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Hello. Been a while since the last ramble. Thought I would talk about some things incoherently.
First up is the future. I have a specific idea in my head of what the future should look like, and this is not it. When I talk about the "look of the future" I'm talking all sensory meanings that go into it. The way we feel the future, see, smell, hear, taste, the future. While we are currently on the see aspect of "future" it isn't what I expected. We have VR and in some limited capacities, AR. I believe that we can push AR to be more encompassing and there are some companies working on that, albeit in small markets. The feel of the future is something totally different, in that how we interact with objects and each other should improve, at least in the digital realm. Why do we not have haptic feedback suits for VR? Or for any application for that matter?
The smell, hear, and taste is subjective, since we all have different thoughts about what that means and it would be hard to quantify what I'm talking about through text. So we'll leave that to be explored later on. But the fact of the matter is, in 2019, we are still dominated by 20th century technology and means of thought. Where the hell are my flying cars and hover boards? (Hover boards are possible, since Lexus pretty much used my idea of how to get it to work), but no one is looking at it in earnest. Instead we have electric bikes and scooters. I'm not paying money to rent that junk.
Second, the future of work is...impossible in today's climate. Telecommuting is the obvious best practice. Why do I need to go to a building to sit on my ass for 8-9 hours when I can be just as productive at home and my productivity can be monitored? If I can finish a construction drawing for a bid package at work, I can do the same at home. This frees up money for the company to not pay as high a rent, and gives them more leeway in terms of employee benefits and compensation packages. If I need to meet a client or go to the site for field verification, I can do that. I don't need to be at the office for these purposes. Besides, I can be more productive without someone watching my every move (looking over my shoulder) because the stress from being "perfect" isn't there. I can relax and work at a pace that is most beneficial to me and in turn, the company.
Third. The future I dream of is not being built by anyone. I want to walk/ride/drive on streets of light. I want to have immediate information beamed at me. I want a freaking hologram of the city in my palm to direct me. I want music, fashion, and culture to be futuristic. I'm not talking dystopian futures or the dreary cyberpunk where everything is dark, overcast, or raining all of the time. I'm talking bright clean cities where people are engaged with each other. They have a sense of pride in themselves and the spaces they inhabit. I want a future where people feel as if they are in the future and the technology and culture begins to reflect that.
Like I said, rambles. But if you read this far, what are your thoughts? What's your future look like? Are you building it? Is anyone else?
 
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I don't want to live in your future, where people will be isolated from one another even more than they are now. With the current rate at which technology is 'improving' our lives, I see a dark future indeed. That is one I do not want to help build.
Even if we have the bright and clean cities you wish for, I cannot see how that will deter people from being sucked into the other technological advances that you mentioned.
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The future to me doesn’t involve much high technology, I’m more concerned about moving past the work climate and hoping people learn to value something that isn’t a high paying corporate job.
People appreciating their lives, the environment, their environment, everything. That’d be my vision for a great future.
I feel like the cyberpunk dystopia is significantly more likely though. Shadowrun ftw.
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Net: I never said people will be more isolated. I'm not sure how you extrapolated that, so unfortunately, I don't have a response.
Zam: Here's the thing about tech. It gets smaller. And more powerful. We're talking Minority Report levels of small to the point you don't realize it. People still interact and go about their days, they've acclimated to the tech that is everywhere. As for the second part, I agree. I wish more people got a chance to see the world before we ruin it. I'm trying to get as many people as possible that I know personally to travel more. I'm even willing to pay for portions of it. The world is a beautiful place and unless we understand and appreciate it, it won't get better.
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Technology will definitely continue to progress is new fantastic ways faster than I can really imagine, that being said that seems like a bad thing to me with the current mentalities people hold. I don’t think the average person appreciates technologies impact. When most of the population doesn’t need to work what will they do? People so often seem to derive value from stuff like how much money they can accrue. I think technological advances are just going to fuel the worst or the best of humanity and unfortunately the worst of humanity seems to be most likely a la Shadowrun.
Ideally we’d learn to live in huge compacted cities with services that let us zip between hubs absurdly fast, where we can recycle trash easily, preserve and cherish the nature we have, and integrate it into our lives. I’d seriously love to see a city with a bunch of integrated nature like trees on roofs, animal habitats where they easily fit, forests build on floating structures. There’s so much fantastic stuff that could be done but since it hardly seems like it’s gonna make some board of wealth fucks even wealthier I doubt we’ll get to that world.
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On May 12 2019 22:04 Zambrah wrote:
Technology will definitely continue to progress is new fantastic ways faster than I can really imagine, that being said that seems like a bad thing to me with the current mentalities people hold. I don’t think the average person appreciates technologies impact. When most of the population doesn’t need to work what will they do? People so often seem to derive value from stuff like how much money they can accrue. I think technological advances are just going to fuel the worst or the best of humanity and unfortunately the worst of humanity seems to be most likely a la Shadowrun.
Ideally we’d learn to live in huge compacted cities with services that let us zip between hubs absurdly fast, where we can recycle trash easily, preserve and cherish the nature we have, and integrate it into our lives. I’d seriously love to see a city with a bunch of integrated nature like trees on roofs, animal habitats where they easily fit, forests build on floating structures. There’s so much fantastic stuff that could be done but since it hardly seems like it’s gonna make some board of wealth fucks even wealthier I doubt we’ll get to that world.
Look at www.big.dk for some inspiration towards the second half of your post. He is doing some interesting things. Almost every architect in the world is trying to green their buildings in some form or fashion. Mostly due to decreasing costs of construction and to increase their billing rate. But they are trying to design a better, ecologically friendly world. I'm one of them.
The first part of your post...People do appreciate the tech in their lives, just not the job taking ones. What we should be doing is training those people to do maintenance on those machines that may take their jobs. The robot breaks, who fixes it? A person. Not another robot (not yet). So we need to get them in on that learning course. They would potentially make more money because they'd be on call and the work they do is crucial to keep the production line or whatever moving. So we have to stop thinking of negatives and turn them into positives.
And people will always need to work. There are always jobs to be done. It is a matter of what each individual is willing to do. The pay must be appropriate, but there is work out there that will need to be done (trash, farming, mining, etc). These aren't glamorous jobs, but they need to be done. If we paid them more, maybe more people would be willing?
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Unless we face severe depopulation though I doubt we can employ as many people as we historically have, and importantly, culturally employment is huge, people treat people without typical employment as lazy or the like, regardless of what else they’re doing with their lives.
There is certainly always something to do, but not always enough to keep everyone employed as we know it. I’d imagine a future where more people can pursue the type of things that people nowadays shit all over, philosophy, writing, reading, art, you name it, but to get there I think people need to get out of the mentality that the only things worth doing are the ones that involve someone making money.
Humans would be profoundly bored with nothing to do, so there’ll always be people trying to find a way to fill their daylight hours, but I don’t think automating jobs is going to work out well as long as the LUL NOT STEM mentality exists and the world continues to consider profit as the one true value.
But hey, hope to shit I’m wrong, when I was in school I loved to see people in Industrial Design designs green technology, and like you mention, green architecture. I’d love to live in the world they aim to create.
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On May 12 2019 22:40 Zambrah wrote:
Unless we face severe depopulation though I doubt we can employ as many people as we historically have, and importantly, culturally employment is huge, people treat people without typical employment as lazy or the like, regardless of what else they’re doing with their lives.
There is certainly always something to do, but not always enough to keep everyone employed as we know it. I’d imagine a future where more people can pursue the type of things that people nowadays shit all over, philosophy, writing, reading, art, you name it, but to get there I think people need to get out of the mentality that the only things worth doing are the ones that involve someone making money.
Humans would be profoundly bored with nothing to do, so there’ll always be people trying to find a way to fill their daylight hours, but I don’t think automating jobs is going to work out well as long as the LUL NOT STEM mentality exists and the world continues to consider profit as the one true value.
But hey, hope to shit I’m wrong, when I was in school I loved to see people in Industrial Design designs green technology, and like you mention, green architecture. I’d love to live in the world they aim to create.
Agreed on all accounts. It is a mental shift to get people where it is acceptable to be part of something that isn't driven solely by money. I have no idea how it would get there, but it is nice to think about.
I think the way in which we work needs to be fixed first. The office job should die out completely in favor of telecommuting. With more time at your disposal, you could potentially try those things you mentioned. But money is still a factor and that's the universal basic income thing. It would help alleviate some pains, but it won't be enough. We need something else.
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Most of our future visions completely disregard the geopolitical situation atm. Our society will remain capitalist since nations compete and that's the only way to stay ahead in the game. Considering that there's a new cold war brewing between the US and China I don't see any society develop into a somewhat socialist robot economy Utopia within the next 50 years. It's too important to stay relevant on the market to redistribute wealth.
I'd be happy if bladerunner or shadowrun is where we end up in 50 years, imo 1984 looks more probable atm.
Also new tech has become too expensive to develop. Stuff like hoverboards would cost way too much to be profitable, so they don't get made and in turn don't get further developed to the point where they'd be cost-efficient to produce. It's pretty much the same for AR, it's only the gigantic tech firms like Microsoft that have the money to advance such projects.
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On May 12 2019 01:54 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
Third. The future I dream of is not being built by anyone. I want to walk/ride/drive on streets of light. I want to have immediate information beamed at me. I want a freaking hologram of the city in my palm to direct me. I want music, fashion, and culture to be futuristic. I'm not talking dystopian futures or the dreary cyberpunk where everything is dark, overcast, or raining all of the time. I'm talking bright clean cities where people are engaged with each other. They have a sense of pride in themselves and the spaces they inhabit. I want a future where people feel as if they are in the future and the technology and culture begins to reflect that.
The future is here now already. Do you not have streetlamps where you live for the past 100 years? Do you not have a mobile phone or laptop beaming information and map services? Or is it you want it for free without paying for the information? Is your city not clean? If not, go get politically active and clean up your streets. Does your city not have social spaces? Can you not get to your social spaces using clean fast public transport in your city? That's not a failure of technology but of policies and urban planning. You want the future? That world is already here.
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On May 13 2019 18:54 Archeon wrote:
Most of our future visions completely disregard the geopolitical situation atm. Our society will remain capitalist since nations compete and that's the only way to stay ahead in the game. Considering that there's a new cold war brewing between the US and China I don't see any society develop into a somewhat socialist robot economy Utopia within the next 50 years. It's too important to stay relevant on the market to redistribute wealth.
I'd be happy if bladerunner or shadowrun is where we end up in 50 years, imo 1984 looks more probable atm.
Also new tech has become too expensive to develop. Stuff like hoverboards would cost way too much to be profitable, so they don't get made and in turn don't get further developed to the point where they'd be cost-efficient to produce. It's pretty much the same for AR, it's only the gigantic tech firms like Microsoft that have the money to advance such projects.
Excellent point raised on the political side of the future. The water wars will happen before we know it and unless we figure out how to cheap and efficiently use salt water, we're up the creek regardless. So that is an area where more study will be needed. How do we manage to create a more prosperous future for the majority before we engage in another world war. I'm curious to see.
To the point that only large corporations can introduce technology, that is true in the sense they have the means and methods for mass production and delivery. A small outfit can introduce something and be bought by a larger corporation that can mass produce it. The problem with most tech these days, is the software and available applications that can take advantage of said technology. That is, in my opinion, where we have the beat chance to create something. If we can explore AR and VR in the operating room or space research, then I believe we are making progress. It depends on the utilization of technology. We also need to get it into as many hands as possible.
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On May 13 2019 20:58 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2019 01:54 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
Third. The future I dream of is not being built by anyone. I want to walk/ride/drive on streets of light. I want to have immediate information beamed at me. I want a freaking hologram of the city in my palm to direct me. I want music, fashion, and culture to be futuristic. I'm not talking dystopian futures or the dreary cyberpunk where everything is dark, overcast, or raining all of the time. I'm talking bright clean cities where people are engaged with each other. They have a sense of pride in themselves and the spaces they inhabit. I want a future where people feel as if they are in the future and the technology and culture begins to reflect that. The future is here now already. Do you not have streetlamps where you live for the past 100 years? Do you not have a mobile phone or laptop beaming information and map services? Or is it you want it for free without paying for the information? Is your city not clean? If not, go get politically active and clean up your streets. Does your city not have social spaces? Can you not get to your social spaces using clean fast public transport in your city? That's not a failure of technology but of policies and urban planning. You want the future? That world is already here.
Of course we can look at the past to say we are in the future. But only compared to the past. Policies dictate what social norms must be followed and public decorum. More often than not, policies are apolitical to future proofing. Chicago has rail but not efficient. Streets are clean for the most part. And I'm typing this response on my cell whilr I walk to said rail. But the only difference here is the phone when compared to 20 years ago.
Edit: to expand upon the policies part a bit further. What I meant about future proofing is that policies are not in place or being enforced to where everyone is allowed/able to benefit. Rural communities are still far behind in internet connectivity and being able to participate in most things because of distance relative to where they live. Policies for technology being in the classroom is still struggling to really gain a foothold and begin to positively affect children. Policies of how we get privacy control actually adhered to and not skirted because facebook or google or whomever is to large to really go after, hurts in the long run. To live in the future I'm speaking of, some basic data is required to give up, but if you're data is breached or sold to third party advertising firms, then you should be compensated in some manner for that.
The breadth of what was available from 1940 to 1960 is night and day compared to 2000 to 2019. Tech has become smaller and more powerful but not much has been introduced that, in my opinion, truly takes us into the realm of living in the future. Sure, place a man from 1960 here in our time, and he'd figure things out soon enough. Nothibg has changed much when you actually think about it.
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I'm not sure what you are getting at here. What else would you compare the future to, but the past and present? Otherwise you'll never reach the future because it's...the future.
Should I bemoan that October 21, 2015 has passed, yet we don't have hoverboards, self fitting, self drying clothing and weather control systems and voice activated, AI intelligent, flat screen, wall sized TV systems like Back to the future? (Not sure about the last one btw). Or that there isn't some bully with cybernetic enhancements to raise his own height? Or that we aren't living with flying cars like we are out of 1950s the Jetstones?
Medical technology has improved greatly to 20 years ago. Computing power has improved greatly to 20 years ago. The iphone and with it the rise of the ubiquitous smartphone was actually only 12 years ago. 20 years ago, a phone was literally the size and weight of a brick. The idea that I could just fly to a foreign country and not get lost becuase I have a smartphone with GPS is HUGE. I don't have to use travel agents, or buy paper maps, or book guides anymore. I can get almost seemless language translation. More than that, the smartphone, GPS, and countless technological improvements have revolutionised how business is done in poor countries. People don't have to goto libraries to get information now, they have mobiles, desktops, and notebooks or pads.
I mean what exactly is your vision of the future? Most of what you described has already happened, you just don't want to pay for it or is wealthy enough to have that lifestyle.
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On May 13 2019 23:42 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
I'm not sure what you are getting at here. What else would you compare the future to, but the past and present? Should I bemoan that October 21, 2015 has passed, yet we don't have hoverboards, self fitting, self drying clothing and weather control systems and voice activated AI wall sized TV systems like Back to the future? (Not sure about the last one btw). Or that there isn't some bully with cybernetic enhancements to raise his own height? Or that we aren't living with flying cars like we are out of 1950s the Jetstones?
Medical technology has improved greatly to 20 years ago. Computing power has improved greatly to 20 years ago. The iphone and with it the rise of the ubiquitous smartphone was actually only 12 years ago. 20 years ago, a phone was literally the size and weight of a brick. The idea that I could just fly to a foreign country and not get lost becuase I have a smartphone with GPS is HUGE. I don't have to use travel agents, or buy paper maps, or book guides anymore. I can get almost seemless language translation. More than that, the smartphone, GPS, and countless technological improvements have revolutionised how business is done in poor countries. People don't have to goto libraries to get information now, they have mobiles, desktops, and notebooks or pads.
I mean what exactly is your vision of the future? Most of what you described has already happened, you just don't want to pay for it.
The fact that I've already paid for everything on your list and then some makes your last point nonsensical to me. I'm already paying for it. How did you come to that conclusion that I'm not willing to pay?
The technologies that you mentioned aren't really accessible to most people, save for smartphones. The way I see it, personal AI healthcare where you can be treated/diagnosed from home. Automated delivery systems for most goods to your home (almost there with this one), a more efficient method of moving people and things around the world (again, almost there. Maybe another 10 years), and spaces where people can gather freely without the stigma of being a burden on society, where they can be free to pursue other endeavors besides chasing money to live a fulfilled life.
We can communicate to people around the world with the technology in place if they have access to it. We can share vast amounts of knowledge quickly. For those fortunate enough, that is.
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In your own words, you are already living in your self proclaimed future. Well done. There is nothing more to say.
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On May 13 2019 23:55 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
In your own words, you are already living in your self proclaimed future. Well done. There is nothing more to say.
I don't know how you came to that conclusion, but okay. Great discussion?
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According to you, you've paid for hoverboards, self fitting, self drying clothing and weather control systems and voice activated AI wall sized TV systems. Well done. You are living in the future. I for one welcome you as a benevolent weather control god.
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I think the point is that all the cool stuff we have seen in scifi in the last 40 years that was predicted to be here within 10-15 years isn't here at all. That society hasn't developed in any positive way basically since the 80s (if anything we are drifting back towards the 20s and 30s of the former century) and that the way technology has developed in the last 20 years was mostly incremental improvements or increasing digitization of already existing options.
And it's not like it's impossible to build a flying car/mini helicopter, it just isn't feasible to finance for most people. Holograms are expensive (, beta) and inefficient compared to most normal applications, the AR revolution is at the doorstep but not quite here and VR is just starting out as well and turning out to be one of the "it's pretty impressive, but kinda useless" technologies. International communication accessible by the public has proven to be almost as much of a curse as it is a blessing.
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That's my point Archeon. How do we get there? Is there a way for someone not named google or apple to introduce this? Do we just want or do we do it ourselves somehow. The point of this blog was to create some kind of discussion on the matter of how do we achieve that future with the cool stuff we see in sci-fi? It has some actual application to be reality. How do we achieve that?
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The fastest way would be political reforms imo. A richer middle class would create a large amount of people that are wealthy enough that they can afford overpriced toys or are willing to invest large amounts of personal money into fairly risky projects that might pay off in the far future. Ofc millionaires (Gates, Bezos, Musk) already do the latter with rockets f.e., but the weird stuff they build are mostly prestige projects and not really something they develop for the broad market. There also aren't enough millionaires to make this feasible and not enough competing companies to quickly drive such a change.
As long as the 0 interest policy continues to actively crush the middle classes, lobbies continue to empower global players and antitrust laws don't get applied anymore I don't see that changing. On the flipside the first stabilizes the indebted governments (especially in the EU) and that rich people influence people in power has been a problem for as long as wealth existed. No lobbies aren't a solution either though and since global players don't really care about which country they sit in anymore it's hard to disempower them to broaden the market.
But with how much trouble is brewing in the next 20 years politically and socially I doubt we have the leisure to develop our economy in a way that's friendly enough to the majority to sustain overpriced toys. And it's unlikely that laws will be created that weaken the very corporations that can threaten to create 10k unemployed people.
Reforms that would get us on that way:
China would have to become less competitive or at least less totalitarian and hostile. The g3 (USA, EU, China, ideally Russia, India, SK and Japan too) would have to work together to disempower conglomerates like Amazon, Alphabet, Samsung (which the US won't do). The 0 tax policy would have to be abandoned (which the EU won't do). We'd need to federalize and ideally digitize our democracies, i.e. create more representative ways for lobbies to be created and interweave common people and especially people who work in a field that'd be affected more strongly into political processes so it's not just the upper class that writes the laws.
Ofc alternatives do exist, I could imagine an innovation fund that supports companies that invest into research f.e. Considering that companies like Alphabet have reached budgets that are nearing those of Germany or France and that new tech is incredibly expensive to develop nowadays I have trouble believing that that'd be enough to fundamentally change the dynamic though.
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I think to get the crazier sci-fi stuff that isn’t just incremental iterations of existing stuff a la faster WiFi speeds, slimmer tech, etc. we require a massive corporation to dedicate absurd resources to it, a massive government investment a la the Moon Landing, or pray an ultra genius is born with a massive fortune and conscience. That or societal change.
I’m thinking the first is most likely, but is going to create issues, if Plansix was here I’m sure he’d offer some good examples of tech going bad in the hands of our corporate overlords.
The amount of money I imagine it would take to actually make this advanced tech happen alongside the time and additional money to make it viable on a consumer level seems like an insurmountable requirement as long as we live in a world where anything and everything has to be measurable as worthwhile via dollars.
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I'll respond to both at my lunch break, but I thank you for the input. Some very good observations.
Edit: Zambrah - You are right that a massive government injection of financial support and policy change is needed. And societal change is not going to be easy unless we face a true ELE that will galvanize enough people to change the way they view the environment
Unfortunately. We'd still have greedy bastards fucking it up for everyone else, so I don't think it'll happen. The genius with a fortune is only possible if it comes from an already wealthy family. I don't think that is a viable way forward because that family will only invest in it's own priorities and interests. The genius offspring could try, but I see the family becoming a barrier to the person wanting to try to save humanity or usher it forward.
Archeon: do you think that, if the lobbies were curbed meaning a limit on how much they can petition congress members to change laws that favor them or they have a deadline for certain things, would that help any? Also antitrust laws or even fair competition amongst peers would do wonders I think, even if you can't legally stop alphabet or apple from poaching or just outright patent trolling to keep small innovators from gaining traction.
The countries you mentioned, do you see a way besides the paris climate accord or something similar getting them to reduce or completely overhaul the way they consume energy and produce waste? If there were international cooperation even between "enemies" something good may come of it. But then we still have your first paragraph of issues; the powerful elite and companies that can pretty much do anything they want.
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The basic problem with lobbies is that they have multiple functions in politics. It's not just their financial influence on politicians in deciding functions including promises of additional wealth later on, it's also that they often send their experts to hearings or committees that develop laws. Especially the latter makes sense considering that the people working in an area are the ones you'd consider experts and are likely best suited to make educated guesses about consequences of laws. The problems with that is that large companies tend to be overrepresented in said lobbies and that these people will always argue for financial interest of the industry, so it's hard to get independent experts with a contrary opinion.
As a result f.e. the German minister of traffic is pretty much a puppet of the car industry, since most people he talks to about issues and in his committees come from the large car companies, since those are the ones with the most money and influence.
Imo we'd need a voting platform on issues based on the job we are in. That way small companies/employees would have a similar right to global players' CEOs to evaluate issues and have impact in hearings. That still at large wouldn't provide a contrarian view, but it would lower the influence of global players in those hearings.
Antitrust laws would go a long way if they got applied. But pretty much every large fusion in recent times I can remember just passed the courts, including insane deals like the 20th century fox deal from Disney.
@countries: I wish the UN was less of a joke. It's a platform where politicians could talk about real issues like climate change and make deals accordingly. But climate change is just too unpopular a topic to get real political solutions even if the UN was an actual platform for deals and discussions and not mainly a prestige project <.<
That being said climate change is mostly something everyone of us will have to attack individually. We'll have to deal with some repercussions eventually but we might get to the point where the "green" though becomes popular (or the repercussions bad) enough that we'll lower the amount of flights and mostly switch to electric cars etc. The main problem is doing that in second and third world countries which not just often have other pressing issues than climate change but also lack the financial strength to pursue an emission free energy production.
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So say we figure out the electric car thing and it gets large enough. Same with renewable energies. Do we export that stuff to those countries or teach them the manufacturing process? How can we help those developing nations? Like Japan and China after WW2 and the period following, they took our practices and made them better. They learned from our (western civ) mistakes and now they lead the world in high speed rail. Is it a future tech that gets developed (Tesla chargin battery for homes + solar shingles/panels) and exported? If so, do we strike some kind of economic agreement with Africa and other resource rich places that will need to provide the material needed?
Say...20 years from now we manage to get a grip on climate change and start to hold steady, what does that world look like? Are we a three tier city with rails between buildings going up 30-40 feet? Are we finally using flying cars and the like to get around? Have we figured out desalination of seawater to replenish the fresh water we no doubt depleted?
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Seeing some new designs from architects that are starting to veer away from the traditional, post-modern look and are becoming more and more experimental with the way they design buildings and how those buildings function. As part of this, NASA has done a few 3D printed habitable places for the Moon or Mars and have awarded a few firms awards and access to develop them further.
Do you see in a few years that we'd be living Gundam or still stuck on Terra Firma? Is there a scenario where we can have a cyberpunk, futuristic, future, on the moon and Earth?
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EPT
