Fun Stuff > CHATTER
Holy Crap Guys: or, How We Will All Be Cyborgs By 2030
Scandanavian War Machine:
well, with half a billion dollars, you could probably make that happen.
ViolentDove:
--- Quote from: A Wet Helmet on 22 Jul 2008, 05:36 ---I'm entirely too lazy to look up the actual survey right now, so I'm not even going to attempt to make up statistics but:
In 1949 a survey was put out that asked people what they believed the likelihood of several 'predictions of the future'. Essentially they were asked what they thought the world would be like 50 years in the future as we prepared to enter the 21st century. The vast majority of respondents believed that by 1 January 2000 there would be a cure for cancer. All of it.... cured. Almost nobody thought there was a chance in hell that we'd put a man on the moon.
--- End quote ---
I understand your point, and I know it doesn't really have anything to do with what you're saying... but, to be fair, if someone asked me in 1949 whether cancer would be cured/eradicated by 2000, I probably would've said yes as well. I mean, people at that time had just seen mass-produced antibiotics (seemingly) provide silver bullet cures to a whole bunch of diseases. That would've made me pretty damn optimistic about the ability of science to deal with disease.
jhocking:
ah but that's the entire problem with the predictions of these technoutopians. They're looking at some of the explosive developments in technology right now (many of these being pretty much nascent technologies, like nanotech, and the initial period of any technology is going to have the most growth) and assuming the exact same technologies will continue to develop at exactly the same rate with no political opposition whatsoever for a quarter of a century.
A Wet Helmet:
Which was exactly my point. I don't for a second dispute the reasons people in '49 made the predictions they did as they seemed very logical at the time. The only way we'll know what 2030 is going to be like is to actually be around in 2030.
snalin:
--- Quote from: est on 15 Jul 2008, 16:56 ---WHERE'S MY FUCKING JETPACK?
--- End quote ---
They made functionable ones decades ago. But the problem with the flaming jets being real hot and able to burn stuff underneath the user was a turn of.
I saw an article from 1900 about how life would be in 2000. There was a lot about how we would have apples the size of melons and strawberies the size of big apples. And how we would all have electric kitchens with stoves warming in minutes and a french chef walking from house to house doing the cooking. SciFi is funny.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version