Subject: But hey, at least there are other fields of science...
Author:
Posted on: 2016-03-14 16:59:00 UTC
...that have some interesting developments going on. Like quantum computing and the advent of the light-based computer!
It's a good time to be a physics major studying photonics, I tell ya.
So apparently my thought process of late has been 'science fiction is awesome, and that's really depressing.
I won't copy the entire text across, but in the last couple of months I've posted both Only one present made me cry this Christmas and I Got the Wrong Future over on Livejournal. And given that they're the only things I've said (publically, at least) on LJ in that time, the only conclusion is that I'm really miserable.
So seriously - is this just me? Does anyone else have this reaction? And if you've listened to the song I talk about (that's not a Heather Dale link) - or if you have Heather's album by some fluke chance - what do you think of it?
hS
PS: A last-second addition: there's currently a video of Heather singing her cover of I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing?) up on Youtube. It's a brilliant song covered by a brilliant singer (who also happens to be an alarmingly lovely person), and as a bonus, it's been overlaid with spaceflight images including what seems to be moonrise from the ISS (at 4:16). I highly recommend everything about it. ~hS
I don't dream about sci-fi futures that much. I'm kind of a paranoid Luddite. I think humans are too irresponsible to be allowed onto other planets. For me, Siri is too far into the uncanny valley.
But listening to this song made me want it all, so badly.
--Key is becoming a Heather Dale fan
I think no-one noticed because we didn't stick cyber- in front of everything. ;) If you were cyber-speaking on a cyberforum, and using your c-phone to connect to the cyberweb in the first place, you would be amazed at how cyberpunky the world was.
cyberhS
Summary: Because of a few things, progress has ground to a halt.
Note: Below is my train of thought that led to this answer. WARNING, may get really strange.
Who says it will be as good as people make it out to be? I want to believe people can change, but look at the past.. We have gotten so close, yet so far. Well, we do have the internet. 20-ish years ago, we wouldn't be able to have this discussion. On the flipside, people may be spending too much tine doing this. The future is a very double-edged sword. With all sorts of cool future tech, the rich people would get it first, as they would have all the funds for it. Think about it. All of the cool future tech is coming, but it's all super expensive. That's why it is so widespread. Hybrid Cars? Rockets? Lasers? Medicine? Organ Transplants? Another reason that we don't have future stuff is that the people at the forefront are more concerned with making money from this. Remember Nikola Tesla? The guy who was funding Wardenclyffe Tower stopped because he couldn't choose who got electricity and who didn't. (I got that from http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla by the way. Forgive me if I'm wrong.) After reading that, I just have the feeling that the only real advances come from people who aren't profit-driven. Look at tech companies today. They release a new model of something every year, raking in tons of money, with their "Improved fuel efficiency, aerodynamicness, Wi-fi included, better loading times, operating systems, larger screens," and whatnot. I'm not going to say that these things are bad, it's a double-edged sword, like I said before. The reason I said that I don't want the future to come, is that things could get a lot worse before getting better.
Granted, I have serious doubts if we'll ever leave the solar system. Simply put, a FTL drive is impossible-- though I would love for someone to prove me wrong. And that's not even getting into all the other technology we need to make a starship work-- sophisticated life support for long-distance trips, a solution to muscle atrophy in space, power generation, propulsion systems for precision maneuvers, etc, etc. And don't even get me started on "deflector shields". The image of a starship going FTL and its hull getting sandpapered to oblivion by a dust cloud is all I'm seeing. Given the fact that the ISS is very much vulnerable to small pieces of hypersonic debris in Earth orbit, I'd hate to see what happens to a starship that accelerates into anything bigger than a tiny rock. And even then...
But back to the topic at hand: I've actually had these thoughts a while back. I was a bit disappointed, sure, but there's nothing to do about this. Just keep chugging, I guess.
... a bunch of the harder scifis tend to do things like stick giant ice-shields on the front of their spaceships? Or use magnetic effects, though most of space is non-magnetic, so that's probably a non-starter.
What we really need to do is test this out: launch a solar sail or ion probe and monitor it to see how long it takes to die. This may take some time.
Also we won't do it because that future is one we skipped.
hS
...was it ever an option? :P
...that have some interesting developments going on. Like quantum computing and the advent of the light-based computer!
It's a good time to be a physics major studying photonics, I tell ya.
The way I see it?
We just haven't reached it, yet.
After all, technology leads to technology. As we invent more stuff, we can invent more stuff faster.
About seventeen years ago, Deus Ex featured datacubes as a futuristic sci-fi concept. They were composed of mainly a screen, with a few buttons at the bottom.
We now use, on a daily basis, mobile phones - pieces of technology which are literally more advanced than these in every way.
The world is changing, and that change is hastening, for better or for worse.
Wageningen University and Research centre recently grew crops in simulated martian soil.
The EPFL and SSSA invented a bionic fingertip that differentiates between surfaces with a 96% accuracy.
In 2012, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre allowed a quadriplegic to eat a chocolate bar with a brain-controlled robotic arm. The BCI was, from what I can tell, invasive, but, it's something.
We can hardly forget EVERYTHING from Boston Dynamics, who recently released footage of a new model of their humanoid robot ATLAS, which is stable enough to walk through a snowy forest, catches itself when it starts to fall, and has awareness of its general environment.
And if you're afraid you won't live to see all this stuff, don't be. The Avatar Project aims for human immortality through brain upload by 2045.
I'll be surprised if death is anything but an option by the end of the century.
Hell, I'll be surprised if FLESH is anything but an option by the end of the century.
They're great for backwards continuity - "I remember being a person who wanted to get their brain uploaded, and now I have!" - but they absolutely fail at forward continuity - "I want to upload my brain so that I can live forever". The person who uploads their brain just goes through a scanning process which creates a copy of them. The copy may be immortal, but that does nothing for the original.
(Also: 'aims for this by 2045' is a fancy way of saying 'hasn't solved the fundamental problems yet, but would like to'. If it's 20 years in the future now, it'll probably be 20 years in the future forever.)
hS
It's like how people go on about living through their children.
They've got your genes, but, I mean, you're still dead.
Whether it succeeds in it's goal or not (awful ambitious, innit?), it's a step forward. Which is better than not stepping forward, or tripping over and having your feet amputated.
My dreams are ever so small. "If you have a garden and a library," said Cicero, "you have all you need." I don't dream of going to Mars; I dream of sitting in the garden with the girl I love and drinking tea. I'll never be able to see everything earth has to offer in my lifetime; why should I dream of whole new worlds? I barely even understand how my own head works, so why should I be frustrated about the way the human race goes — isn't that too big a thing to be frustrated about? I don't need spaceships and Thunderbirds and AIs; I have philosophy and stories and people. And a dash of foul-mouthed Roman poetry.
-Des, feeling rustic
Except the world I'm longing for is one that can never happen.
That's why I write as much as I do: it lets me forget that magic isn't real, if only for a little while.
But there's a difference between 'this thing can't happen (and I wish it could)' and 'this thing will definitely happen (and I can't have it)'.
People have been to the moon. It is physically possible to go to the moon. But I never will. And that's more annoying than the fact that I can't go to Middle-earth.*
*This is a bald-faced lie, but allow me my hyperbole.
hS
(PS: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology...' If we get programmable nanotech, I'll build you a set of Harry Potter spells, how about that? ;))
It's painful, too, knowing it's possible to stand on the moon and look out at the Earth and realize the universe is so, so much bigger than anything you could possibly imagine... and knowing that, because this is no longer third grade, your math and science skills aren't what you thought they would be and so becoming an astronaut is just completely out of the question.
But they said I could become anything. So I became a writer.
(but srsly if you ever perfect that nanotech lemme know pls?)
But yeah, nanotech would definitely work for HP magic, particularly potions and Transfiguration. Indeed, you also have a bunch of other fandom stuff - vampires of every stripe, divine powers from Rick Riordan's pantheon, Tolkienian elves...
Of course, gaming tech'll let you be all that first, but this'll let it be a dream you don't have to wake up from.
But yeah, nanotech would definitely work for HP magic, particularly potions and Transfiguration. Indeed, you also have a bunch of other fandom stuff - vampires of every stripe, divine powers from Rick Riordan's pantheon, Tolkienian elves...
Of course, gaming tech'll let you be all that first, but this'll let it be a dream you don't have to wake up from. <3
Those first two verses hit me hard. The whole song is a bit melancholy to me, but those first two verses... Oof. Though I will say the chorus actually did feel kind of uplifting when I heard it sung, not so when I first read it.
I mean, it's a lovely song, it really is. I want to make a poster out of it it's so nice.
It just breaks my heart every time.
hS
You wanted a future where we built something to solve our problems? Well, this is it. How do you solve the problem of an autocratic regime suppressing descent in a Middle-Eastern country? Twitter. How do you solve the problem of getting lost? Satellite navigation. How do you solve the problem of global climate change? ... Eh, working on it, but it's probably gonna work out.
That's the thing. I love this future. It's cool as hell. The sum of human knowledge is literally at our fingertips wherever we go. We've killed smallpox and the phenomenon of the pub know-it-all (which admittedly left me out of a job). We got the future where we built machines to solve our problems - they're just in the palm of our hands, extensions of ourselves, a hive of information that spreads and self-corrects and updates and brings joy.
There's a school of thought - I read a paper on it once upon a time - that humans politicked themselves into existence; that our social groups were so complex that becoming dominant required sharper intellect. As far as I'm concerned, we're still doing that. We speak, and we speak in so many different ways, that now there's no problem we can't overcome. I believe that. I genuinely do.
And if I'm wrong, I don't care. I'd rather die believing in the essential dignity of the human species than sneer at the ruins and say "I tole 'em all no good was gonna come of that, I tole 'em, I did".
So yeah. We are living in the future. And it's a good one.
I don't recall Egypt being a whole lot better off today than it was in 20...12, or whenever. 2011. Looks like they ousted a president, elected some fanatics, had the army stage a coup to kick them out...
And it's the wrong sort of solution. We killed smallpox, yes - by utterly stamping on human rights and shoving people into quarantine camps. We've failed to kill polio because of a) not doing that, and b) people being stupid about it. Yes, people can come up with solutions to the big problems - but those solutions keep failing because of people.
So I want the future where the solutions don't revolve around people.
And I want my nuclear rockets.
:(
hS