Our Long Awaited Flying Car is on the way - please predict the future

[Bob Maxey]

OK, we wanted those tablets people carry around on Star Trek. BAM . . . we have them. Little devices that can be used to talk to anyone with a phone, anywhere on the planet. BAM . . . they are here.

Several companies arer building rockets, so that dream of space flight for the "masses" near.

We wanted replicators and BAM, we now have them. Makerbots are here and getting stronger. Need the latest Barbie? No problem, just find the file and some silly pink plastics. Need something made of metal, no problem. Ceramics and food, no problem. Need a new ear, no problem. Well, in a few years, no problem.

At least one researcher reports that we are quickly approaching the level of connection we see in the brain, duplicated on the Internet. Will the net be mean or smart or a wize arse? Perhaps in will be like our grandmothers? Huh?

We did NOT want the Borg, but BAM . . . we have Facebook and Google and we are becomming part of the collective. Add the new NSA facility here in Utah and everything will be monitored. This comes from the NSA, it is not a conspirecy theory. They are proud to tell us every call and email message will be looked at.

We can photograph at a trillion frames a minute and st that speed, the research team is seeing effect precede cause. not expected, but always assiumed that there is cause then effect. If what researchers are seeing is true, then what other strange things will we discover or discover are wrong?

So what is next? We can make most anything we need with a desktop tool. We have Makerbot like devices for creating actual food. A book I read tells of a company that has figured out how to make complex compounds on the desktop; another book predicts the abillty for dummies like me to create compounds at the molecurlar level. Desktop gene sequencers are here.

Sadly, we know that most locks are useless. Even the complex models (one of the most popular models at any rate) that add biometrics can be easily fooled.

So we are living near a life where everyone will know everything about us; a world where anything we need can be created on the desktop; a world where guns can be made on the desktop and there is almost no privacy.

Here is the deal: using logic, describe the world in 20 years.

 

[LannyC]

Well, Bob, aside from the question of whether either of us will still be alive, I can guarantee that we still won't have flying cars. I mean, considering how much trouble most folks have managing their vehicles rationally in two dimensions, natural selection would surely preclude the routine addition of another one. The increase in fatal mishaps would go asymptotic! The only mode of transport more dangerous would be personal subway cars; at least those would be unlikely to fall on innocent bystanders.

OTOH, if the planet truly is sentient, perhaps flying cars are exactly what She has planned for us. If only in self defense.

If you look hard enough online, you can find a UK TV series called James May's Big Ideas. One of the episodes concerns flying cars. I think you'd enjoy it.

'Scuse me, I gotta hop into my personal helicopter and go frack something...

This post handcrafted from 100 percent post-consumer recycled electrons.

 

[scifan57]

I've still got an old issue of Popular Science that has an article on the flying cars everybody will have, in the year 1960!

 

[Bob Maxey]

Well, Bob, aside from the question of whether either of us will still be alive, I can guarantee that we still won't have flying cars. I mean, considering how much trouble most folks have managing their vehicles rationally in two dimensions, natural selection would surely preclude the routine addition of another one. The increase in fatal mishaps would go asymptotic! The only mode of transport more dangerous would be personal subway cars; at least those would be unlikely to fall on innocent bystanders.

OTOH, if the planet truly is sentient, perhaps flying cars are exactly what She has planned for us. If only in self defense.

If you look hard enough online, you can find a UK TV series called James May's Big Ideas. One of the episodes concerns flying cars. I think you'd enjoy it.

'Scuse me, I gotta hop into my personal helicopter and go frack something...

This post handcrafted from 100 percent post-consumer recycled electrons.

Well, perhaps you have a few valid points. That is why I do not visit Kickstarter to crowd fund my gossamer wings of wax (I gave up on the flying car because they are available now) With global warming predicted to make this planet uninhabitable due to the projected 3 degree rise in global temperatures in the next century, I see problems.

Can you imagine thousands of people all flying around up there? That said, KS will fund anything, so I must upgrade AutoCAD and get things started.

I predict these things:

Apple will sue me
Memory will rapidly grow past TB to Petabyte ranges; by then, we will stop caring about disk space until Apple/MS will release new operating systems that hog it all up
The Floppy disk will be replaced
We will regret how much we use online services as things are stolen. Like our souls and personal CC data
14 people I do not know will unfriend me
Humans will not really change much
cloning will go big time
Dinosaurs will rule the planet
Furby will become sentient and demand order. Many of us will die in the revolt
We will learn--finally learn--who "they" and "Them" are. You know, those that pull the strings we always hear about
Phones will get smarter than the user. Wait, that happened a few years ago
Longevity will increase
Siri will sue me again, for harassment
Apple will eventually die off as RIM takes over

That is all I have for today.

 

[Bob Maxey]

I've still got an old issue of Popular Science that has an article on the flying cars everybody will have, in the year 1960!

See . . that was the dream they sold us. Flying Cars!

Sadly, it will not be.

That said, there are people trying to build them. I want one!

 

[Bennettb]

Would be wonderful if everyone had a comfortable place to live and enough to eat. Sadly, I don't think 20 years will do it. Flying cars? I'll settle for affordable self driving.
Bobbi

 

[KevinJS]

I seem to remember a few years ago reading that with increased automation in manufacturing would come a golden age when people would only have to work about four hours a week, and leisure activities would become almost compulsory. I'd settle for that, so long as someone is going to pay me to play golf.

 

[thewitt]

I seem to remember a few years ago reading that with increased automation in manufacturing would come a golden age when people would only have to work about four hours a week, and leisure activities would become almost compulsory. I'd settle for that, so long as someone is going to pay me to play golf.

Utopian dreams surface in the minds of idealists every few years.

Not going to happen.

 

[KevinJS]

Utopian dreams surface in the minds of idealists every few years.

Not going to happen.

Figured that. I really couldn't see anyone paying me to play golf. Oh, well. Back to the drawing board.

 

[Bob Maxey]

I seem to remember a few years ago reading that with increased automation in manufacturing would come a golden age when people would only have to work about four hours a week, and leisure activities would become almost compulsory. I'd settle for that, so long as someone is going to pay me to play golf.

I know an ecconomics guru that explained why working fewer hours is a bad idea. Not sure, but I work less and make more these days, so perhaps you are on to something and the prof is full of cat fur.

 

[Samana]

I predict something like corusant from Star Wars, people never leaving electronic gadgets that have everlasting batteries, and robots that do everything for us. What a dream.

-Samana

 

[Samana]

Actually, I'm beginning to doubt the Star Wars prediction. That's just illogical. Or is it?

-Samana

 

[KevinJS]

Actually, I'm beginning to doubt the Star Wars prediction. That's just illogical. Or is it?

-Samana

Yes. Unless you have some plan for replenishing atmospheric oxygen in the absence of the vast areas now filled by forests. Not to mention getting rid of the CO2 that would have nowhere to go.

 

[Samana]

Yes. Unless you have some plan for replenishing atmospheric oxygen in the absence of the vast areas now filled by forests. Not to mention getting rid of the CO2 that would have nowhere to go.

I see what you mean. There goes that idea.

-Samana