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[MaximumZero]

I'm an optimist on a lot of things, but scientific advances I'm a bit skeptical on.

Where the hell is my flying car?

Here ya go.

[Furtuka]

The issue with flying cars isn't about Science, its about regulation, safety, and logistics.

[MaximumZero]

The issue with flying cars isn't about Science, its about regulation, safety, and logistics.

Hear hear. Your average idiot can't drive in two dimensions, let alone three.

[lemon10]

In 250 years we can probably just hack genetics directly so the whole eugenics thing will be moot.

Yeah, I know. Any eugenics program would take centuries to have substantial (or even noticeable) results without modern technology and knowledge (at the very best, assuming that the program is objective and scientific and consistent over the entire time (which is in and of itself highly unlikley)).

But once you start to get modern technology and knowledge you quickly get to the point where its substantially slower then more direct methods (eg. gene-therapy and direct genetic engineering) making it almost completely obsolete, not to mention the massive ethical problems that every eugenics program have (eg. forced sterilization) that wouldn't exist in gene-therapy.

[kaijyuu]

The issue with flying cars isn't about Science, its about regulation, safety, and logistics.

Hear hear. Your average idiot can't drive in two dimensions, let alone three.

Good thing I'm an even bigger idiot than your average idiot!

* kaijyuu goes to buy one.

[Putnam]

Measuring scientific progress by the invention of specific items put forth in speculative fiction is dumb, especially when you're doing so on a worldwide network of computers that contains most of the information known to mankind :I

[Bauglir]

Measuring scientific progress by the invention of specific items put forth in speculative fiction is dumb, especially when you're doing so on a worldwide network of computers that contains most of the information known to mankind :I

Your argument is invalidated by the fact most people use this massive interconnected network to tell their friends what they had for breakfast.

Or to conceal information, such as their true, canine identities.

[kaijyuu]

Measuring scientific progress by the invention of specific items put forth in speculative fiction is dumb, especially when you're doing so on a worldwide network of computers that contains most of the information known to mankind :I

Your argument is invalidated by the fact most people use this massive interconnected network to tell their friends what they had for breakfast.

Or to conceal information, such as their true, canine identities.

I could make a joke at the expense of furries but that would be mean.

[Putnam]

Measuring scientific progress by the invention of specific items put forth in speculative fiction is dumb, especially when you're doing so on a worldwide network of computers that contains most of the information known to mankind :I

Your argument is invalidated by the fact most people use this massive interconnected network to tell their friends what they had for breakfast.

That doesn't invalidate my argument, it strengthens it. This piece of extremely futuristic technology is as mundane to us as a light bulb. We're living in the goddamn future.

[Descan]

Yeah. If someone told me that I could go into a Sci-Fi world and leave this one? I'd say no thank you, barring some special circumstances/world. Like if I could bring with me knowledge, such as knowledge of billions of interconnected personal computers...

I'd rather our information revolution than the various paradigm shifts of sci-fi, like space-flight or genetic engineering.

For the simple reason that with our information revolution, all that stuff and more is just that much easier and sooner to create~ :3

* Descan hugs everyone except Kaijyuu.

Measuring scientific progress by the invention of specific items put forth in speculative fiction is dumb, especially when you're doing so on a worldwide network of computers that contains most of the information known to mankind :I

Your argument is invalidated by the fact most people use this massive interconnected network to tell their friends what they had for breakfast.

Who cares what most people use it for?

[kaijyuu]

In seriousness, comparing things to sci-fi predictions is a bit more fair than you might expect, considering we're talking about things in the future we expect humanity to invent.

There's a long, long, long list of amazing wonders science has created. Most of those weren't expected. Meanwhile, all the expected inventions (flying cars, jetpacks, personal rocket ships, hoverboards (a lot of flying things really), mind control, easy genetic manipulation, AI, humanoid robots, etc) have but a few things that actually came to fruition.

* Descan hugs everyone except Kaijyuu.

* kaijyuu hugs Descan anyway.

[SealyStar]

Measuring scientific progress by the invention of specific items put forth in speculative fiction is dumb, especially when you're doing so on a worldwide network of computers that contains most of the information known to mankind :I

Your argument is invalidated by the fact most people use this massive interconnected network to tell their friends what they had for breakfast.

And take pictures of what they had for breakfast with obnoxious faux-old fashioned filters.

Measuring scientific progress by the invention of specific items put forth in speculative fiction is dumb, especially when you're doing so on a worldwide network of computers that contains most of the information known to mankind :I

Your argument is invalidated by the fact most people use this massive interconnected network to tell their friends what they had for breakfast.

Or to conceal information, such as their true, canine identities.

Or to express their fake canine identities.

[Frumple]

There's a long, long, long list of amazing wonders science has created. Most of those weren't expected. Meanwhile, all the expected inventions (flying cars, jetpacks, personal rocket ships, hoverboards (a lot of flying things really), mind control, easy genetic manipulation, AI, humanoid robots, etc) have but a few things that actually came to fruition.

... we have flying cars (if not very good ones), jetpacks (see quality of cars), could have personal rocket ships if anyone was rich and flighty enough to build one, have indoctrination and nasty psych tricks out the wazoo (to say nothing of more subtle means of memetic influence~), have plenty of humanoid robots of varying levels of quality. AI and hoverboards aren't really here yet (and the latter might not actually come around), and genetic manipulation is fairly nascent, still, but... that's more checked off than not. More "expected inventions" have been hit, if perhaps not became ubiquitous, over the years than haven't. Many of the ones that either haven't been (hoverboards) or haven't became ubiquitous (flying cars, jetpacks), haven't due mostly because of the fact we've got something else that just works better (or, at least, is much less expensive and still works well enough).

S'just... sorry Kaij. We've been in sci-fi land for at least a good decade or two, now. We are also wizards. Even a small population of WIZARDS IN SPAAAACE *doodadoo*. That's just how good, on the net, we've become in the field of science and whatnot.

[mastahcheese]

Well, you could argue that we technically have hoverboards. (It's basically a 5 ft x 5 ft platform with MASSIVE propellers on the bottom, they suck, and is impractical, but it exists.)
So really, we have everything.

[Yoink]

Don't think for a moment I won't sacrifice both rationality and sanity for a few moments of memorability.

...I was going to post this in the OOC quotes thread, but it's great enough that I might just sig it.