24 replies to this topic

[duke_Qa]

Figured this would be a open enough question: What is your favorite future scenario/invention?

To limit it to our own existences, lets say things in the next 100 years. Some of us are likely to live that long at least, if medicine keeps evolving.

I guess virtual reality with direct brain link-up would be my favorite item. If you were able to hook the brain up to a computer, we can finally apply Adam Savage's "I reject your reality and substitute with my own". Also with digital memory we can all be geniuses, which will probably increase our productivity 10x at least. Also, if there's no big mystery to it, copying your mind to a digital emulation of a brain will probably be possible once this tech becomes sufficiently advanced.

In a future a bit more near (40 years): synthetic organs from stem-cell research. Heart attack? three days and they've grown a new one, ready to be implanted. Bad eyesight? stem-cell shot reinvigorates the cell-growth of your eyes and tightens up the muscles that keep your eyes focused.

And within the next 10-20 years: 3d printing revolution. Sufficiently advanced machines can print 3d models with multiple material types, creating anything from a car to a computer chip, creating a new industrial revolution where anyone can pretty much create anything if they got the model for it. I'll probably be using it for something useless like wargaming but eh, might make a living off it.

Anyway, what do you guys think we'll see in the near future?

Edited by duke_Qa, 13 November 2012 - 12:14 PM.

[Rider of Rohan]

You know I've never really thought about what we would see in the next 100 years ... maybe we could have out hearts replaced by a pump machine which could keep us alive for a drastically increased life span (not that i want to think of my heart taken out which is why i'd be dead by then XD )

[Radspakr Wolfbane]

Sprockets are the future.

[Pasidon]

Soilent Green is made from people.

[Radspakr Wolfbane]

Chucky Chicken is people.
(sorry Duke but you can consider this topic diverted )

[duke_Qa]

noooo

Oh well, I guess I'm the only one who wants to have a future. When I've ascended to Godhood and you're still sitting around bloated and dying, I'll leave you a line in one of my verses.

I'll add another one to try and rail the topic back. Space elevator, always good to reduce the cost of space-travel from $150k to $1k, And once you got one elevator you can probably much easier build another. And then we might get some more jobs hunting mineral-rich asteroids out in the inner belt.

And proper fusion power. Not that we can't create fusions today, but we need to develop the tech to contain it and get more out than we put in. Expected to happen around 2050, but I'm hoping that Government subsidies will be refocused the next years to speeding up the process.

[Pasidon]

What's in space that's so interesting? You'll have fun with the zero g's for about an hour, then want Burger King.

[duke_Qa]

Well I guess massive diamond asteroids the size of mountains, and other rare-earth materials worth billions of dollars. Not sure if troll or serious, but I find it dangerous that people have lost the wanderlust for the frontier. We are after all living on a planet with limited resources. I'd hope people would be more interested in going to the stars for more resources than killing each-other for scraps.

[Pasidon]

It's like Lost in Space, yea? Every episode, Dr. Smith finds diamonds, platinum or cosmodium (the unobtanium of space) and he always puts the Robinson's lives at risk to get these resources. I'm always forced to ask, "Why the **** would you want space diamond if you're Lost in Space?" I'll go to another planet when I can hunt cool things there.

[Irenë Hawnetyne]

Anyone for Paradise? A future I'd like to see is one where we turn around the crap we've done to the earth. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a treehugger, but I think many people have lost touch with the reality we once had, and it'd be nice to balance the technology we use every day with the forests and fields, the beaches and seas, so there's an escape for those of us who want it.

[mike_]

I'd be all for uploading myself into a Matrix-style virtual reality where I can continue living as long as I'd like

Really though, I hope that we explore the Milky Way some more. Mining the inner asteroid belt, as you said, will drastically increase the wealth of pretty much everyone. There's thousands of possible by-products of space exploration that could benefit us back on Earth. I'd love to see our moon and Mars colonized for scientific research and other purposes. It's going to be awfully embarrassing when the Creators come back next month to see that we've only just begun exploring other celestial bodies with unmanned drones.

[Pasidon]

Wait, so your dream job is to be a miner?

[Radspakr Wolfbane]

in spaaaaaace.

[mike_]

Sure. Why do you think I've logged so many hours in Minecraft?

[Pasidon]

It all makes sense now... it's why those farming and train simulators do so well... people want to do low paying jobs. The future is now!

[MattTheLegoman]

In Australia my dad could work at a mine as a metal-worker and earn a bazillion dollars and have supposedly superb holidays, practically half the year. But it would suck for his family who would only see him for half the year which is why he doesn't. ;p Mining is where the future is.

Regardless I should say what my perfect future is - apart from heaven (where I think the Egyptians got something write with the whole living the same as we were here but with more meaning and being OP).



Ummm so my ideal futuristic future will be: Brave New World.

Edited by MattTheLegoman, 16 November 2012 - 07:09 AM.

[Pasidon]

Heaven is made of milk. Wonderful... delicious milk. Now that's a future. Unless it all turns out to be skim / low fat milk... then Hell it be.

[duke_Qa]

That milk will sour over the first few days though, heaven might get putrid quite quickly . I'm guessing you have the milk-tolerance gene if you enjoy milk that much.

But yeah, large mining ships is hopefully going to be common once we get that elevator up. Well once we get an elevator up it shouldn't take many years before we got many elevators up, so who knows, it will be a bit of a expansion then.

Also, I'm guessing some of these ships will be big enough to have families on them, so the entire group could go out to work for a few years, have a small society aboard. As long as they find a way to avoid radiation death and no-gravity muscle atrophy, then it should be relatively comfortable and epic.

[Pasidon]

Your very specific plan makes me sad. It might be like 10th century Gambians having a debate about the future and how they hope slaves ships will become more comfortable and travel to new lands.

[MattTheLegoman]

I seriously thought saying that I wanted to live in the future from the book Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley would cause havoc. ;p