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[G-Flex]

Meanwhile, I'm already doing and being, or know somone who is, half the things you are planing for decades I the future at best. And some stuff even the best of you haven't dared imagine. Stuff you'd think I were crazy if I told you.

You mean like in that story you wrote where a guy uses a magical laptop computer to turn himself into an eight-year-old girl?

[John Galt Fanfiction]

There's a fairly decent chance somehting actualy BETTER than jetpacks are going to work out, and might even be coming soon: ornithocopters. Know a goy who's working on one, and there is no real reason why it wouldn't work,  electric engines and batteries have finally gotten light and powerful enough for it.

They've been around and feasible for decades now. Your goy is well behind the curve in anything other than marketing and justifying the massive insurance costs it would involve to have people strap personal flying devices to themselves and letting them out amongst the general public.

Oh, and please post some evidence about how you're living 20 years into the future, thanks in advance.

Meanwhile, I'm already doing and being, or know somone who is, half the things you are planing for decades I the future at best. And some stuff even the best of you haven't dared imagine. Stuff you'd think I were crazy if I told you.

You mean like in that story you wrote where a guy uses a magical laptop computer to turn himself into an eight-year-old girl?

e: what

[commondragon]

You can't outrun the future, for it is already here. :cueballeyes:

If the future is here, why aren't my appliances talking back to me or making horrible pre-recorded puns?

[MaximumZero]

You can't outrun the future, for it is already here. :cueballeyes:

If the future is here, why aren't my appliances talking back to me or making horrible pre-recorded puns?

You mean you don't have this fridge?

[penguinofhonor]

I don't know why you would need Twitter on your fridge. Or what you'd even use it for.

@frijluvr makin spaghetti right now lol #frommyfridge #lol #pizza

[Sensei]

There's a fairly decent chance somehting actualy BETTER than jetpacks are going to work out, and might even be coming soon: ornithocopters. Know a goy who's working on one, and there is no real reason why it wouldn't work,  electric engines and batteries have finally gotten light and powerful enough for it.

They've been around and feasible for decades now. Your goy is well behind the curve in anything other than marketing and justifying the massive insurance costs it would involve to have people strap personal flying devices to themselves and letting them out amongst the general public.

The problem with those is fuel; they literally last less than a minute. It would be more accurate to say we're waiting for practical jetpacks, but, you know. I still don't have a jetpack.

[miauw62]

You can't outrun the future, for it is already here. :cueballeyes:

If the future is here, why aren't my appliances talking back to me or making horrible pre-recorded puns?

1. Upload 17 pages of tree puns into tv
2. Make tv say pun every time you switch channel
3. ?? ?
4. Profit

[Armok]

Um, an http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornithopter means a flapping wing design, not a backpack helicopter. And why is everyone poking fun at my spelling?

Anyway, since people seem interested, said guys blog is here: http://my.opera.com/altg/blog/

[LordBucket]

There's a lot going on in this thread that could be responded to. Overall though, I get the impression that people here will probably cope better than the average person might. I've had similar conversations on other forums, and they often devolve into me trying to explain to people that the "super ridiculously advanced future techs that humanity could never have developed without secret help from aliens" have sometimes been around in one form or another since the 1800s.

Personally, my big moment of "future shock" happened about 10 years ago when I first walked into a mall and saw one of these (on a board, not a truck.) When I saw that...I stopped in my tracks, and basically said to myself, "Ok. That's it then. We're in the future now." Since then I've pretty much been of the Where's my jetpack? school of thought. Though at this point I suspect that the jetpacks might not ever really be commonplace because they might be displaced by, say...continent-to-continent teleportation.

Global telepathy is likely to be a game changer. I don't really see anyway, short of the destruction of modern civilization, for that to not happen. Others have pointed out the increase in communication speed. Telepathy seems like a logical extension of that. We already have brain to computer interfaces. It's basically just a matter of refinement before somebody figures out a practical way to transmit audio and video too. Once people can pay a couple hundred dollars for an implant that allows them to record anything they experience to internal hardware and transmit it to others via a wireless network...just apply existing concepts like youtube, livestream, craisgslist...and let your mind go wild.

What happens when the majority of the human population is connected via a real time computer/brain interface? Add in transmission of emotion, thought and tactile sensation while you're at it.

Total game changer.

Anyway, just to respond to a couple quick points mentioned by others, we went from the human aerial flight in 1903 to the first man on the moon in 1969. We've had a bit of a lull in space travel lately, but just two months ago Voyager 1 left the heliosphere and passed into interstellar space. If 66 years was enough time to go from first flight through air to landing on the moon, I wouldn't be surprised if it's enough time to go from interstellar probes to interstellar human transport, or even teleportation.

As to sex with robots...this is a robot. Here are two talking to each other. Here's one walking. Now, after watching those (or at least the first one. It's short.)  now go watch an asimo video from ten years ago, extrapolate the difference and try to imagine what they'll be like ten years from now. Keep in mind it's the Japanese making these things.

And as for people thinking they won't be alive to see these things happen Biological immortality and youth regeneration may have already been invented. Oh, also lost limb regeneration. It might not be much longer before someone on their deathbed can take a pill and have a brand new "20 year old" body in weeks.

Add in star trek holodecks (they're working on it) and matter replicators (yeah, working on those too), and it might not make a huge different whether the 2012 spiritual ascension scenario happens. Humans might create their own ascension via technology.

[kaijyuu]

Here's one scary thought on the telepathy thing:

If we can take images out of people's heads, you can say bye bye to every form of art. Anything you can imagine could instantly be transferred from your head to a computer. The interfaces to create music, visual art, movies, video games, etc etc will all be so simple that anyone and everyone can make whatever they want. Then we shall face a true scarcity-less society when it comes to creative endeavors. Creativity will be the sole determination of something's quality as technical prowess and resources becomes irrelevant, and within a decade or so there will literally be nothing new under the sun.

All those bad fanfiction writers could then make full on feature length movies... in an afternoon. With the best effects you (or rather, they) can imagine. And so can you! Did you think a scene sucked in one of your favorite movies? Edit it in five minutes and it will be indistinguishable from the original actors/etc.


So in the end, what will be left? Will everything relating to storytelling and art be written off as cliche, as it all has literally been done a million times before? Or will we find a criteria to judge things on besides originality and technical prowess?

[Leafsnail]

Personally, my big moment of "future shock" happened about 10 years ago when I first walked into a mall and saw one of these (on a board, not a truck.) When I saw that...I stopped in my tracks, and basically said to myself, "Ok. That's it then. We're in the future now."

...Seriously?

[Eagle_eye]

Here's one scary thought on the telepathy thing:

If we can take images out of people's heads, you can say bye bye to every form of art. Anything you can imagine could instantly be transferred from your head to a computer. The interfaces to create music, visual art, movies, video games, etc etc will all be so simple that anyone and everyone can make whatever they want. Then we shall face a true scarcity-less society when it comes to creative endeavors. Creativity will be the sole determination of something's quality as technical prowess and resources becomes irrelevant, and within a decade or so there will literally be nothing new under the sun.

All those bad fanfiction writers could then make full on feature length movies... in an afternoon. With the best effects you (or rather, they) can imagine. And so can you! Did you think a scene sucked in one of your favorite movies? Edit it in five minutes and it will be indistinguishable from the original actors/etc.


So in the end, what will be left? Will everything relating to storytelling and art be written off as cliche, as it all has literally been done a million times before? Or will we find a criteria to judge things on besides originality and technical prowess?

I think you're underestimating just how much of a leap there is between sending visual input to another person and having them receive it, versus sending the mental perception of it. Our brain does tons of processing that we're not aware of on things we see, and we're really not aware of most of what is in our field of vision at any one time. We're really really good at picking up things the very center of our view, and anything moving, but everything else takes quite a bit of effort to focus on. If we manage to convert imagination to an image on a screen, it isn't going to look anything like reality.

[kaijyuu]

I imagine it will certainly take some effort to create a detailed image, but pen and paper is definitely going the way of the dodo once we get the basics down.

[Frumple]

Here's one scary thought on the telepathy thing:[snip]

Waiting with eagerness for the day that stuff happens. Being able to create without the physical limitations (such as time, building up skills -- which I'm not capable of to a certain degree (minor dysgraphia, etc.) -- and so forth) is an absolute dream for me. I can't think of anything better that could happen to the creative sphere than actual thought-to-media conversion. Creative works limited only by the limits of imagination and naught else? Bring it. That sounds like absolute bliss. Every possible creative work under the sun actually existing? I have trouble thinking of a better scenario.

I imagine it will certainly take some effort to create a detailed image, but pen and paper is definitely going the way of the dodo once we get the basics down.

*rampant cheering*

Seriously though, probably not. We've still got blacksmiths around despite being able to make machines that can match or surpass their capability with ridiculous ease. There's a degree of appreciation for technical prowess even after that prowess becomes functionally needless.

[penguinofhonor]

Spoiler: time to answer these i guess? (click to show/hide)

 * Will you be comfortable having brain implants to allow you "telepathic" communcation with the devices in your home?
Hell yeah.

 * Will you be comfortable when primitive things like email and cellphones have been replaced with real-time global telepathy?
Probably not. I'm definitely too afraid of being brain-hacked. Oh god I sound like an old person talking about email. Okay so maybe if I can forward a ton of stupid bullshit to my grandkids telepathically then I'd be fine with it.

 * Will you be comfortable when your son or daughter wants to marry an alien? Or a robot? Or a non-human genetic construct?
Definitely.

 * Will you be comfortable having friends invite you to neighboring solar systems for lunch?
Hell yeah.

 * Will you be comfortable having your physical body destroyed and your consciousness uploaded into a machine? Will you be comfortable interacting with others who have done so?
Yeah, most likely.

 * Will you be comfortable having sex with people who were the opposite gender of a different species a few hours ago and simply had a new body constructed to wear for the night?
Yep.