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Let's put the future behind us

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Re: Let's put the future behind us

#31

Post by jacquesm »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #2

Maybe it's just the stuff people end up linking, but Stross's blog always seems so negative. It's a bit of a drag.

This comment too, is negative and a bit of a drag. It's a very hard trap to avoid. Try harder! (cue meta meta comment...). I have to really force myself to see the positive side of how all this technology that we have is being used. The tools we have built to exchange information are being used to track us both by industry and governments, the software development environments are getting more and more complex and frankly ridiculous (compatibility testing for well over 25 browsers in order to make sure your documents can be read by others in the way you intended?), coffeemakers and printers with DRM and so on.

But then I remind myself to look at:

  - wikipedia

  - the Khan Academy (though they've started spamming!)

  - Google search (you can keep the rest)

  - Open Access journals

  - Linux
And a whole raft of good stuff and I feel better again.

Re: Let's put the future behind us

#32

Post by jacquesm »

cstross wrote: post #23
joshmarlow wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would worry about relying only on specific countermeasures like explosive detection. You can only build detectors like that for attack's that you can imagine; it's always possible someone is a bit more clever and comes up with a unique/lateral attack. With extensive surveillance and AI good enough to interpret body-language with a high-degree of accuracy, you could have a very general detector; as long as the perso…

The worst threats aren't deliberate attacks: when you get thousands of people living somewhere, there will be screw-ups, misunderstandings, and just plain reckless behaviour. We're used to living in a (relatively) fault-tolerant environment, where if I damage my home's plumbing it will, at worst, damage my neighbours apartments -- it won't kill them instantly by letting all the air out!

Apartment buildings have a pretty bad failure mode when someone leaves the gas stove lit and they go for a holiday or if there is a leak and bad ventilation.

All it takes is for the gas to be temporarily shut down or for the owners to be gone long enough not to notice before a sizable amount of gas has pooled and a few days later boom.

In Romania they make this extra easy by exporting the interface to shut down the gas to just outside of the apartment door. (This is not the fire-crew shut-off valve, simply one that the gas company can seal off if you don't pay your bills without opening the door to your apartment.)

Fortunately most gas gear has a shut-off for that scenario but stoves do not and a couple of explosions per year due to gas leaks and left open gas taps result.

https://www.google.com/search?q=gas+explosion+apartment

Re: Let's put the future behind us

#33

Post by jacquesm »

javert wrote: post #19
waterlesscloud wrote: post #2

Maybe it's just the stuff people end up linking, but Stross's blog always seems so negative. It's a bit of a drag.

Speaking as an American, he seems to have that stereotypical European pessimism about human nature, which is a big turn off to me. (I realize these stereotypes are just stereotypes... I mention them here because they seem to fit well.)

Wow. You've managed to generalize across 300 million people in one go. Congratulations, that has to be a record.

If you're aware that your stereotypes are just stereotypes could you try a little harder next time? Nothing worse than being aware of the failings of your arguments but using them anyway.

Re: Let's put the future behind us

#34

Post by jacquesm »

gaius wrote: post #22
mazork wrote: post #5

The article was interesting, but am I alone thinking that those tenebrous, click-baity titles are bad ?

Also while I enjoy his writing, I feel it's in bad taste to submit your own stuff. It seems pushy.

You mean like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3651482 ?

Re: Let's put the future behind us

#35

Post by DennisP »

joshmarlow wrote: post #18
DennisP wrote: post #4

I'm sure he's right, while there's only one O'Neill colony. But I can't help thinking that after a couple centuries of exponential growth, when there are millions of them, that it will be a boon for human freedom. I'm not convinced that such extensive surveillance will be necessary for safety purposes. Detectors for explosives, and security around critical points like airlocks, is likely to be sufficient. Ultimately,…

I would worry about relying only on specific countermeasures like explosive detection. You can only build detectors like that for attack's that you can imagine; it's always possible someone is a bit more clever and comes up with a unique/lateral attack. With extensive surveillance and AI good enough to interpret body-language with a high-degree of accuracy, you could have a very general detector; as long as the perso…

If you're worried about a major hull breach there aren't that many ways to go about it. Aside from that, you could pretty much make the same argument about any city on Earth, but I don't think many of us are in favor of ubiquitous surveillance on that account.

Re: Let's put the future behind us

#37

Post by Animats »

The future has less power than expected. From the beginnings of the industrial revolution up to the first oil crisis, new energy sources were discovered, exploited, and scaled up. Space travel requires insanely high power levels, and it was assumed back in the 1950s that those were coming.

They weren't. In the last 50 years, there have been no new power sources. We're still mostly on oil, coal, natural gas, and hydropower. Even solar cells and atomic power are now more than 50 years old. The existing technologies have improved, but there are no new ones.

That's why we don't have heated streets for snow melting, as seen in Disney's "The Magic Highway" (1958). We don't have much space travel because chemical rockets hit the power limits of chemistry around 45 years ago.

If controlled fusion is ever cracked, and it's not too expensive, we may see some of the older futuristic ideas back.

Re: Let's put the future behind us

#38

Post by cpeterso »

justincormack wrote: post #24
waterlesscloud wrote: post #2

Maybe it's just the stuff people end up linking, but Stross's blog always seems so negative. It's a bit of a drag.

Dystopia has always been a glorious part of our culture, in the UK and in Europe more generally. From Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, through HG Wells, Joseph Conrad (the Machine Stops), Orwell, JG Ballard, not to mention Pink Floyd, Chris Morris and When the Wind Blows. We love it, the discordance between what might have been and the plastic shittiness of what is, and we hate that Hollywood happy ending bollocks where…

An antidote to dystopian futures, Kevin Kelly's "A Desirable-Future Haiku: The coming hundred years, in one hundred words". On the chance that desirable futures ARE possible, we need to imagine them.

https://medium.com/message/a-desirable-future-haiku-ff01d63c...

Re: Let's put the future behind us

#39

Post by arethuza »

jacquesm wrote: post #33
javert wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as an American, he seems to have that stereotypical European pessimism about human nature, which is a big turn off to me. (I realize these stereotypes are just stereotypes... I mention them here because they seem to fit well.)

Wow. You've managed to generalize across 300 million people in one go. Congratulations, that has to be a record. If you're aware that your stereotypes are just stereotypes could you try a little harder next time? Nothing worse than being aware of the failings of your arguments but using them anyway.

Out of interest - where did you get 300 million from?

I believe its about 742 million for Europe as a whole and about 507 million for the EU.

Or was there some Eurostat poll I missed and we really do have 300 million cynical people here.... :-)

Re: Let's put the future behind us

#40

Post by coroxout »

justincormack wrote: post #25
gdubs wrote: post #21

Any West Wing fan will recognize the futurist's "whine" as attributed to Leo McGarry, the president's chief of staff: Leo McGarry: My generation never got the future it was promised... Thirty-five years later, cars, air travel is exactly the same. We don't even have the Concorde anymore. Technology stopped. Josh Lyman: The personal computer...? Leo McGarry: A more efficient delivery system for gossip and pornography?…

Or is that from They Might Be Giants, the World Before Later On (also 2004)? Or is there an earlier source? I'm trapped in a world before later on I'm trapped in a world before later on Where's my hovercraft? Where's my jet pack? Where's the font of acquired wisdom that eludes me now? We're trapped in a world before later on We're trapped in a world before later on Where's our telray? Where's our space face? Where ar…

I remember a definite pre-millennial spike in such jokes so I went looking. Never heard it before (it's on youtube so I have now), but track 2 of this album from 1984 might win the prize: http://www.discogs.com/Daniel-Amos-Vox-Humana-The-Alarma-Chr...

(Daniel Amos - "(It's The 80s So Where's Our) Rocket Packs")

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