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What We Get Wrong About Technology

timharford.com

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Re: What We Get Wrong About Technology

#21

Post by taeric »

_mhr_ wrote: post #10
taeric wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that was a thread in I, Robot. My favorite is how the robots on the space colony don't believe the humans could have created them, due to how sophisticated they are.

I believe this is the story with Cutie (nickname for QT-1) who invents a religion to justify its existence. The amusing thing was that the rituals of its religion consisted of making sure the space colony functioned properly, so the humans decided to leave the robot's faith alone. And the robot thought that the humans were mindless religious fools for believing in Earth: """The robot approached softly and there was s…

Exactly that one. One of my favorite shorts in that collection. I loved how one of the humans was annoyed and felt that they should correct the robot. (Assuming my memory isn't making that detail up...)

Re: What We Get Wrong About Technology

#22

Post by charlieflowers »

When you're writing fiction, you have to choose which elements to emphasize to get your point across. Blade Runner wanted to be about questions along the boundary of "What is it to be human?"

It didn't want to be about everyday technology (though it had to pay some lip service to that). So it didn't want to invest the reader's mental energy in the replacement for phone booths.

(I think the author's point still stands, but that example doesn't support it).

Re: What We Get Wrong About Technology

#23

Post by adjkant »

autarch wrote: post #5

Obligatory plug for everyone to read The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner. It was published in 1975 and nails the technology of the 90s so accurately that it's quite freaky to read.

In the same category a bit, Neuromancer. Note the publish date, 1984.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/888628.Neuromancer

Re: What We Get Wrong About Technology

#24

Post by donw »

jfarlow wrote: post #11
donw wrote: post #9

I suspect that it is easy to fixate on fantasies of massive technological leaps forward, because the truly revolutionary changes that underpin our lives are like air: so common that we overlook them all the time. If you were to sit down with a person from, say, 1750, and wanted to explain the modern world, you would probably tell them about things like antibiotics, cars and planes, snapchat, that sort of thing. All t…

And yet the supermarket is very much possible only because of the technologies behind planes, antibiotics and snapchat. It's curious. I think the hard part, as noted, is not necessarily the materialization of 'new tech', but very much how that tech plays with all the other new tech to produce a very new society. And in that you are exactly right, the most curious parts of that new society are not the technological to…

Absolutely; Neal Stephenson's latest book ("The Rise And Fall Of D.O.D.O.") touches on this, in asking what series of "small" changes it would take to unravel the modern world. Was a good read.

From where you sit, what is the impact of the intermix between those two technologies?

As a layperson, I can see tailor-made medications becoming cheap and common over the long run. Not only might that read "goodbye, cancer!", but also mitigate the resultant threat of biological warfare.

After all, if you can cook up tailor-made anticancer and antiviral drugs in a machine at Walgreens, then you can counter a tailor-made bioweapon pretty easily.

Food production is another obvious boost, so we might have a second Norman Borlaug that once again lifts the carrying capacity of Earth. We can probably also assume foods engineered to grow in extreme environments.

From that, you also get biological air and water recycling for spacecraft, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Re: What We Get Wrong About Technology

#25

Post by jbarham »

donw wrote: post #9

I suspect that it is easy to fixate on fantasies of massive technological leaps forward, because the truly revolutionary changes that underpin our lives are like air: so common that we overlook them all the time. If you were to sit down with a person from, say, 1750, and wanted to explain the modern world, you would probably tell them about things like antibiotics, cars and planes, snapchat, that sort of thing. All t…

Gorbachev was evidently very impressed by Canadian supermarkets in 1983: "Gorbachev first visited Canada in 1983 when he was the member of the Soviet Politburo responsible for state agriculture. Gorbachev toured successful commercial farms and saw well-stocked supermarkets across the country, a vastly different picture from the Soviet Union, which was struggling with shortages. It was his first trip to a non-communist country. The trip helped to convince Gorbachev that more economic and personal freedom was needed in the Soviet Union."

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/1990-soviet-leader-mikhail-...

Re: What We Get Wrong About Technology

#26

Post by stdgy »

donw wrote: post #24
jfarlow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the supermarket is very much possible only because of the technologies behind planes, antibiotics and snapchat. It's curious. I think the hard part, as noted, is not necessarily the materialization of 'new tech', but very much how that tech plays with all the other new tech to produce a very new society. And in that you are exactly right, the most curious parts of that new society are not the technological to…

Absolutely; Neal Stephenson's latest book ("The Rise And Fall Of D.O.D.O.") touches on this, in asking what series of "small" changes it would take to unravel the modern world. Was a good read. From where you sit, what is the impact of the intermix between those two technologies? As a layperson, I can see tailor-made medications becoming cheap and common over the long run. Not only might that read "goodbye, cancer!",…

Oye, I've been putting off getting this book since it was co-written by Stephenson and I wasn't sure how that would pan out.

Guess I'll have to add to the collection!

Re: What We Get Wrong About Technology

#27

Post by donw »

stdgy wrote: post #26
donw wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely; Neal Stephenson's latest book ("The Rise And Fall Of D.O.D.O.") touches on this, in asking what series of "small" changes it would take to unravel the modern world. Was a good read. From where you sit, what is the impact of the intermix between those two technologies? As a layperson, I can see tailor-made medications becoming cheap and common over the long run. Not only might that read "goodbye, cancer!",…

Oye, I've been putting off getting this book since it was co-written by Stephenson and I wasn't sure how that would pan out. Guess I'll have to add to the collection!

I was skeptical as well, but it turned out to be a good read. Not quite up to the standards of Anathem or Cryptonomicon, but still definitely worthwhile.

Re: What We Get Wrong About Technology

#28

Post by [deleted] »

donw wrote: post #24
jfarlow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the supermarket is very much possible only because of the technologies behind planes, antibiotics and snapchat. It's curious. I think the hard part, as noted, is not necessarily the materialization of 'new tech', but very much how that tech plays with all the other new tech to produce a very new society. And in that you are exactly right, the most curious parts of that new society are not the technological to…

Absolutely; Neal Stephenson's latest book ("The Rise And Fall Of D.O.D.O.") touches on this, in asking what series of "small" changes it would take to unravel the modern world. Was a good read. From where you sit, what is the impact of the intermix between those two technologies? As a layperson, I can see tailor-made medications becoming cheap and common over the long run. Not only might that read "goodbye, cancer!",…

[deleted]

Re: What We Get Wrong About Technology

#29

Post by jfarlow »

donw wrote: post #24
jfarlow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the supermarket is very much possible only because of the technologies behind planes, antibiotics and snapchat. It's curious. I think the hard part, as noted, is not necessarily the materialization of 'new tech', but very much how that tech plays with all the other new tech to produce a very new society. And in that you are exactly right, the most curious parts of that new society are not the technological to…

Absolutely; Neal Stephenson's latest book ("The Rise And Fall Of D.O.D.O.") touches on this, in asking what series of "small" changes it would take to unravel the modern world. Was a good read. From where you sit, what is the impact of the intermix between those two technologies? As a layperson, I can see tailor-made medications becoming cheap and common over the long run. Not only might that read "goodbye, cancer!",…

Arbitrary biological i/o; stimuli and responses can be designed and linked, sampling from anything the world of life can currently do.

Age (see Constitutional Article 2.1, 14th US Amendment).

Memorizable strings of data worth billions of dollars.

Aesthetic biology around us, and within us as a form of expression.

Wealth (as energy expenditure) driving speed and permanence vs quality or capability (think hill coefficients). Metal & rock as materials of speed, but also waste, whereas literal capabilities are mirrorable with biology, are much more efficient, but 'slow'.

(More) Von Neumann Probes everywhere, but resembling acorns, fruit flies, and yeast.

(Explicit & commercialized) synthetic symbioses for individuals and for societies, and for other life.

Re: What We Get Wrong About Technology

#30

Post by dmitriid »

chi17 wrote: post #20
Retra wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public videophones could be made right now, if we wanted. Problem is that nobody wants them because they are less convenient than the simpler alternatives.

The simpler alternatives involve having to pay a monthly fee or having to pre-pay for minutes. In the future, perhaps we won't have the luxury of paying for a lot of service we haven't yet used and might not need to use.

Welcome to the present, called "the rest of the world that's not the US" ;)

(yeah, yeah, I know that many countries still have outrageous prices for networks, be it fiber or mobile).

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