Why is the future always just a catalog of cool shit you might be able to buy one day if they figure out how to make it?
Did your parents buy a moon landing back in the 60s?
In taxpayer dollars.
It's time to build: a New World's Fair
221–230 of 237 posts
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds like a lot of technology for something you could hire someone to do for you at a fraction of the cost. The main downside of that is that you'd have to deal with a person.
That’s not how automation works.
Actually it is. 40-50 years ago we hit a point where growth stopped absorbing productivity gains. So all future automation also contributes to under employment, lowering the price of labor, reducing the need for further automation.
To try to bring back growth to pre 1970 leavels alone would cause horrific environmental destruction we cannot afford. In addition to taxing the environmental externalities, we also need to shrink the workweek and disburse UBI to the point where labor is in demand again. Only then will future automation work the way we want it to, and the way it did in the past.
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
> footage of North Koreans pledging their allegiance to their government You're literally just inventing stuff to get upset about. There's no dictator in America. When you pledge allegiance to the country - or when someone else does - they aren't saying they'll serve anyone's orders, they're affirming their support for something that's actually great. Whatever about the hand and heart - that's a bit demonstrative, bu…
You seem really, really incessantly upset about the idea that not everyone practices patriotism in the same way as you. So I think these long rambling replies do more to confirm the message you are replying to than you realise.
> I think these long rambling replies
I don't think you know what rambling means.
> You seem really, really incessantly upset
It's just so nice of you to care if I'm upset. I love you too.
> about the idea that not everyone practices patriotism in the same way as you.
No. Just saddened that they feel the need to denigrate the opportunity when there are so many clamoring to get it. So stuck in hatred of America they can't see that most of the world disagrees, and they're the ones in the bubble. Practice however you want, the hand/heart thing and the pledge are not the issue.
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Video phone was not new at that point, though. Germany had commercial installations, though fixed point to point, in 1936. The first descriptions of it date to just two years after the telephone was invented. The exhibit may have made more people aware it was possible, but the idea was already out there, and had been for a long time.
Do you have a link about these German video phones from 1936? That sounds very interesting.
The Early Television Foundation has many links. [1] There's a sizable history of rotating-machinery mechanical television. It's not hard to do, but it never got very good. You can only light up one pixel at a time, so you're stuck with dim, flickering images.
Scophony and Eidiphor, though, were clever pre-CRT systems with more potential. Eidiphor big-screen television projectors were patented in 1939, and were in use into the 1990s.
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
You seem really, really incessantly upset about the idea that not everyone practices patriotism in the same way as you. So I think these long rambling replies do more to confirm the message you are replying to than you realise.
> I think these long rambling replies I don't think you know what rambling means. > You seem really, really incessantly upset It's just so nice of you to care if I'm upset. I love you too. > about the idea that not everyone practices patriotism in the same way as you. No. Just saddened that they feel the need to denigrate the opportunity when there are so many clamoring to get it. So stuck in hatred of America they c…
I guess the idea that the reason the "entire of south america would move to the USA" and are "clamoring to get it" (other than, you know, geographical proximity and no funds to travel transatlantically) is in no small part due to the historical actions of the USA in destabilizing the regions where they live hasn't crossed your mind?
Of course it hasn't. Those countries suck because they are not the USA. USA on top = the natural state of things. USA! USA! USA! Think critically about the actions of the country and the shadow which it casts to this day? Suck it up snowflake or get out!!
It's exactly your kind of bland patriotism, devoid of any appreciation as to why things are the way they are, that the person you where replying to was talking about. And it's part of the reason as to why things are the way they are.
I think perhaps you view patriotism as a core part of why America is in the position it is today, but unfortunately to think that is to ignore history.
And lastly, the rest of the world doesn't really agree. I expect you'd be surprised the real damage Trump has done to the reputation of the USA abroad and how much it's tarnished the image you think you had.
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
were ran on the basis of renovating existing infrastructure, not building new stuff in a new city because the previous two Olympics were financial disasters. As with...all...of its Olympic bids, LA was not the first choice for the 1984 Olympics. It basically got those Olympics (and 2028, and the 1932 Olympics), because nobody else wanted to host them. In 1932, the world was in the throes of the Great Depression; in 1…
> even London wasn't the London one supposed to have been done cheaply and effectively, in contrast to the splurge of the previous two?
Effectively: no. Cheaply: no. The London Olympics had a final budget of roughly $13 billion, or nearly double the original forecast of approximately $6.5 billion. For comparison, Beijing cost $40 billion, Athens cost $11 billion, and Rio cost $13.1 billion. Note that these are just the budgets for the games themselves, not including ancillary spending on other non-game infrastructure.
For comparison, the combined total of LA's three Olympics (adjusted for inflation and including the forthcoming games) is well below $10 billion.
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What could we have in a World's Fair now that looks ahead? I want a roboticized home that cleans itself, that is able to do autorepairs, rooms reconfiguration. I want an auto-laundry and an auto-kitchen. I want it smart enough to manage air flow, temperature and humidity efficiently. I want all that to be voice activated. Please make it offline to not depend on some cloud thingies. I want a powerwall and solar pane…
I believe that is the basic setup to a few horror movies and episodes in TV shows. Even so, I'm in, if it comes with an option to not be voice activated. Nothing about modern computing is more frustrating than voice interfaces, except perhaps windows updates.
Have a watch at the classic "The Glass-Bottom Boat" from 1966 - it has a decent view of what they expected would be near-future automation, much of which we're just now seeing as cost-effective.
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only 1/2 joking but there was an automation exhibit at the 64 world's fair. It was by Disney and then moved to Disneyland for years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney%27s_Carousel_of_Pr... It showed the progress of the kitchen over the years and ended with a push button kitchen like The Jetsons I agree with you though. I want all of the things you listed. In particular, I want something that can dust (clean a…
> I want my walls and ceiling to be displays like from Total Recall for cheap (say under $500 per wall) Fun remark I heard in a startup's pitch: "If you have a hole in your wall, it is cheaper to buy a TV to hide it than to order a repair".
In college, two of my roommates were tussling and knocked a hole low in the wall between the kitchen bar and the hallway. As the only one with much craftsmanship ability, I took the roomie who was to pay for it down to the home center to buy drywall, tape, mud, and paint to fix the hole. Going to check out, we passed the air intake grills and the light bulb went on - we swapped the repair stuff for a grill and filter, went home to hack out a rectangular hole, and installed a new bogus air intake in the wall in just a few minutes. (The real intake was in the hall ceiling a few feet away, so it wasn't noticeable.)
Way quicker, cheaper, and easier than actually patching the wall and trying to match paint, and it got our deposit back, which was important since we were all broke seniors with no money coming in until we started our jobs. I've often wondered if anyone ever changed that filter! (My wife won't go for this method, so I've gotten pretty decent at matching drywall texture since then...)
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#229The last really prophetic world's fair was New York, 1939. That's famous for GM's vision of the future of 1960, the original "Futurerama" . Freeways everywhere. RCA had television. AT&T let you make free long distance calls. All that stuff happened. The 1964 World's Fair had another GM exhibit. Colonization of the Moon. Underwater cities. None of that happened. What could we have in a World's Fair now that looks ahea…
Build a dome over New Orleans or York; Call it the New Palace. Or to be more optimistic a nuclear plant, maybe Governor's island? or recommission Indian Point, along with district heating.
Snake Plisskin? I heard you were dead...
Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you're a child you can't realistically leave, and the pledge sounds rather like a promise to never do so. The people making those pledges have very little idea what values they're signing up to. It has the same vibe as chastity pledges, made by kids who don't know what they're talking about at the urging of their parents.
> sounds rather like a promise to never do so I just quoted the entire pledge and there is no semblance of that. Interesting how every reply has a different, deep interpretation of it. There must be some cultural context that is not possible to get from the outside.
> I just quoted the entire pledge and there is no semblance of that.
What does "allegiance" mean to you? I looked it up in a dictionary and saw it described as essentially "commitment".