September 29, 2017 at 8:31 am
Space colonization, flying cars, fossil fuel independence, human cloning: we can argue the merits of whether each of these things should exist, but the required technology exists today, and has existed before some of us here were born. The roadblocks are economics, lack of consumer demand, and politics. For example, citizens are more interested in lower taxes than they are colonizing space, there is no economic incentive to move from fossil fuel, and human cloning is both scary and has no practical value.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
September 29, 2017 at 11:00 am
Eric M Russell - Friday, September 29, 2017 8:31 AMSpace colonization, flying cars, fossil fuel independence, human cloning: we can argue the merits of whether each of these things should exist, but the required technology exists today, and has existed before some of us here were born...
Um, I'd have to disagree that the required technology exists today for those things. Cloning is the only one of those that we do have 100% the technology for. We could limit our use of fossil fuels, but there is not enough reliable non-fossil energy available to replace it all at our current global level of usage, even if you include nuclear energy as a non-fossil fuel. They are still inventing the technology now for us to put a colony in space.
September 29, 2017 at 11:17 am
Chris Harshman - Friday, September 29, 2017 11:00 AMEric M Russell - Friday, September 29, 2017 8:31 AMSpace colonization, flying cars, fossil fuel independence, human cloning: we can argue the merits of whether each of these things should exist, but the required technology exists today, and has existed before some of us here were born...Um, I'd have to disagree that the required technology exists today for those things. Cloning is the only one of those that we do have 100% the technology for. We could limit our use of fossil fuels, but there is not enough reliable non-fossil energy available to replace it all at our current global level of usage, even if you include nuclear energy as a non-fossil fuel. They are still inventing the technology now for us to put a colony in space.
I'd say the technology for total fossil fuel replacement and space colonization does exist, it just wouldn't be economically feasible. For example, the price tag on a lunar base would require 10s of billions to operate yearly, everyone could theoretically drive an electric car, and there are companies today making very small nuclear reactors designed to support a single factory or small town. It's just a matter of how much the public or political leaders consider it a necessity relative to whatever else is on the budget.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
September 29, 2017 at 11:44 am
Rod at work - Friday, September 29, 2017 7:56 AMMore debt and taxes.
That's always a sure bet! :hehe:
Reality will probably not be much like the Star Trek universe, but hopefully much better than the move Idiocracy.
October 2, 2017 at 7:57 am
Jeff Moden - Thursday, September 28, 2017 11:47 PMSoylent Green, anyone?
Actually someone has a product with the (unfortunate) name Soylent https://www.soylent.com
They don't add "Green" but anyone who has heard of the movie is certainly adding it in their mind....
October 2, 2017 at 11:58 am
Stefan LG - Thursday, September 28, 2017 11:00 PMIt was interesting that you mentioned Red Mars (by Kim Stanley Robinson) since there are some controversial ideas around population and birth control in his novels.
People are already living longer due to advances in technology and that trend will continue to put pressure on our precious resources.Farming (as we know it today) is one of the areas that will see the biggest change.
We must get use to the idea that meat will be 'grown' in laboratories!
'Alternative' sources of protein will also become part of our diet...
Fresh food production will continue to move closer to cities by implementing vertical farming.The plus side for us (working with and/or interested in data) is that there will be many opportunities for IIoT, Big Data, Machine Learning and AI projects.
I don't believe the demand for lab grown meat will extend beyond the fast food industry, targeting the type of consumer who doesn't ask questions about where the meat in their taco or hot dog comes from so long as it only costs one dollar. However, there are plenty of completely natural alternative sources of meat. One of Ted Turner's ventures is raising free-range buffalo in Montana preserves, and the same could be done for deer and turkey. Fish can be farmed in man-made or natural lakes.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
October 3, 2017 at 6:31 am
Sadly I think the issue is more about over population than food production. Laboratory produced food is not the answer - we need to get back into a 'natural' food chain rhythm! Unfortunately, apart from Prince Philip manna years ago, over population seems a taboo subject.
I used to read quite a bit of science fiction but somehow never got into Star Wars. But then I never got into Dr Who - whilst my sister hid behind the sofa when the Daleks appeared to me they were dustbins fitted with sink plungers.
October 3, 2017 at 6:48 am
Over population will be a problem eventually but it shouldn't be a problem for a quite a lot of years / generations. Limits to over population are societal (both procreation and warfare) and environmental factors such as disease. "Natural" food isn't much of any answer to anything because what is "natural" anyway? Humans are omnivores and much of what we eat has been directly, if slowly, genetically modified for our purposes. The modern hatred of GM is a touch silly when you consider that we wouldn't have most wheat, corn, rice, root vegetables, cows, dogs, pigs, sheep, horses, etc without extensive genetic tampering it's just that if it's known as "selective breeding" it's considered OK but shortcuts to this aren't. The commercial aspects of GM aren't quite so pleasant though. We have more issues with the distribution of resources than the resources themselves.
As for daleks, some thought that the earlier Dr Who series were scary but I just remember more being worried that the sets might fall down and injure the actors. A silly concern for a pre-recorded series but that's youth for you.
October 3, 2017 at 7:25 am
I'm not concerned about alleged health risks associated with eating GMO food; that's not the risk people should be concerned with. The way I see it, the real potential threat is that some global corporation will create strains of designer crops that, while they may appear to provide some benefit (ie: accelerated growth or resistance to elevated temperature), possess an unknown genetic flaw that expresses itself only after several generations (ie: stunted growth or intolerance for rainy weather). Those flawed genes could then spread to contaminate the gene pool of neighboring farms until eventually the global food supply is impacted.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
October 3, 2017 at 7:31 am
I agree... although these risks have been there with slowly modified varieties as well it's just accellerated in this form. It's also the insanity of the GM companies that seem to think that a variety they "own" will not spread outside of where it is planted and either spread freely or cross pollinate with other varieties. However humans have been dicking around with nature for many thousands of years and other than a few localised failures we've generally survived. Genetic flaws that you've described either shouldn't happen (major genetic changes don't happen in one generation) or would just make the plant unviable and therefore not an issue.
October 4, 2017 at 12:14 pm
Chris Harshman - Friday, September 29, 2017 11:44 AMRod at work - Friday, September 29, 2017 7:56 AMMore debt and taxes.That's always a sure bet! :hehe:
Reality will probably not be much like the Star Trek universe, but hopefully much better than the move Idiocracy.
I think that avoiding idiocracy is a forlorn hope. In much of the world an idiocracy is already in charge, and either people vote for it or the elections are rigged for it or they just don't bother with elections.
More debt and taxes certainly is a pretty sure bet, but I reckon there are some even surer ones:-
A very sure bet: The fraction of the after-tax income of the average rich non-worker that the average low-paid worker has will continue to grow smaller, and the rate of decrease will accelerate.
This applies throughout the world (with a few neccessary word changes to fit countries whose politics are slightly different, for example, China and Zimbabwe).
For the UK, I think it's a sure and certain bet that the Union won't last much longer. The current UK prime minister obviously thinks she can prevent that simply by saying "NO", which demonstartes that she's pretty thick, as her only chance of avoiding it would be either to negotiate a very soft Brexit (which the southerners in her party won't let her do), or provides for a referendum on the negotiated terms (the right wing of her party are even less likely to allow that) and neither is going to happen, so sooner or later that repeated "NO" will lead, in Scotland, to an "illegal" referendum on separation (as happened the other day in Catalunia - so the same applies to Spain, where at least two of the Autonomous Communities have strong independence movements and one has just demonstrated that very clearly and the government has demonstrated very clearly that it's scared enough to use violence to prevent the people saying what they want). And she has nothing to offer the EU that would satisfy them on the border bewteen the NI province and the Irish Repubic, so she'll end up restarting "the troubles" if she isn't careful (she's already close to that with her deal with the NI Unionists).
For the USA, there is one even surer bet: I'm 99% sure that it's an absolutely certainty: the NRA will continue to succeed in persuading Congress not to outlaw the sale of kits to upgrade semi-automatic weapons to fully automatic - and the deaths caused by nutcases will therefore continue to increase. I wouldn't altogether rule out the possibility that the NRA will persuade Congress to to vote to legalise sale of fully automatic weapons to eliminate the anomaly that sale of upgrade kits is legal whilesale of the fully automatic weapons isn't, but I think that's pretty unlikely (because it' would probably be pointless).
Tom
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