Technology

[leader of mortals]

How far do you think technology will go. I think we are pretty much at the peak of technology except for medicine. I think before we get flying cars and artificial intelligence, we will have all the technology on the world destroyed by a bomb or something.

What do you think?

[Aerith's Knight]

Thats not true.. we can go way further with technology.. and believe me, cause thats what ill be doing when i graduate. We havent even understood everything in Quantum physics, so how can you say that we are at a peak. First you understand, then you recreate, then you invent. we havent even understood everything.. so there will be lotsa more technology to come

[Rye]

Oh god, I can't wait until Mr. MILFY sees this. xD

No, technology is definitely NOT at its peak.

[Chimp]

The only technology we need is advanced dreaming technology. If we can be suspended in a lucid dream state, then any desire can be fulfilled and advances in "real" life technology will be unnecessary. :D

[LunarWeaver]

I'm going to highly doubt we're at our peak. Our super top peak will probably never be reached because we'll kill ourselves before we can. Mmm, morbid.

[Madame Adequate]

... I don't even know quite how to respond to this. I mean sure, not so many people find the tech singularity plausable, and a fair number think we're going to wipe ourselves out soon, but I don't know many people who think we're reaching technology's actual peak.

Technology is only just starting to take off. The last century saw more technological advance than the entire previous sum of Human technological growth. Current trends suggest that, barring incredible catastrophe, we're just about reaching the point where growth becomes obviously non-linear. In normal Human lifetimes, those of us here now are going to be witness to the single greatest period of change in Human history by a far wider margin than you can imagine. But let's try:

Imagine that the radio, telephone (regular and cell), television, computer, internet, airplane, firearm, radar, iPod, DVD, radar, microscope, penicillin, MRI scanner, polio vaccine, smallpox vaccine, internal combustion engine, and plastics were all invented/discovered tomorrow. Literally in the space of 24 hours.

Now expand that a thousand fold. That's what we're looking at over the next forty years. After the midpoint of the century I don't even want to make bets, but we won't even be able to understand it without being augmented in some way ourselves.

Where are we going? Hopefully, towards the Culture, which is a futuristic society in a series of novels by Iain M. Banks. I intend to get us there. In reality, we're in a reasonably okay state now, and that is utopian, but GETTING from here to there is a larger challenge than I'd like to face.

But we do face it, and we can't stop it. Technology brings too much that's good, and is too uncontrollable. The only way to stop it would be a worldwide totalitarian state. The worst anyone could feasibly do is slow it down, but because it's exponential, even if you literally make things TEN TIMES more difficult, it'll only actually slow things by a few years.

[XxSephirothxX]

I don't think the Matrix is coming to get us. We'll be inventing and improving for awhile.

[Tavrobel]

Technology is like interest growth. The more you invest, the quicker it becomes to get something out of it. In a year, we do more than what was once considered a miracle breakthrough that spanned 1000 years. Soon it'll become a week, soon a day. There's so much that we haven't done yet, like live on the moon, or to create a feasible super-conduction system. There's no way that we are at our peak, because human ingenuity will keep on adapting and evolving.

[Momiji]

... I don't even know quite how to respond to this. I mean sure, not so many people find the tech singularity plausable, and a fair number think we're going to wipe ourselves out soon, but I don't know many people who think we're reaching technology's actual peak.

Technology is only just starting to take off. The last century saw more technological advance than the entire previous sum of Human technological growth. Current trends suggest that, barring incredible catastrophe, we're just about reaching the point where growth becomes obviously non-linear. In normal Human lifetimes, those of us here now are going to be witness to the single greatest period of change in Human history by a far wider margin than you can imagine. But let's try:

Imagine that the radio, telephone (regular and cell), television, computer, internet, airplane, firearm, radar, iPod, DVD, radar, microscope, penicillin, MRI scanner, polio vaccine, smallpox vaccine, internal combustion engine, and plastics were all invented/discovered tomorrow. Literally in the space of 24 hours.

Now expand that a thousand fold. That's what we're looking at over the next forty years. After the midpoint of the century I don't even want to make bets, but we won't even be able to understand it without being augmented in some way ourselves.

Where are we going? Hopefully, towards the Culture, which is a futuristic society in a series of novels by Iain M. Banks. I intend to get us there. In reality, we're in a reasonably okay state now, and that is utopian, but GETTING from here to there is a larger challenge than I'd like to face.

But we do face it, and we can't stop it. Technology brings too much that's good, and is too uncontrollable. The only way to stop it would be a worldwide totalitarian state. The worst anyone could feasibly do is slow it down, but because it's exponential, even if you literally make things TEN TIMES more difficult, it'll only actually slow things by a few years.

Oww....my brain. x_x

Yes. Technology is always advancing and will continue to advance.

[blackmage_nuke]

If back to the future II is anything to go by we should have flying cars, hoverboards, holograms, auto drying/ auto fitting jackets and family sized pizzas that can fit in your pocket in about 8-7 years

Our printers and fax machines will however have an extremely bland font

[Araciel]

Yeah don't cite BTTF ... I'm pretty sure the original Lost In Space was supposed to occur in the year 1998.

[starboyK]

In the near future, say 40 years, the technology that will truly shape the planet as well as the path that humanity will take will most likely be in the micro-world of nanotechnology. That will ultimately lead to advances in the macro-world that we see and experience, however, I believe humanity will experience a period in time soon after that will resemble the Dark Ages- only in the sense that technology cannot continue to increase as exponentially as it may seem today. The technology spike that in a short amount of time may seem to indicate a smooth parabolic curve will most probably be seen in subsequent ages as more of an explosion of ideas resulting from the discovery and fine tuning of glassworks (or so it seems to me i.e. telescopes, microscopes, reading glasses, et alia). Not to turn this into some sort of essay or argument though, I just believe that a certain plateau will be reached where advances will emerge, but not on the daily basis that most seem to see in the future. It may take a few hundred years to reach that plateau and the universe by that time may be much less of an enigma, but for technology to continue exponentially forever would be saying that the more we find out about the universe in which we live, the faster we will learn that there is always more to learn even faster. (Yes, I know that terminology is confusing but that is what a parabolic curve would indicate) While mathematical geniuses will continue to expound on the work of their predecessors, and technology will continue to be fine-tuned, I do not believe that "the sky is the limit" meaning only that one day, humans could reach the sky where climbing more, while possible would be irrelevant and would occur more on a ideological desire to know rather than a "need to know" basis. On the other hand, I could just be full of crap. Either way, my head hurts so I think I'll stop typing now.

p.s. I've read many posts, blogs, etc., but this is the first time I have ever posted myself.

[Aerith's Knight]

i have never said it would continue exponentially.. that would be a bit crazy.. but certainly linear.. i myself am doing an internship in nanoscale technology and i will tell you now that there is lots more research and technology that will come from that engine.. think of tv screens that are only as thick as the glass they are put on.. and this is how it is today.. they already have that.. and of course its fine tuning now.. because almost everything has been done.. space travel.. done.. but perfected.. of course not!.. but technological advancement will continiue as long as there is something left in this universe that isnt understood yet.

[Mirage]

I think the technology we know today isn't even the tip of the iceberg of what we can achieve :p. I think saying that all we have left now is perfecting what we already have done is a bit, well, naive? :p. There are tons of things we haven't done yet. We haven't even been outside of our solar system. Personally, I'm looking forwards to space colonies, but I'm not sure if that will be done during my lifetime. Unless my dream of eternal life becomes true. It could be!

[Aerith's Knight]

isnt spcae colonies and going outside our solarsystem not perfecting space travel?

we even have fusion.. something really new.. would be.. like cold fusion