why do I keep getting a 'server not found' error ? you guys seem to be able to access this url.. however I had to google this heading and read the article @ http://www.mydogear.com/articles/521d762aa97dca07b21805ea
Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
151–160 of 175 posts
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're pretty common in heavy industry.
He meant humanoid robots, not fancy industrial automation.
When a general-purpose robot (aka "something that looks like a human") is refined and improved for a particular task, it won't look like a robot anymore. Therefore, "robots" will never be good at anything, because once they're good, they're no longer robots. (e.g. dish washers, washing machine, coffee makers, laser cutters, CNC machines, etc.)
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#153All high school students will be taught the fundamentals of computer technology, will become proficient in binary arithmetic and will be trained to perfection in the use of the computer languages that will have developed out of those like the contemporary "Fortran" (from "formula translation").
We're still working on this one.
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#154Very good Isaac. Except the robots are allowed to kill.
I'm sure the drone-bots' creators view it as a matter of preventing inaction which allows humans to come to harm (and not considering the vic's as human, alas)
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#155Round-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…
x EL panels No, but they're to expensive for usage on every wall. Personally, I think they'll be pushed towards fringe applications by a technology Asmimov didn't predict. High efficiency LEDs. x Smart glass Yes, but again a cost question. There's this [ http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2012/01/10/t-ts-samsun... ], by Samsung. I don't see why you couldn't replace your windows with such screens if you had the spa…
The article distinguishes between what would be technically possible in 2014 and what would be in everyday use, so I think Asimov is being judged against roughly those criteria.
Moving sidewalks: I don't think the airport walkways count. Conveyor belts and escalators were both around long before 1964. The prediction is about where they'd be used.
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#156Asimov's own biases shine through pretty clearly in the initial bit: One thought that occurs to me is that men will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better. By 2014, electroluminescent panels will be in common use. Ceilings and walls will glow softly, and in a variety of colors that will change at the touch of a push button. Windows need be no more than an archaic…
> One thought that occurs to me is that men will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better.
This is at least stereotypically true of some sub-cultures: http://i.imgur.com/Tow30.gif
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#157Round-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…
It looks like we are ~20 years from an actual experimental fusion power plant (DEMO) although the ITER reactor currently being built in France (with the EU being the largest funder) should produce 500MW of thermal energy for nearly 500 seconds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO
ITER's not the only game in town: http://www.climatecolab.org/web/guest/plans/-/plans/contestI...
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I hate when the discussion devolves into putting flesh bodies into 40 hour a week boxes to repeat some repetitive task. 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 efficien…
That just requires a realization that few people can provide the necessary resources and goods to maintain the rest. We avoid that realization, hence elsewhere in this comment thread discussions of 50%+ office jobs and only working 10 hours of your 40 hour shift come into play. I guess it plays counter to the rugged individualism model of thinking (that, let us be honest, wealthy business owners love because it creates surplus labor supply on a cultural basis rather than a fiscal need) even though we have had 1% of the population working as farmers for 30 years providing all the crops we eat, even when our crops are grossly inefficient like beef.
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hate when the discussion devolves into putting flesh bodies into 40 hour a week boxes to repeat some repetitive task. 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 efficien…
That just requires a realization that few people can provide the necessary resources and goods to maintain the rest. We avoid that realization, hence elsewhere in this comment thread discussions of 50%+ office jobs and only working 10 hours of your 40 hour shift come into play. I guess it plays counter to the rugged individualism model of thinking (that, let us be honest, wealthy business owners love because it creat…
Well, I don't think anyone should choose for 'the rest'.
With regards to your comment on 1% of people being farmers and that being adequate, here's some fast facts about the US agricultural industry:
(1) 300 million people in the US, and the US can sustainably produce food for only 130 million of them. (recentish UN estimate I believe)
(2) Many US farms are net energy consumers, ie. they burn more energy in production than they give people in food.
Second, the earth will actually produce enough to support many humans using no humans (ie. "let the plants grow back, stop maintaining the concrete, stop unsustainably exploiting and poisoning the environment"). It just requires us to be a bit more in tune with the environment (eg. decentralize, consume in-season, eat less meat, start sharing a bit more).
Interesting times.
Re: Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014
#160Let'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 ..…
Nor can technology continue to match population growth / Part of the Zeitgeist. The first rumblings of limits were starting to echo about in the 1960s, though the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth wasn't published until 1972. 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…
We've gone way past the Club Of Rome's theoretical limits.
First: LTG wasn't a forecast, it used models to explore "the predicament of mankind". Modeling was used to project trends forward and to give a better understanding of how factors interrelated.
Second: LTG didn't include a single projection, but seven, including doubling natural resources, unlimited resources, unlimited + pollution controls, unlimited + increased ag productivity, unlimited + pollution controls + perfect birth control, unlimited + pollution controls + ag productivity + perfect birth control, and a "standard run".
You can read/download the original online now: http://www.donellameadows.org/the-limits-to-growth-now-avail...
And third: the standard run has proven very accurate in projecting trends forward, more so than the alternatives in which various constraints were lifted, as multiple authors have noted:
A COMPARISON OF THE LIMITS TO GROWTH WITH THIRTY YEARS OF REALITY
Graham Turner
http://www.csiro.au/files/files/plje.pdf
As shown, the observed historical data for 19702000 most closely matches the simulated results of the LtG "standard run" scenario for almost all the outputs reported; this scenario results in global collapse before the middle of this century. The comparison is well within uncertainty bounds of nearly all the data in terms of both magnitude and the trends over time. Given the complexity of numerous feedbacks between sectors incorporated in the LtG World3 model, it is instructive that the historical data compares so favorably with the model output.
If you prefer slides: http://igps.victoria.ac.nz/events/downloads/2011/Biophysical...
Also:
Growing within Limits
Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
http://www.rivm.nl/bibliotheek/rapporten/500201001.pdf
The Limits to Growth publications received praise, but they have also been criticised, among other things with respect to representation of technology, the aggregated representation of resources and environmental factors, and the misinterpretation of estimated reserves. In that context, it is often claimed that history has proved those projections to be incorrect, which is specifically based on the popular believe that Limits to Growth predicted resource depletion and associated economic collapse by the end of the 20th century (Hall and Day, 2009). In reality, the `standard' scenario (without policy changes) in the publication showed global collapse in the middle of the 21st century. Almost four decades since the publication of Limits to Growth in 1972, Turner (2008) compared the historic trends with the original projections.
This comparison showed the `standard' scenario to be very close to the actual trends for many variables, such as total population levels, birth and death rates, industrial output, and per-capita food consumption. For more complicated indices, such as resource depletion and persistent pollution, the results were more difficult to check. Using data on energy resources and CO2 concentration for comparison, Turner concluded that, also for these variables, the Limits to Growth projections reflected past trends reasonable well. For instance, the report indicated an increase in global CO2 concentrations, from 320 ppm in 1970 to 380 ppm in 2000; in reality the concentration in 2000 was 369 ppm. In contrast, alternative scenarios presented in Limits to Growth showed emission projections that lie below the actually observed trend.
Birth Rate
When major political parties and a major world religion continue to oppose family planning and birth control, with a population already well over carrying capacity, the battle cannot be said to be won.
The "demographic transition" has to date relied on standards of living, in absolute terms, which are not sustainable (or even attainable) on a global basis. It's a very short-term phenomenon in the history of humanity. It's been a huge benefit, but I'm very leery of depending upon it.