The future?

[Mauve Shirt]

Is it here? For now we have flying cars (http://www.thedenverchannel.com/technology/24094195/detail.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter) that will be produced and sold to the public.

[Comet]

The future is coming, yes.
Not quite there yet, though. We still have to get over the part where everyone and their aunt want to buy a flying car because it's hip n' cool and then proceed to soar up into the sky and immediately come down in flames like Icarus.

[Ichneumon]

Wrong, the future isn't now. The future happened thirty-five minutes ago.

[Kobold-Bard]

Dammit I'm not supposed to be posting, but that is officially now at the top of my lottery wishlist.

Though deep down I hope to god it doesn't take off (edit: excuse the pun, completely accidental :smallredface:). Where I work is 5 stories high, and I could really do without some learner driver crashing into the top floor. Bollards will have to be 50ft tall :smalltongue:

Roll on jetpacks for the masses :smallbiggrin:

[J.Gellert]

We can never have flying cars. People are idiots. If one can't stop at a STOP sign, how can you expect him to fly anything?

If flying cars ever become commonplace, I'm moving to the countryside (and possibly installing SAM to be safe from drunken imbeciles).

[Ravens_cry]

Dammit I'm not supposed to be posting, but that is officially now at the top of my lottery wishlist.

Though deep down I hope to god it doesn't take off (edit: excuse the pun, completely accidental :smallredface:). Where I work is 5 stories high, and I could really do without some learner driver crashing into the top floor. Bollards will have to be 50ft tall :smalltongue:

Roll on jetpacks for the masses :smallbiggrin:
If by masses, you mean masses of really rich people, then sure, jetpacks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52tPDlwNmTU&feature=related) for the masses (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0snTqLQLpBA).

[Coplantor]

Is it here? For now we have flying cars (http://www.thedenverchannel.com/technology/24094195/detail.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter) that will be produced and sold to the public.

Have you even looked at your cellphone? The future occured years ago!

[Teddy]

If flying cars ever become commonplace, I'm moving to the countryside (and possibly installing SAM to be safe from drunken imbeciles).

That, and I'll be the first one to contact Bofors and see if they've got some 40 mm autocannons left. Oh, and I'll get myself some barrage balloons too. I'll put one hanging from the top of my car and then I'll happily drive down the now empty streets... :smallwink:

[Ravens_cry]

Have you even looked at your cellphone? The future occured years ago!

You don't even have a cellphone, you have a massively multimedia device that connects you to a world wide information network. Oh and it takes calls.
You would have crashed your stupid flying car anyway (http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comics/103.png)

[Dogmantra]

♫ Last week I left a note on Laura's Desk.
It said "I love you, signed anonymous friend."
Turns out she's smarter than I thought she was,
She knows I wrote it, now the whole class does too. ♫

I still maintain it's not the future until we're all wearing silver jumpsuits and living in large glass bubbles.

[Tirian]

I'll believe it when I see it. Press releases like this are notorious for ignoring the twenty major regulations that the company has yet to meet. Anyway, we had a flying car in 1974 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxTCwrIYyZQ).

[Coplantor]

You don't even have a cellphone, you have a massively multimedia device that connects you to a world wide information network. Oh and it takes calls.
You would have crashed your stupid flying car anyway (http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comics/103.png)

You have made my day.

But seriously, we have, today, a lot of those pretty pretty stuff that sci fi writers told us about years ago, but most people wont realize because either:

A) They dont like Sci Fi
B) Our gadgets are smaller and less flashier than those portrayed in sci fi movies
C) Our gadgets ar not nanotech
D) Our gadgets slowly grew into what they are today so no one realized we actually have them

More evidence that the future is already here: Our gadgets have Touch Screens! How cool is that!?:smalltongue::smallbiggrin:

[GolemsVoice]

Also, our TV reception and screens look better. For all the super-toys they might have, I've yet to see a future that can make TV screens that don't look like they need an antenna fixed. Anybody else noticed this trend?

[Krade]

I determined that we lived in the future the first time I found out that spray-on pancakes (http://www.batterblaster.com/) actually exist

[Cicciograna]

I don't think we'll be in the Future until people will stop dying from lack of water and diseases.

[Teddy]

I don't think we'll be in the Future until people will stop dying from lack of water and diseases.

Uhm, I think that it's only in the future that people will die from lack of diseases. :smallwink:
Yes, I know what you meant, but I find the death cause "lack of disease" too hillarious to not mention.

[Mando Knight]

You would have crashed your stupid flying car anyway (http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comics/103.png)

This is pretty much the main reason you don't have flying cars or jetpacks. That, and when it does crash, you're probably going to sue whoever made the vehicle for making it unsafe.

Why "you?" Because the main reason I don't have a flying car is that I don't have the cash and equipment to spend on refitting a car myself. :smalltongue:

[Teddy]

This is pretty much the main reason you don't have flying cars or jetpacks. That, and when it does crash, you're probably going to sue whoever made the vehicle for making it unsafe.

No, when it does crash (which it inevitably will do), you will die. End of story.

[skywalker]

I don't think we'll be in the Future until people will stop dying from lack of water and diseases.

So... Never?

It's true that fewer people died from lack of clean water in 09 as did in 08, but there's still about a billion people living without clean water. As we add more and more billions of people to our planet (hopefully we will stabilize around 11 billion), it gets harder and harder.

As for death from disease, that really is never going to be eliminated. There will always be sicknesses, and of course even if we eradicate things like AIDS, something else will probably arrive in its place (just like AIDS showed up originally).

[paddyfool]

So... Never?

It's true that fewer people died from lack of clean water in 09 as did in 08, but there's still about a billion people living without clean water. As we add more and more billions of people to our planet (hopefully we will stabilize around 11 billion), it gets harder and harder.

As for death from disease, that really is never going to be eliminated. There will always be sicknesses, and of course even if we eradicate things like AIDS, something else will probably arrive in its place (just like AIDS showed up originally).

We're sliding way too far into real world stuff here - but I've got some stuff to say about this. I'll continue with you both about it via pm, if that's OK.

[Kaiyanwang]

I don't think we'll be in the Future until people will stop dying from lack of water and diseases.

QFT. To further elaborate, I wonder what sources of energy we will use for all our increasing technological trinkets.

EDIT: is true that people will ALWAYS die for diseases. But I guess that Cicciograna meant of diseases that can be cured but aren't because people cannot buy the cure. Ciccio, correct me if I'm wrong.

[skywalker]

We're sliding way too far into real world stuff here - but I've got some stuff to say about this. I'll continue with you both about it via pm, if that's OK.

Always. :smallsmile:

[Ravens_cry]

It will be the future when I can visit the Tranquillity Base Memorial Park and Gift Shop.

[Cicciograna]

EDIT: is true that people will ALWAYS die for diseases. But I guess that Cicciograna meant of diseases that can be cured but aren't because people cannot buy the cure. Ciccio, correct me if I'm wrong.
That's what I meant. Obviously diseases will never be completely defeated, as genetic mutations of viruses and bacteria will ensure that a remedy against a particular strain of a certain disease will stop working against another strain; but the fact that people still die from diseases for which the cure is readily available and cheap is a paradox of our era.


QFT. To further elaborate, I wonder what sources of energy we will use for all our increasing technological trinkets.

There's an interesting theory about energetic progress, made up by a soviet scientist whose name was Nikolai Kardashev: this guy made up a scale to measure the progress of a civilization based on the mastery of energetic sources. The complete Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale) is interesting but long: for a brief summary suffices to say that Kardashev designated three cathegories in which a civilization could fall:


Type I: has achieved complete control of the energy sources of its home planet;
Type II: completely controls the energy resources of a star system;
Type III: masters the sources of an entire galaxy.

Science Fiction expanded this classification to Type IV, in which all the resources of the Universe are exploited, and Type V, in which are considered multiple Universes.
Suffices to say that nowadays Mankind is classified as Type 0.72: we should reach Type I in 2100.

[paddyfool]

More on whether we live in "the future" or not:

Tech
- This road-legal flying beach buggy (http://www.parajetautomotive.com/) went from London to Timbuktu.
- Mobile phones and t'internet have been mentioned
- Prostheses seem to get better every year, as do device-brain interfaces, so bionics and cyborgs may be just around the corner.

Bioscience
- Genomes are now our playthings, which is fun.
- There's oodles of new work being done in better understanding and finding better diagnostics, treatment, prevention, etc. for practically every disease under the sun. Except where it really isn't necessary, because said disease has been either pushed well to the fringes or likely to be completely eradicated soon, as is the case with dracunculiasis (the "disease of little dragons") aka guinea worm (http://www.who.int/dracunculiasis/en/).

Space!
- There are currently 6 men living on board the international space station.
- Asteroid mining may be on the way, with experiments in automated drones landing on, taking samples from, and leaving asteroids
- No warp drives yet, however.

[Kaiyanwang]

- Genomes are now our playthings, which is fun.


There is a lot of things to discover yet. Proteins non only are encoded in genes, but are finely tuned and regulated.

Gene transcription and translation is regulated, as well protein lifetime.
Moreover, there are parts of the genome that were considered "junk" before, and now are supposed part of regulation or something else.

Of course, we are making steps and steps forward, but we are not in the "plaything" phase, yet, IMO.
.

[paddyfool]

Fair point. Perhaps rather than playthings, we should say "an increasingly open book". I do rather like how much the science of genomics has expanded from practically nothing over the past 20 years, however.

[Kaiyanwang]

Fair point. Perhaps rather than playthings, we should say "an increasingly open book". I do rather like how much the science of genomics has expanded from practically nothing over the past 20 years, however.

True. That's.. amazing.

Bmaj7 D7 Gmaj7 Bb7 Ebmaj7 Am7 D7 ....

[Cobalt]

I'll believe it when I see it. Press releases like this are notorious for ignoring the twenty major regulations that the company has yet to meet. Anyway, we had a flying car in 1974 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxTCwrIYyZQ).

I was so about to say, word for word, that we've had flying cars for a generation and a half already. But you beat me to it.*

By a few hours.


By the way, what separates these things from being just a plane you can drive on the street when you're not strafing the houses next to yours because they have a nicer paint job?



*(Someone actually did create, and attempt to mass produce, flying cars around that time, though. I'm too lazy to look up the year and any names, but lack of funding meant that the fully-functional flying cars (which were basically these things but red) couldn't go into mass production.)

[Recaiden]

It's not the future till...actually, yeah, it's the future.

[Moff Chumley]

It will not be the future until I can get caffeinated bacon and baconated grapefruit. End of story.

[Coplantor]

I'm sure it's already the future in Japan

[Kiren]

It's the future when I can move stuff by changing its mass, block bullets with holographic armor and chill with my giant lizard pal, a robot with epic dance skills and a scientist that talks fast, destroying robots that want to destroy all life in the universe.

But first we need to go to mars. I hope someone gets this reference.

Seriously though, the future is arriving fast.

[Cicciograna]

The Future is when s2 > 0 :smallbiggrin:

This is an elitarian joke..

[Lord Raziere]

We can never have flying cars. People are idiots. If one can't stop at a STOP sign, how can you expect him to fly anything?

If flying cars ever become commonplace, I'm moving to the countryside (and possibly installing SAM to be safe from drunken imbeciles).

this man is wise. if you want to picture a future of flying cars, picture cities with a bunch of crashed cars everywhere. and I MEAN everywhere.

[Kaiyanwang]

The Future is when s2 > 0 :smallbiggrin:

This is an elitarian joke..

Is this somewhat related to a cone? A cone perpendicular to two axes labeled with a "s"? :smallconfused:

[Cicciograna]

Is this somewhat related to a cone? A cone perpendicular to two axes labeled with a "s"? :smallconfused:

In Relativity s2 indicates the invariant interval or separation between two events: from a geometrical point of view it is the distance between two points on a Minkowski diagram; this is a quadridimensional diagram whose axes are (ct, x, y, z): the separation between two points on this diagram is, as stated


s122 = c2(t2-t1)2-(x2-x1)2-(y2-y1)2-(z2-z1)2

For events characterized by s122 > 0, a reference system can be found in which the two events happen at the same position: a finite time passes between them and a relation of causality between the two events can be found; the interval between them is said timelike. On Minkowski diagram s2 = 0 denotes the separation between two events linked by the speed of light: therefore it describes the surface of an hypercone, called light hypercone, which delimits three zones on Minkowski diagram. Considering, for the sake of simplicity, just one spatial dimension, the hypercone reduces to a regular cone:


http://www.engr.mun.ca/~ggeorge/astron/shad/lightcone2.gif

As you can see, regions in which s2 > 0 are called "past" and "future", depending on the value of t, so this is why the Future is when s2 > 0, given that, for us, the Past is...well..past :smallsmile:

Hope my explanation was clear enough. It's 1 AM and I'm a bit tired...

[Cobalt]

In Relativity s2 indicates the invariant interval or separation between two events: from a geometrical point of view it is the distance between two points on a Minkowski diagram; this is a quadridimensional diagram whose axes are (ct, x, y, z): the separation between two points on this diagram is, as stated


s122 = c2(t2-t1)2-(x2-x1)2-(y2-y1)2-(z2-z1)2

For events characterized by s122 > 0, a reference system can be found in which the two events happen at the same position: a finite time passes between them and a relation of causality between the two events can be found; the interval between them is said timelike. On Minkowski diagram s2 = 0 denotes the separation between two events linked by the speed of light: therefore it describes the surface of an hypercone, called light hypercone, which delimits three zones on Minkowski diagram. Considering, for the sake of simplicity, just one spatial dimension, the hypercone reduces to a regular cone:


http://www.engr.mun.ca/~ggeorge/astron/shad/lightcone2.gif

As you can see, regions in which s2 > 0 are called "past" and "future", depending on the value of t, so this is why the Future is when s2 > 0, given that, for us, the Past is...well..past :smallsmile:

Hope my explanation was clear enough. It's 1 AM and I'm a bit tired...

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

*boom* *splat*

[Fifty-Eyed Fred]

I, too, have seen a vision of a flying car-based future (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZU4S1G0JCk) that I am surprised not to find mentioned here.

[Orzel]

Can a brother get a robotic eye to replace his bad one already?

IF I see one more cyborg with a robotic eye, I'm gonna explode.

[Thajocoth]

Uhm, I think that it's only in the future that people will die from lack of diseases. :smallwink:
Yes, I know what you meant, but I find the death cause "lack of disease" too hillarious to not mention.

Actually, you can die from lack of disease. There are certain bacterias that we need in certain places of our bodies to help us with certain things... And there are certain procedures for fixing the problem when there's not enough of them.

Spoilered for gross:
There is a procedure that involves transplanting poop from one individual to another (usually a relative) to fix a situation where one's bowels lack certain bacteria that help keep things smooth.

-----

Anyway: Hooray for science!

[742]

were in the middle of my future. we have the pervasive information society, the corporations spying on people and governments, the intolerance and the conspiracies, but we cant rewrite peoples minds and faces in the space of a good meal, prosthetics are still often less effective and very noticable and while a few of the really scary conspiracies are starting to bear fruit, none of its ripe yet. i predict that flying cars will not be significant, because idiots cant use them more than once.

[Kaiyanwang]

Hope my explanation was clear enough. It's 1 AM and I'm a bit tired...

One thing I miss: from your explanation (blue part of the scheme), even "Past" is when s2 > 0.

:smallconfused:

I mean, in this way, the definition "Future is when s2 > 0" does not exclude the past... it depends from t.

Am I wrong?

[thubby]

someone already made this, except the wings had to be folded out manually.

[Cicciograna]

One thing I miss: from your explanation (blue part of the scheme), even "Past" is when s2 > 0.

:smallconfused:

I mean, in this way, the definition "Future is when s2 > 0" does not exclude the past... it depends from t.

Am I wrong?

No, you're right. But since past is already past, and there's no reference system in which it can be future again, for the sake of the current discussion (the one about the Future) I chose to omit the condition on t > 0.
But yes, you're right :smallwink:

[Kaiyanwang]

No, you're right. But since past is already past, and there's no reference system in which it can be future again, for the sake of the current discussion (the one about the Future) I chose to omit the condition on t > 0.
But yes, you're right :smallwink:

Now I see. Thank you!

[Teddy]

Actually, you can die from lack of disease. There are certain bacterias that we need in certain places of our bodies to help us with certain things... And there are certain procedures for fixing the problem when there's not enough of them.

Spoilered for gross:
There is a procedure that involves transplanting poop from one individual to another (usually a relative) to fix a situation where one's bowels lack certain bacteria that help keep things smooth.

Well, that's more a lack of bacteria than a lack of disease, but, yes, they fall pretty close to each other. We need to find a good definition for "disease" first, I guess...

[Fifty-Eyed Fred]

Bacteria are not disease; bacteria cause disease. Therefore, while you can die from a lack of bacteria, you cannot die from a lack of diseases.

[Dogmantra]

Bacteria are not disease; bacteria cause disease. Therefore, while you can die from a lack of bacteria, you cannot die from a lack of diseases.

Diseases stop humans from overpopulating the world (more than we already have). They prevent overuse of resources (more than we already do). Of course you can die from a lack of them!

[Yora]

That's not how evolution works. Limited resources stop humans from overpopulating the world. When there's no food, people die. Disease was not created with the purpose of being pest control. Unless you belive in intelligent design.

You have made my day.

But seriously, we have, today, a lot of those pretty pretty stuff that sci fi writers told us about years ago
What we have not yet figured out yet is faster than light travel and teleportation. Everything else is already in the conceptional phase and just needs refinement to be suitable for mass production.

[Asta Kask]

It's the future when I can move stuff by changing its mass.

We already have this. It's called a rocket.

[Dogmantra]

That's not how evolution works. Limited resources stop humans from overpopulating the world. When there's no food, people die. Disease was not created with the purpose of being pest control. Unless you belive in intelligent design.
Look, you can either be right or you can agree with me, but only one option is the correct one to choose. Seriously. :smalltongue:

[Fifty-Eyed Fred]

Look, you can either be right or you can agree with me, but only one option is the correct one to choose. Seriously. :smalltongue:
Ah, the classic Catch-22 situation.

[Moff Chumley]

What we have not yet figured out yet is faster than light travel and teleportation. Everything else is already in the conceptional phase and just needs refinement to be suitable for mass production.

I still think faster than light travel is unnecessary. We just need to increase the speed of light.

[Cicciograna]

What we have not yet figured out yet is faster than light travel and teleportation. Everything else is already in the conceptional phase and just needs refinement to be suitable for mass production.

Actually, teleportation has already been achieved some years ago, albeit for single particles: the problem is that reproducing the phenomenon for every particle in a body, and rearranging them at the arrival in the same order they were would pose many, many problems.


I still think faster than light travel is unnecessary. We just need to increase the speed of light.

Changing the Laws of Nature is one task reserved to God(s). Humans? Gods they're not. :smallsmile:

[MountainKing]

Actually, teleportation has already been achieved some years ago, albeit for single particles: the problem is that reproducing the phenomenon for every particle in a body, and rearranging them at the arrival in the same order they were would pose many, many problems.



Changing the Laws of Nature is one task reserved to God(s). Humans? Gods they're not. :smallsmile:

Not until we've created dinosaurs, but that's just a terrible idea. "God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs. Dinosaurs destroy man..." "...and women inherit the Earth." :smallsmile:

[Fifty-Eyed Fred]

I still think faster than light travel is unnecessary. We just need to increase the speed of light.

That's like saying:
"Oh dear, my delicious ice cream is melting, and I want to eat it later rather than sooner."
"Hang on a moment, there's a fridge over here."
"I do believe refridgerating the ice cream to be unnecessary. I just need to reduce the temperature of the local area..."

[Pyrian]

Aside from the fact that there isn't actually a fridge at all. :smallamused:

[Moff Chumley]

Wait... people took that seriously? I was just trying to see how many Futurama references I could cram into one thread...

[Fifty-Eyed Fred]

Wait... people took that seriously? I was just trying to see how many Futurama references I could cram into one thread...

Of course I didn't take it seriously; was the silly reply not a giveaway? :smallwink:

[Maximum Zersk]

Silly people. The future is going to happen in...

Oh, wait you missed it. It's the present now.

But now it became the past, and now the future of the past is the present.

But now that's the past and now this is the present.

[Asta Kask]

There's much to indicate even the Ancient Greeks thought they lived in the Present.

[Thajocoth]

Silly people... We can't know what's in the Future until we know what's in the Present. *Opens the Present* Turns out, it's socks. *Holds up the socks that were in the Present*

[Fifty-Eyed Fred]

He who controls the past, controls the future; and he who controls the present, controls the past.

[Moff Chumley]

Santa controls all of the presents, though, right?

[Prime32]

Santa controls all of the presents, though, right?Which is how he stops time every Christmas Eve.

[Fifty-Eyed Fred]

Santa controls all of the presents, though, right?

The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come can attest to this.

[Maximum Zersk]

Santa controls all of the presents, though, right?

And I control the paste. I mean past. Yeah, that's it. The past.

Yeah...

[Kiren]

We already have this. It's called a rocket.

OBJECTION! You cannot change the mass of an object, well without breaking a piece of it off, besides the point.

[Moff Chumley]

If the mass of the rocket includes fuel, yah, you can.

[Kiren]

If the mass of the rocket includes fuel, yah, you can.

Removal of fuel from the rocket is sorta covered under removing pieces from an object.

Take a generic cube, now change its mass. Now, go, move, and don't touch it or break it.

[Prime32]

What would you have the future do then? Add antimatter? Add negative matter?

[Kaiyanwang]

Wait... people took that seriously? I was just trying to see how many Futurama references I could cram into one thread...

You are welcome.

"The future is when is a shame you are not there to see me shakin' hands with Charles De Gaulle".

[742]

Silly people... We can't know what's in the Future until we know what's in the Present. *Opens the Present* Turns out, it's socks. *Holds up the socks that were in the Present*

well **** the future. seriously, who gives socks?

[Ravens_cry]

What would you have the future do then? Add antimatter? Add negative matter?
Antimatter is thought to have the same properties of mass as the matter we know and love so well.
Some types of hypothetical exotic matter might on the other hand.

[Asta Kask]

OBJECTION! You cannot change the mass of an object, well without breaking a piece of it off, besides the point.

You only said "changing the mass" - you didn't give any stipulations. Besides, according to Special Relativity it is trivial to increase the mass of an object.

[Prime32]

Antimatter is thought to have the same properties of mass as the matter we know and love so well.
Some types of hypothetical exotic matter might on the other hand.However, the annihilation reaction will convert that mass into energy, which could be used for propulsion.

As for negative matter its mass is, well, negative.

[Ravens_cry]

However, the annihilation reaction will convert that mass into energy, which could be used for propulsion.

As for negative matter its mass is, well, negative.
Well duh, but in and of itself it would suck, as a torch ship outputting just photons from the annihilation has ridiculously low efficiencies. Using the annihilation to heat a medium, like say liquid hydrogen would be much more efficient. It would still count as 'breaking a piece off' though.