[ExI] Is future progress moving to virtual reality?

spike spike at rainier66.com
Mon Mar 11 06:08:54 UTC 2013



-----Original Message-----
From: spike [mailto:spike at rainier66.com] 
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>...Ja and there is another important thing here.  A huge market today is in
grandparents taking their grandchildren to Disneyland and Disneyworld, and
reliving how it was when they were the age their grandchildren are
now...spike

There is another consideration regarding retro-futurism.  Consider the
biggest or most important developments we envisioned 40 years ago regarding
how life would be 40 years in the future.  Consider what we missed as well
as what we anticipated.  In any group brainstorming this question, someone
will envision flying cars and Star Trek transporters.  Clearly we wouldn't
need both, and just as clearly, the ST transporter is way more advanced.  So
let us consider those things.  Assume miracle engineering and manufacturing,
so that any prole can afford a flying car.  Why would that be so great?  It
would reduce traffic, the time to get to the office, but that would reduce
our motivation to reduce travel.

OK consider the ST transporter then.  Travel becomes free and completely
unlimited.  COOL!  Except that with travel delays, we say goodbye to all
privacy and most security.  Kirk and the lads could beam into anywhere and
back out.  So any radical Presbyterian could beam into the bedroom of any
teenage couple, slay  both unmarried infidels with a hearty Calvin Akbar,
beam back out, and we would never know who did that.  If we had sufficient
security systems to identify the perp, goodbye privacy.  In place of that,
we get the internet, which does cost us privacy to some extent, but at least
it is far more secure.

What are some of the other future visions?  Many, perhaps most of them had
to do with advanced forms of warfare.  Now our most advanced forms of
warfare are computer viruses.  Well, OK then, good deal.

Where in 50  year old futurist literature do we find anything analogous to
the modern internet?  I never saw it.

Super advanced robotics?  We are gradually getting there.  Still haven't
solved the problem of what to do with all the jobless humans.

Star Trek communicators?  We pretty much have that one: we can talk to
anyone anywhere on the globe in real time, using voice if that is really
necessary.  Skype makes it free.  OK, good deal.

We still have disease, haven't made all that much progress on many of them,
damn.  We still have addiction, all the classic human foible stuff, but it
is not at all clear we really want to give up all our favorite vices.

Overall, I would give humanity a good solid B, possibly a B+ on how the
future has turned out in my adult lifetime.

spike 




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