreneur of sorts. I trained myself in the emerging field of computer technology, long before universities offered courses. I learned on the job, client by client, and I earned good money. But I had no benefits. No pension. No insurance. I was well paid, but utterly on my own.
That was the new normal.
And as wealth-building took over the culture, it stopped being enough to have a good life. You needed to be rich. Success was no longer defined by stability or joy—it was measured by assets. Day trading. Investment firms. Companies that didn’t make or serve anything, but simply existed to buy and sell others for profit. We moved from a productive economy to a purely financial one—where money begat money, and nothing else mattered.
By the time we reached the 21st century, there were no flying cars. No colonies on Mars. No clean skies or glittering cities. The dream was gone. We had become a species obsessed with money—and we forgot everything else we ever hoped to become.
Maybe that’s why populist politicians emerged. Maybe that’s why hate became a form of currency. Maybe that’s why so many of us are angry.
Because those of us who remember what the future was supposed to be—are grieving what was stolen. I used to joke with my spouse, “Where are my flying cars?” But the joke wore thin. We’re here now, a quarter of the way into the century, and it feels more like 1935 than 2035.
There’s a tyrant leading one of the world’s great powers. Billionaires have formed a kind of royalty, immune to consequence. Sometimes I half-expect one of them to say, “Let them eat cake.” And maybe they have—just not on a live mic yet.
So here’s where my thoughts led me this morning:
Maybe we had to get here—to this very point in history—to finally break it.
Maybe humanity had to reach the logical endpoint of predatory capitalism to recognize its hollowness. Maybe this moment, painful as it is, is the start of something new—a reckoning, a reclamation.
Because before we can build the future we dreamed of in 1969, we have to remember that we did dream it. That we once believed in flying cars and cooperation and reaching for the stars. That humanity was supposed to become more—not just richer.
We have to break the system that betrayed that dream.
And then, maybe, we can begin again.