In 1953, flying from London to Tokyo took an adventurous 36 hours and nine stops. By the mid-1980s, that time had been shortened by two thirds, with the first commercial direct flights requiring around 12 hours. That’s a 66% bump in speed over 30 years of development.
Today, another 40 years into the future, the same trip still takes 12 hours. Despite having an extra decade to improve, speed-wise, air travel remains stuck in the same year Back to the Future was released. Perhaps it really is time we get back to it, huh?
The reason you can’t fly from London to Tokyo in four hours yet is simple but not obvious: The future is not guaranteed.
In what is still his best interview a decade onwards, Elon Musk explained why:
“In [1969], we were able to go to the moon with a Saturn V, and then the space shuttle could only take people to low-Earth orbit. Then the Space Shuttle retired, and that trend is basically trending to zero. It feels like technology just automatically gets better every year, but it actually doesn’t. It only gets better if smart people work like crazy to make it better.”
Elon recounted how ancient Egyptians could read hieroglyphs and built pyramids but then “basically forgot” those skills. In Rome, “they were able to build these incredible roadways and aqueducts and indoor plumbing, and they forgot how to do all of those things.” His conclusion? “Entropy is not on your side.”
Nature trends towards disorganization. The elements want to disperse, rest, and take the path of least resistance. Not be packaged and neatly stay together and do whatever humans want them to do. Unless we make it, life won’t magically improve.
At any given point, there’s enough development happening in some area for you to feel as if that same progress was taking place in all areas simultaneously. It’s not. Because for all our smartphones, social media, and AI chatbots, we still can’t fly halfway around the world in less than 12 hours.
The future is not guaranteed. Which tiny piece of it are you going to make happen?
