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Experts Fear Future Will be Like Sci-Fi Movies
segphault writes "In the year 2020, Luddite terrorists attack technology infrastructure and artificial intelligences dominate earth! Or at least that's what 700 experts predict in the latest poll conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (pdf). Is the future really going to be like a science fiction movie? Ars Technica provides a humorous overview of the survey results. From the article: 'Are these scenarios really indicative of future trends? Given the prevalence of many of these concepts in science fiction content, it is obvious that the ideas themselves are at least relevant enough to warrant consideration. That said, the nature of the survey and the way that the scenarios are presented makes the entire thing seem less plausible. In looking at classic science fiction films of the past, from Blade Runner to Soylent Green, one realizes that few of them really predict with any accuracy the world we live in today. Culture and technology can change in radically unpredictable ways, and today's experts may lack the foresight to perceive the future with the clarity of Hari Seldon.'"
As far as I'm concerned it won't matter what happens, just as long as I get my soma.
This guy's the limit!
I more fear that it will be like 1984. Cameras everywhere, mass surveillance, no criticism of the rulers allowed.
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V for Vendetta, Planet of the Apes, 2001, and Matrix Revolutions I think.
Bradbury's future was marked by huge video screens in the living room, little speakers in the ears, people pursuing dangerous hobbies because their lives had become empty (street racing, in the novel), and a disinclination towards knowledge (books) in favour of a false sense of reality being fed to citizens through the media.
Golly gee, I hope that's not our future.
Perhaps they did, but a kid turned up and found out how you had gotten the sports results and then went back to the point where your future self gave them to you and managed to steal them while HIS other self was desperately trying to avoid having intercourse with his mother but was not careful enough to avoid teaching Chuck Berry how to play rock and roll!
Did you ever think about THAT?
Assuming the questions were posed in a "Y/N" fashion, what this study tells anyone with a statistical background is that there is no fucking consensus whatsoever. These guys have no idea - pick any question about 2020 and pose it to one of these guys. They're almost exactly as likely to say "yes" as "no".
It's interesting that this study was done, and it makes an interesting read, but it produced almost exactly no significant results.
Meta will eat itself
Smart man that Joss is.
But we don't have telescreens in every room that can listen and watch us. Yes, they listen to our phone calls without a warrant, but no, you don't have to guard your facial expression for fear of being tortured in Room 101. Saying that our situation is that bad trivializes the suffering and deaths of those whose situation is that bad.
I detest the rantings of O'Reilly and Coulter as much as the next thinking biped, but they do not consitute the Thought Police. Morons may impugn your patriotism for being skeptical of the President's policies, true, but no one, even Coulter, is saying you should be tortured for doing it.
There is no boot in the face, forever and ever. We are being pwned by bible-thumping do-gooders who are not burdened by the humility and self-doubt that plague those of us who can't think of ourselves as instruments of divine providence. They don't think of themselves as power-hungry. That is why our world is so alien to Orwell's fictional one. I'm about halfway done with Orwell's essays, and basically he thinks that people are good, except for those who are bad. But the world really isn't that way. The bad things are done not by inherently bad people, but by people who think they are doing good, but lack the capacity to doubt themselves, their convictions, and their methods. Mix in political conviction with religious faith, bind them together, and you get borderline megalomania, which I think characterizes Ashcroft, Perle, Cheney, and Bush pretty well. They aren't evil (well, maybe Cheney--he's scary), only immune from self-doubt, because they think that the ultimate arbiter of good, meaning God, is firmly on their side. If you are on God's side, then there is only one other side, really.
But this sort of megalomania is seductive even to non-religious people. I'd bet Pol Pot and most other Communist leaders just thought they were doing what was right, they lacked the capacity for self-doubt, and they were surrounded by those who told them what they wanted to hear. There aren't that many authentically bad people in the world. I think Orwell actually gave human beings too much credit, because being rational himself, he assumed that, a few stupid people aside, most people were rational. So even his "bad guys" are rational--they want power, and will use "the boot in the face" to get and keep it. But in reality we have clean-cut, Christian soldiers torturing people to death because they think they're fighting for freedom and democracy. People will do horrible things for noble words, and still sleep like babies at night. Evil is more complex and insidious than Orwell made it out to be.
Anyway, rambling aside, our world is not like the one Orwell created in his books. There are similarities, yes, but ours differs from his in nature and degree. If you use up all your superlatives now, if you shout "tyranny" now, what words will you use when it gets worse?
No, /. was outlawed in 2023. The last holdouts (all of whom had less than 4-digits in their IDs) were executed in the manner best befitting virgins. ...He's dead Jim. AHHHH! He's dead Jim. AHHHH! He's dead Jim. AHHHH!...
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
The Wikipedia Article on the Roman Republic has a few statements that I find both amusing and frightening,
"This kind of violent and sensationalist politics only sought to inflame tensions within Roman society, namely the poor and the disenfranchised."
"Starting with the Punic Wars, the Roman economy began to change, concentrating wealth in the hands of a few powerful clans and causing political tension within Rome."
"Formerly middle-class soldiers would return from years of campaigning to find themselves landless, unable to support their families, and ironically, unemployable because the successes of the Legions made slaves a much cheaper source of labor."
Regarding your comparisons to the late Roman Empire, I agree that there are striking similarities in both Europe and the US; just replace "barbarian invasion" with "massive illegal immigration".
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.