Probably the second-most-frequently asked question put to futurists (after “What’s the stock market going to do?”) is, Whatever happened to flying cars? The twentieth century excited many people about the future with its iconic imagery: The Jetsons gave us not only the flying car, but also robotic servants, videoconferencing, automated meal preparation, and of course some really cool fashions for teens. But then there was the murderous computer intelligence embodied in the unblinking
eye of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

In this issue, we devote a special section to several of these “iconic futures” and see how these ideas have panned out. Authors Marvin Cetron and Joseph Pelton look at, respectively, teleportation (Star Trek) and machine intelligence (2001: A Space Odyssey). FUTURIST editors Patrick Tucker and Rick Docksai take on flying cars (The Jetsons) and undersea living (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea), while Aaron M. Cohen provides the background on these inspiring images from the future’s past. See the special section beginning on page 30.

So what else has inspired futurists over the years? A few months ago, I asked readers of our free e-mail newsletter Futurist Update to send us brief essays in response to the question, Why Are You Here? In other words, how and when did you “discover” that the future matters? We invited readers to tell us a story about what inspired them to take a deeper and more active interest in the future. The responses we received reflected the true diversity of “futurists” as well as that one key factor we have in common: a commitment to making the future better. But perhaps the most inspiring story of all came from Society co-founder (and Holocaust survivor) Peter A. Zuckerman, whose experiences teach a valuable lesson on the importance of building competent democratic institutions. See the special section beginning on page 43.