141–150 of 175 posts
Want to read some real futurology and prime-cut sci-fi? Check out Stanislaw Lem. (eg. Peace on Earth -- it will blow your mind).
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I'm not sure what you think job creators are. Is it some kind of medal you get when you employ someone? Do you loose it if you fire them? What kind of conditions constitutes employing? Do I get to be a job creator if I give you a dollar for explaining your point? Job providers, I get why those are important. Not everyone wants to be bothered with the business side of living, along with its risks. I can actually see h…
I hate when the discussion devolves into putting flesh bodies into 40 hour a week boxes to repeat some repetitive task. The truth behind job scarcity or not is supply and demand. Period. If there is no demand for yours, or someone elses labor, there is no job. No wealth redistribution will change that. The arguments behind why, though, the concentration of wealth was bad, is that the wealthy have fewer demands they w…
Me too. Apparently it's primarily a mass-media political posturing tool for the (fearing-to-be-)disenfranchised classes (ie. a huge proportion of the population).
producitivity multipliers in technology lets that demand be met with much less workforce supply, which means tremendous economic efficiency gains.
... and loads of people shifted to the bottom of the opportunity barrel, save for states with some semblance of social welfare (ie. not the US).
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Like with the prescient Ladies' Home Journal predictions, much of what hasn't happened isn't so much that we couldn't do it, but that we can do it and find it uninteresting or inconvenient after all (like moon colonies: doable, just not much point given the cost involved vs benefits).
It is irritating to hear claims that something can be done which has never been done. As evidenced by every project I've ever worked on, people have a very poor idea of how much work it takes to accomplish a task. There are very likely hurdles to building moon colonies that you have not considered.
Hardly irritating - that's my job, which I enjoy.
Sure, moon colonies would require enormous effort, staggering cost, and some new technology. The problem isn't the engineering challenge; we put people & equipment in a habitable box, and brought them back, using half-century-old technology. The problem is the cost far exceeds the payoff for anywhere close to the foreseeable future, and the scenery there is about as interesting as Death Valley (briefly compelling, but you wouldn't want to live there).
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It should be noted, however, that he correctly predicts that batteries should be disposed of only by authorized centers undoubtedly due to their hypothetical radioactive nature -- which is clearly wrong -- but I think we can give a quarter of a point there for even thinking about the ramifications of disposable batteries.
Disposal isn't much of a concern in deep space or on mars (yet).
I think we have the Web today instead.
Round-up: ✗ EL panels (not yet) ✗ Smart glass (unless you own a ferrari) ✓ Frozen meals + programmable microwave ✓ Lame robots ✓ 3D movies ✗ Fusion power plants ✗ Radioactive batteries ✓ Solar power ✓ Self-driving cars (in progress) ✗ Moving sidewalks (do airport conveyors count?) ✓ Video calls ✓ Mobile data, sharing, e-books ✓ Global mobile phone network ✗ Moon colonies (double fail since he just takes them for gran…
Smart glass is done and has been for a long time. See Transitions Lenses or Speedglas welding masks. I realize it's cost-prohibitive to scale, but there's also SAGE windows, which use liquid crystal to block light.
I'm not sure what qualifies as an EL panel, but LED panels have gotten crazy bright and cheap and are being used more and more.
I count the conveyors in airports as 'moving sidewalks'. :)
I agree Moon colonization was a fail, but to be fair we could colonize the moon, but why would we want to?
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There is a big difference between saying something is possible and saying something is easy. I don't think it is easy to build a moon colony. On the other hand, I do not see any scientific or engineering reason why it is not possible. We have already proven we can land on the moon and that we can build space colonies (i.e. ISS). Sure there are hurdles I have not considered, but that just makes it hard not impossible.
Given that we've not been able to create a self-contained biosphere on Earth, the prospect for long-term environmental support on the Moon seems low. The IIS gets regular resupplies to keep its environmental support systems operational and habitable.
2. I bet we could figure it out. Again don't see any reason why it is not possible. Very little research has gone into that particular problem which I think is the main reason it has not been done.
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Disposal isn't much of a concern in deep space or on mars (yet).
That's true, and I remember there was some talk in the astronomy community about disposing of nuclear waste in deep space or shooting it at the sun. Although, if we can recycle some or all aspects of batteries (the non-radioactive parts, heh) that would also help with conservation of raw materials.
Let's judge... The piece is less optimistic and cornucopian than I'd expected. The first part is pretty light, but it turns a shade dark, especially for. The prediction record includes a few failures but surprisingly more hits than I expected. men will continue to withdraw from nature Yes and no. Our environments are more artificial, but we're not living in hermetically sealed enclosures. Electroluminescent panels ..…
We've gone way past the Club Of Rome's theoretical limits. Food supply isn't so much a matter of production or distribution anymore, but a matter of politics. I'd say technology is keeping up well with population; a quintessential example being third-world tribesmen owning cell phones.
Undoubtedly, the world of A.D. 2014 will have agreed on the [lowering the birth rate]. / Sadly, not.
Actually the world birth rate is tapering off, to the point that some countries face a population implosion. Japan is in dire risk of actually vanishing from sub-sustainable replacement rates. Russia is promoting reproduction as a national policy goal. It's not a matter of agreement on a goal, it's the human nature of highly developed societies toward insufficient procreation (luxurious living with easy contraception makes the inconveniences of parenthood undesirable and avoidable).
Best: the subtle mis-prediction that there would be a 2014 World's Fair. I think we have the Web today instead.