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Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

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Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#71

Post by AlexeiSadeski »

mikeash wrote: post #55
AlexeiSadeski wrote: post #7

Hurricane Sandy was a Category 1 hurricane at landfall. That's pretty much the opposite of a SUPERSTORM. Much larger hurricanes have hit New England before. For example, the "Great New England Hurricane of 1938" made landfall on Long Island as a Category 3 storm, killing over 600 people. The Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944 also was Category 3, killing 390 people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Hurricane_of…

You realize that hurricane category is only one measure of a storm, and not necessarily even the most important one? "Superstorm" Sandy is not called that because if its wind speed (which is all that "category" is about) but because of its size , as in physical extent.

Excepting instances of extremely small storms, Category is in fact the second most important factor when determining the destructiveness of a storm.

First most important is geography - where the storm hits.

Size of the storm is the least important factor. A large but weak storm (such as Sandy) will always be less destructive than smaller but more intense storm - assuming that they make landfall at the same location.

Sandy killed only 131 individuals, despite making landfall in an extremely densely populated area. Within the US, far smaller - but more intense - storms have killed far more people in areas far less densely populated.

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#72

Post by redwood »

AlexeiSadeski wrote: post #71
mikeash wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that hurricane category is only one measure of a storm, and not necessarily even the most important one? "Superstorm" Sandy is not called that because if its wind speed (which is all that "category" is about) but because of its size , as in physical extent.

Excepting instances of extremely small storms, Category is in fact the second most important factor when determining the destructiveness of a storm. First most important is geography - where the storm hits. Size of the storm is the least important factor. A large but weak storm (such as Sandy) will always be less destructive than smaller but more intense storm - assuming that they make landfall at the same location.…

Aren't you leaving out storm surge, which is just as much of a result of wind speed as it is of size... it was the surge that made Sandy at landfall truly unique.

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#73

Post by redwood »

31reasons wrote: post #47

A very important breakthrough is missing in the list : Human Genome sequencing cost dropped to $1000 with processing time of only a day. Just 12 years ago it cost $3 billion dollars and 15 years of work.

I thought we were still hovering above $1000 but getting close?

Either way another important milestone of exponential gain is the cost of solar!

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#74

Post by cwp »

pretoriusB wrote: post #64
cwp wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's mostly about making money Those things go hand in hand. Ideally, you can't make money without improving human life in exchange. Sure, any political system will include a bit of corruption and rent-seeking, but by-and-large, it's exactly the profit motive that has improved the human condition. > billions_ of people continue to do that So it's all pointless? Because we haven't achieved a paradise of endless blis…

> Those things go hand in hand. Ideally, you can't make money without improving human life in exchange. That's ideology. Specifically, an Adam Smith style ideology. You can very well make money without improving human life in exchange. Heck, you make tons of money without improving human life. Like being an arms dealer. Or an African warlord. Or a crack dealer. Or a huge money seeking corporation selling sugar water.…

Well, our best understanding of what generates wealth is that it comes from trade. Trade involves two parties exchanging resources for their mutual benefit. Adam Smith was one of the first to write about this, and yes, he thought that trade and wealth for all was a good thing.

> You can very well make money without improving human life in exchange

Notice that I said "ideally," and that all the counter-examples you give are illegal. As I said before, a certain amount of corruption (and evil-doing) is inevitable. (The Belgians wouldn't be able to get away with that today. In fact, that's more evidence that we're in a golden age—that kind of behaviour isn't acceptable even from sovereign nations.)

I'm not trying to argue the Greed-is-good-Gordon-Gecko philosophy of screwing over everyone in order to enrich yourself. By all means, help your fellow man. But don't be so down on commerce. There's a big, important difference between piracy and trade, though both are driven by the desire to improve one's own lot. Trade is beneficial to both parties, and it's the reason that billions of people live a life of luxury that was unimaginable 10,000 years ago.

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#75

Post by slackson »

josteink wrote: post #36

Rounded corners being worth 1 billion dollars in patent-lawsuits evidently not among them. Pantent-trolling being more profitable the producting neither. Seriously. We have come a so far in technology the last decades. Things we would consider science fiction or maybe even ipmossible ten years ago is every-day stuff now. And our "tech leaders" (and I say that with the most disrespect possible) are now busy engaging i…

I'd like to have hope that this is not a long-term trend, that these counterproductive lawsuits will soon awaken politicians to the need to reform patent and copyright law to a form that encourages innovation and creation.

I'm not sure if this is an easy problem to solve, though, or if it requires deeper problems of corruption to be fixed first.

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#76

Post by nwienert »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #68
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not the arbiter of other people's values. People drink coke because they enjoy it. Keep your moral outrage reasonable please.

> Or a huge money seeking corporation selling sugar water. If you remove the word 'sugar' from this sentence, it will still be true and also the problem of value arbitrage will be mostly gone. Bottled water is a worldwide scam.

Last time I bought bottled water I'm pretty sure I got water inside of a bottle, and that was exactly what I wanted. It's convenience, and that absolutely is beneficial.

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#77

Post by pazimzadeh »

redwood wrote: post #73
31reasons wrote: post #47

A very important breakthrough is missing in the list : Human Genome sequencing cost dropped to $1000 with processing time of only a day. Just 12 years ago it cost $3 billion dollars and 15 years of work.

I thought we were still hovering above $1000 but getting close? Either way another important milestone of exponential gain is the cost of solar!

Are you sure? 23andme.com apparently does it for $100.

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#78

Post by Retric »

dhimes wrote: post #3
shanelja wrote: post #2

I hadn't thought of these individual achievements as being that big until I saw them all together in one place and now I can say that this has truly been a breakthrough year all across the technology sector. Every year we seem to be accelerating our speed of development when it comes to technology, I'm only 19 and in my life I've seen us go from 56kb/s internet to 1gb/s internet, go from the rare NASA launch to regul…

I believe you are correct; the beauty of exponential growth is that at any point you can make the same observation about the previous 100 years.

Exponential growth in some areas.

I don't think peoples lifestyles have changed all that much in the last 30 years. In 1982 you could point to computers, networks, and cellphones and say these are going to get far more popular. But, medicine, car millage, and battery power while improved are not that much better.

PS: What's so striking to me is how little science fiction has changed over that time span.

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#79

Post by ramanujan »

jacquesm wrote: post #32
JanezStupar wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, it's not. It's mostly about making money. No business cares about "improving the quality of human life and alleviating suffering" (they might pay lip service to that on their brochures though). Shareholders don't care about "alleviating suffering", only about return of investment. Umm, not all businesses are in the business of providing happiness to people. Some are in fact in the business of providing misery t…

> While I can easily sympathize with your position, rich western corporations don't owe jack shit to third world people. Wow that is so wrong it is terrible. Rich western corporations are rich western corporations because of the 1400s to date absolute rape of the rest of the world by the west. We, collectively including our corporations owe third world people in a way that we will likely never be able to make good on…

jacquesm: As a "third world person", I don't think the West owes anything to us. It's actually a very Euro-centric and arguably racist model of the world to believe that only whites have agency and that everything hinges on what whites did or did not do.

Nonwhite people are perfectly capable of killing themselves (and whites!) in huge numbers. Genghis Khan, Shaka Zulu, the Aztecs, and the Arabs conquered lands and put many cities to the sword. Islam radiated out from the Middle East to the Atlantic and the Pacific, with sword.

What do you think Genghis or Shaka Zulu would have done if they invented guns and ships first? They're human. They would have conquered Europe and enslaved Europeans. Indeed, many Europeans were enslaved by North African slave traders.

Europeans do lose battles. It is racist to think otherwise. Didn't the Japanese win the Russo-Japanese war? Wasn't the Muslim world on the offensive when Europeans were in disarray? Weren't China and India the centers of the world economy for hundreds of years?

All civilizations rise and fall. Europeans had a great run from 1492 to 2008. China is currently the top dog, even if many people in the West haven't realized it. And they didn't get rich from Western aid, and they sure didn't benefit from the export of that oh-so-Western ideology of communism, thought up by a dead white guy named Karl Marx.

They created their wealth and are lifting a billion plus people out of poverty.

When they're on top, which they already are, are you going to still claim that the West is the sole driver of history, that everyone is what they are because of Western action or inaction? Or will you agree that China (and India, and all the others) are human too, and can build up their own societies without "help" from the West? Because China doesn't want your aid and it sure doesn't want your pity. But it'd be happy to sell you a chip for $199, as an equal partner in a trade.

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#80

Post by scoot »

joshuahedlund wrote: post #17
scoot wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it does - it's about trends, not isolated occurrences (so in that sense I agree with your quibble, just not with your rationale). The frequency and intensity of extreme weather incidents is on an upward (and exponential) track.

> The frequency and intensity of extreme weather incidents is on an upward (and exponential) track. I am not one who claims there is no evidence for climate change (I would point to this year's record arctic ice minimum, for instance) but I remain unconvinced that this is true. For example, there is absolutely no positive trend in US F3+ tornadoes[1], or in major US hurricane strikes per decade[2]. I know that's just…

I don't think picking one type of weather event from one geographic location over a relatively short time-frame is going to be representative (however I am by no means suggesting you intentionally picked data that favoured your argument).

This more encompassing study shows a definite trend, although I accept my use of the word 'exponential' was ill-advised without concrete evidence to back it up:

'The data show that the number of such events is rising. Munich Re, one of the world's largest reinsurance companies, has compiled the world's most comprehensive database of natural disasters, reaching all the way back to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Researchers at the company, which obviously has a keen financial interest in trends that increase insurance risks, add 700 to 1,000 natural catastrophes to the database each year, explains Mark Bove, senior research meteorologist in Munich Re's catastrophe risk management office in Princeton, N.J. The data indicate a small increase in geologic events like earthquakes since 1980 because of better reporting. But the increase in the number of climate disasters is far larger. "Our figures indicate a trend towards an increase in extreme weather events that can only be fully explained by climate change," says Peter Höppe, head of Munich Re's Geo Risks Research/Corporate Climate Center: "It's as if the weather machine had changed up a gear.'[1]

[1] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=extreme-wea...

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