US Looks For Input On "The Next Big Things"

coondoggie writes "What are the next big things in science and technology? Teleportation? Unlimited clean Energy? The scientists and researchers at DARPA and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy put out a public call this week for ideas that could form what they call the Grand Challenges — ambitious yet achievable goals that that would herald serious breakthroughs in science and technology."

Comments

Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[Anonymous Coward]

We always want to know what's next, what's the exciting thing we can dream will solve all our problems. But we don't want to finance it. And we don't want to finance the basic research for those big things without promise of a payoff.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[MrEricSir]

We always want to know what's next, what's the exciting thing we can dream will solve all our problems. But we don't want to finance it. And we don't want to finance the basic research for those big things without promise of a payoff.

These types of challenges encourage private financing. If it spurs innovation and costs very little to the taxpayer, what's the problem?

And no, I'm not saying we shouldn't fund science grants. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[Dr Max]

But you guys defiantly want to patent it. Good thing for you is you don't need to research it or fund it, just write a brief paragraph about your dream then sue whoever does the hard work.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[smaddox]

Exactly. Probably the most important advancement currently being pursued is self-driving cars. Google/Stanford are getting very close. It's only a matter of time. And guess what? It started as a DARPA challenge. The first couple of contests were a complete bust, but eventually advancements were made, and then Google took over.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[lightknight]

How about attaching a prize / royalties / some sort of agreement that actually makes pursuing some of the riskier ventures feasible? When cracking cold fusion or solving world hunger only nets you a cool million, there isn't a lot of motivation to achieve them. And that's a major problem these days -> everyone wants to be cheap, offering up intangibles (15 minutes of fame on an evening broadcast, a standing ovation, and a medal) that are kind of a bad joke for the time, effort, and energy spent on creating those solutions.

Even on kaggle.com, which deals with finding / creating new algorithms, there is only one prize (the health prize) that come anywhere near tickling my fancy. $x0,000 to develop a new Kinect algorithm? What? MS is smoking some serious dope. Here is a company that is bringing in billions in revenue, quarterly, and potentially millions more if they can get a killer app for their little device, and they want it for less money than a decent car. I can't tell, did our current generation of 'business' 'leaders' go full retard? Who instructed them to act like this, and why? Seriously, I want to know which business school(s) they graduated from, so I can forbid my children to attend them.

Looking back in history, when Benjamin Franklin and friends were around, you were rewarded (heavily) for your inventions. The inventors, who came up with neat inventions, and allowing for the occasional Edison, got PAID. And until inventors start getting PAID again, humanity's progress will remain at a stand-still, or rather, a mediocre pace.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[Anonymous Coward]

A people's AI-driven reason-based moneyless global economy would put
paid(sic) to all your finance arguments. Judaic Capitalism is bull-crap
and all the more reason to demonstrate how non-inflationary, crime-proof,
tax-free transactions can be bound up by combining dense internal
reasoning, using independent components from repertory grids, and
democratically making decisions over sparse non-collapsing supernational
authentication networks.

To paraphrase Vernor Vinge, imagine if in a world run by support vector
machines, we, by creating the open source equivalent of the profit incentive,
“created something qualitatively different from all other tech advances, wherein
humanity can continuously provide guidance for further progress”.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[Alex Belits]

Looking back in history, when Benjamin Franklin and friends were around, you were rewarded (heavily) for your inventions. The inventors, who came up with neat inventions, and allowing for the occasional Edison, got PAID. And until inventors start getting PAID again, humanity's progress will remain at a stand-still, or rather, a mediocre pace.

For every "inventor getting PAID" they had millions failing and dying from typhus. What was perfectly acceptable in a society where you are millions times more likely to die from typhus rather than succeeding in anything notable anyway. Mankind made some significant progress since then in the area of not letting people die from typhus, however you still have to somehow kill millions of unsuccessful inventors to get one successful and rich. Otherwise society will have to somehow support the unsuccessful ones (salary, insurance, bankruptcy) what quickly depletes the amount of money that can be thrown at the few who succeeded. This is why "winner takes all" model does not work anymore -- at least not for intelligent people.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[lxs]

How do you figure that building a Johnnycab is the most important technology advancement being pursued today? It's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[PopeRatzo]

Probably the most important advancement currently being pursued is self-driving cars.

"Most important advance"?

You think it's more important to be able to text in your front seat on the way to work or to not have to put $50 in the gas tank every morning?

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[PopeRatzo]

Looking back in history, when Benjamin Franklin and friends were around, you were rewarded (heavily) for your inventions. The inventors, who came up with neat inventions, and allowing for the occasional Edison, got PAID.

Yeah, rewarded with about 100 times what the average person was worth. Not with 50,000,000 times.

I love the fact that you start your comment by scoffing at a million dollars.

Maybe we need some basic research into how to deal with all the negative social consequences of wealth disparity.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[Vanderhoth]

Although I understand what you're saying, I think the GP's issue is when you have to spend billions to get something like cold fusion working, then a million seems kind of anticlimactic.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[RaceProUK]

So all those people killed or injured in road accidents don't exist?

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you figure that building a Johnnycab is the most important technology advancement being pursued today?

Because the implication it has on the transportation sector is very similiar to what robotics was to manufacturing. Today a lot of workforce is tied up at trivial driving, something that a computer can do cheaper and more effeciently. Just like robots didn't replace all manufacturing self-driving cars will not replace all driver. It will however free a large portion of that workforce without any loss in productivity. This workforce can then be used for something that we can't automate yet.
At the moment I can't think of any other upcoming technology advancement that will have that impact on society. Finding Higgs Boson is not going to change the life of average Joe, being able to regrow vital organs will have an impact on the minority that needs them but will not reshape society the way a self-driving car will.

It's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

All solutions are. The amish gets by just fine, everything beyond that is just solutions to problems that doesn't exist. Unless you want comfort and convenience beyond what is absolutely necessary that is.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[RaceProUK]

Or reduce the road accident rate to essentially zero?

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[Anonymous Coward]

The next fix should be patent reform, hopefully before March when Microsoft starts sueing for the use of 200 year old technologies.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[PopeRatzo]

Or reduce the road accident rate to essentially zero?

Is that what you think is going to happen when we have "self-driving cars"?

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[drsmithy]

Because the implication it has on the transportation sector is very similiar to what robotics was to manufacturing. Today a lot of workforce is tied up at trivial driving, something that a computer can do cheaper and more effeciently. Just like robots didn't replace all manufacturing self-driving cars will not replace all driver. It will however free a large portion of that workforce without any loss in productivity. This workforce can then be used for something that we can't automate yet.

In most countries this problem is mostly already solved.
It's called public transport.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[PopeRatzo]

Although I understand what you're saying, I think the GP's issue is when you have to spend billions to get something like cold fusion working, then a million seems kind of anticlimactic.

And my issue is that when you "have to spend billions" it should be public research.

We're seeing too many cases of human beings being held hostage to proprietary technology.

How many people would be dead if mosquito netting or the Salk vaccine would have been patented?

If you look at the advances that have led to the world around you, how many of those were the result of a corporation "spending billions" and how many of them had basic research done with public funding?

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[RaceProUK]

Why shouldn't it?

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[grep_rocks]

You make a good point (even though I am not so sure about how great things were in the 1700s) - our society favors capital over labor, in othe words people who do the work don't get rewarded nearly as much as people who own the the stuff - if you have a lot of money it is far easier to just hire people to work and think for you and the system is set up so you, with the money, but do nothing are far more rewarded than the people who work - so for example I work at an R&D center, in order for me to collect a paycheck I have to sign a document saying essentially everything I think of belongs to the corporation, when I file a patent I get $400, the patent could be worth hundreds of millions - and shitheads who say "oh go work somewhere else" don't know shit about capital intensive industries - to design and produce a major piece of equipment may require 10s to 100s of millions of dollars, in addition there is a shitstorm a patents surrounding everything, and major corporations share patents to shut smaller players out, so if you design CT machines good luck starting your own company without state backing - if you watch Breaking Bad, Heisenburg talks about a real scientist at GE who invented man-made diamonds, he made GE a shitload of money, and he got a $10 savings bond for his trouble.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[fridaynightsmoke]

Probably the most important advancement currently being pursued is self-driving cars.

"Most important advance"?

You think it's more important to be able to text in your front seat on the way to work or to not have to put $50 in the gas tank every morning?

The real point of self-driving cars is NOT to allow people to Facebook or whatever in their own cars while driving to work.

It's to allow taxis to operate at much the same cost per journey as a private, passenger-driven car. Cheap taxis would solve a fair number of the problems caused by 'car dependence', what happens to the people who cannot drive for whatever reason.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[Vanderhoth]

I don't disagree with anything you've written and I definitely agree with doing away with patents and copywrite, or at least reducing their terms. It becomes more of an incentive to just come up with a very vague abstract idea, patent it and wait for someone to want to do something similar enough and sue them into the ground or live off royalties of the hard work of someone else than to actually come up with something to advance mankind's technology and knowledge.

I see patents being used for exactly the opposite reason they were created for; they were supposed to be an incentive for someone to make money off something they invented and prevent someone from under cutting an idea before the inventor was able to recoup the R&D cost. What patents are being used for now is to prevent people from being inventive by pounding them into the ground through litigation. So basically corp-X doesn't have to actually do any real work and can prevent the formation or strengthening of a competitive entity.

I was looking at the original argument as from the preservative of a research scientist, probably working out of a university or other public institute, who is advancing a field of knowledge. In which case they work under very tight budgets and spend more time fundraising than actually doing the research. If you look at it from the perspective of "Big Pharma" developing some life saving cancer drug and patenting it, but instead of releasing it for the betterment of mankind, they prevent others from using it because they make more money of prolonging life than they would saving it. Yeah, you're entirely correct.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[Meeni]

"It will however free a large portion of that workforce without any loss in productivity. This workforce can then be used for something that we can't automate yet."

I'm afraid that this, has been a valid goal for the last century. In this time and age, it seems painfully clear that there is not anymore such a thing as "something we can't automate", so the "yet" part may provide short relieve, but maybe not enough time to retrain the workforce before it needs retraining.

In some sense, maybe we should focus, instead, on discovering the next workforce intensive application of novel science, but is there even one ? If not, maybe we should research economic principles, and figure out how to make a livable world for the mass of the people, when there is no need for mass workforce.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[IamTheRealMike]

Screw solving the patent system mess, how about not having somebody who believes evolution is a lie in charge of science funding? That seems like a fairly ambitious goal!

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[Anonymous Coward]

In most countries this problem is mostly already solved.
It's called public transport.

We really need a stock form, much like the "why your idea won't fix spam" form, for this particular ideological gem that pops up on Slashdot every time transportation comes up.

There are literally a thousand reasons why public transport doesn't work in most of the US - technological, political, geographical, you name it. All I can figure is that the people that continually spout public transport as a panacea for US transportation woes live in Manhattan or San Francisco and can't imagine a world that isn't densely-populated city from one end to the other.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[CosaNostra Pizza Inc]

Exactly. Probably the most important advancement currently being pursued is self-driving cars. Google/Stanford are getting very close. It's only a matter of time. And guess what? It started as a DARPA challenge. The first couple of contests were a complete bust, but eventually advancements were made, and then Google took over.

I agree. If we can't have flying cars, we at least need self-driving cars. There's just too much time wasted on commuting as the roads become ever-more clogged with traffic. Wouldn't it be great if you could sleep, work, do homework, etc on your ride to work without having to focus on actual driving? I'm hoping self-driving cars will become commonplace within the next 10 years.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[Quirkz]

You're getting a lot of flak in the responses, but I think looking back in a handful of decades this is going to seem more right than many of the other answers. The way I see it, the last three "next big things" were: 1) build mechanical assistants, i.e. computers; 2) make them smaller and affordable; and 3) connect them. Much of what has been dramatically revolutionized about life over the last few decades has been fallout from those three things, none of which sounds all that crazy in retrospect, but none of those things seemed nearly as big going in as they do now. The consequences far over-reached the apparent usefulness when the inventions were made.

The self-driving car is likely to be another one of those things which, once it's fully realized, has far more dramatic changes than the ability to "text on your way to work" as one detractor commented above. I'm not just talking about reduced traffic congestion and decreased mortality rates, though I think those are the main reasons we're looking into it now, but really dramatic stuff. We'll have kids being able to get places quickly, easily, and safely without requiring parental intervention. There'll be another chance for custom home delivery of groceries - that kind of flopped in the early days of the internet, but when coupled with automated drivers and efficient delivery routes I could see it working. A fully redesigned family-size car that's more like a living room on wheels would completely change the long-distance travel experience, and the ability for these computerized cars to link up into giant trains for long-distance interstate rides might do some very nice things for fuel efficiency.

Those are just some starting guesses, and I'd bet some even crazier things come from self-driving cars before a few decades are out.

Compared to that, things like unlimited energy and teleportation are science fiction - easy to name, but far too distant in the future to be candidates for any of the next several generations of "next big things."

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[Quirkz]

Bad form replying to my own post, but another likely big development is in medicine. Tricorder-like functions and smart apps that turn your smartphone or home computer into a basic medical advisor as a first pass at getting medical advice and monitoring your general health (heck, include monitoring of sleep, exercise, and food intake) and there could be some tremendous gains in the management of personal well-being. The big issues there being of course privacy concerns - where there's data, there's data leaks and big brother and corporate meddling that we'd want to be careful of.

A third bet is genetics, with genome mapping, personalized analysis, customized medical treatments, etc.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[AwesomeMcgee]

This is the problem with looking at research in the eyes of concrete uses, you end up short-sighted. Think of a solution to public transport that could do this: Ensure no one spends more than 20 minutes a day each way in transit, from their front door to the door of their workplace.

Will google's technology solve this? I don't know how and have no idea, but maybe, maybe not. Something that creates this solution will have *immense* economic and quality of life impact. But you'll never get their without doing general research on a much wider variety of things expecting many failures. Eventual success on a goal like this would immediately pay for every failure it cost, and ignoring this fact is the short-sightedness that you get in looking for immediate applicability of what you fund.

Think of it like the 20% time at google, undirected research has created basically all of their real revenue streams and moreover things that have been beneficial to many thousands if not millions of people.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please. You just want self-driving cars so you don't have to pay Deliverators.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh, we live in a capitalistic democracy under god. Take your black-person-loving sociolism communism the fuck back to iran you muzzie.

Romney 2012

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[RaceProUK]

I do believe that's the most racist thing I've ever read on here. Mods, do your thing.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[sumdumass]

That doesn't make a difference at all. Religion tests to hold office and positions in government are illegal and unconstitutional. -even if they are being used to remove anyone who is religious from government or the post.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[drsmithy]

I am not suggesting automated vehicles would have no improvements over and above public transport (though in a large subset of cases, I expect that to be true), I am making the point that their improvement would not be "revolutionary" because the "not wasting time driving" aspect is already covered (and has been for decades) by existing technology.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[drsmithy]

In no way did I present public transport as a "panacea".
I pointed out that for the typical person, a proper public transport system delivers most of the advantages of not having to waste time driving.
Thus, the 'revolution' of automated cars is in no way going to deliver benefits "similiar to what robotics was to manufacturing". There's simply not that much improvement to existing technologies in the big picture.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[Anonymous Coward]

In most countries this problem is mostly already solved.
It's called public transport.

Since when is public transportation driverless?
For gods sake, the post specifies workforce meaning people who drive as a job!
This includes the bus driver, the cab driver and the truck driver.
Public transportation is what is going to be replaced first by the Google car. Average Joe doesn't mind driving his own car, the companies that have to pay a salary to a bus driver or a truck driver will be the ones who are eager to automate.

Re:Like a junkie, loooking for the next fix.

[drsmithy]

Since when is public transportation driverless?

From the perspective of the passengers ? Since always.

For gods sake, the post specifies workforce meaning people who drive as a job!

This includes the bus driver, the cab driver and the truck driver.

The post I responded to specifically said " self-driving cars". Ie: a replacement for personal transport.

Public transportation is what is going to be replaced first by the Google car. Average Joe doesn't mind driving his own car, the companies that have to pay a salary to a bus driver or a truck driver will be the ones who are eager to automate.

The productivity improvements alluded to in the post I responded to are clearly talking about freeing up the time of the vast number of people who drive single occupant vehicles to work. Not the relative minority who are driving buses, trucks and taxis.

Plasma rifles...

[GrpA]

I want to see a grand challenge to develop Plasma Rifles... And not the "Halo" kind, but a follow-on from the early development projects of the 1990's.

Re:Plasma rifles...

[Samantha Wright]

Do you really think humans need more ways to kill each other?

Re:Plasma rifles...

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly the Plasma Rifles are for hunting purposes.

Re:Plasma rifles...

[GrpA]

Do you really think humans need more ways to kill each other?

Yes. Because the more ways we have to kill each other, the less we are likely to use them...

Re:Plasma rifles...

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

Should they come in a 40 watt range?

I may close up early today.

Re:Plasma rifles...

[Jane Q. Public]

Actually, we already have homemade portable rail guns, and lasers powerful enough to kill the things at which you point them. (Search gizmag.com for examples.)

In comparison, a plasma rifle -- even in the 40-watt range -- would probably be rather ineffective.

Re:Plasma rifles...

[GrpA]

Actually, a militarily functional rifle would need to be in the 12kW range with a total capacity of at least 36 kW-seconds.

That equates roughly to the performance level of a modern M4.

GrpA

Re:Plasma rifles...

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly. Looking out his rocket's window: "Gunna hunt me some purdy good skags in them alien wastelands over yonders... Marge, where'd be them plasma guns? Our RV is about to land!"

Re:Plasma rifles...

[rally2xs]

My Remington model 7400 .30-06 is plenty of killing power for anything on this continent. I don't need a plasma rifle for it.

Re:Plasma rifles...

[Elminster Aumar]

Clearly you've never encountered a submacopter.

Predictions ...

[PPH]

... are hard to make. Particularly about the future.

Re:Predictions ...

[Dantoo]

Well I would like them to find a way to make Pizza taste as good the day after. Nothing you can do with it seems to bring back the consistency, aroma and taste that it has when it first hits the table.

I confidently make a prediction that this will never happen.

Re:Predictions ...

[MachDelta]

Nuke it for 1/2-2/3rds the time you normally would, then finish it in the oven/toaster oven on broil.

It might take a few tries but you can get pretty close.

Re:Predictions ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well - we cam make one prediction...

Whatever it is, it cannot be anything involving software in the USA - because because the far to generic patents have killed any chance for innovation over there..

Re:Predictions ...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get a combo microwave/conventional oven that gets close too. It's basically a microwave with a griller element as well.

Re:Predictions ...

[smaddox]

I prefer to put it straight into the toaster oven on toast. It comes out crispier than fresh, so not exactly the same, but incredibly delicious.

Re:Predictions ...

[Jane Q. Public]

... are ridiculously easy to make. Particularly about the future.

Correct predictions, on the other hand, are a completely different matter.

Re:Predictions ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy enough. It's the cloud dudes : http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/10/11/0035259/kurzweil-the-cloud-will-expand-human-brain-capacity

Re:Predictions ...

[Mister Transistor]

The mark of a truly great Pizza is one that still tastes good cold the next day! After the flavors have had overnight (hopefully in the fridge) to ameliorate, the true flavor of the pizza comes out (either great or not so much). Just like Potato Salad, it tastes much better on the 2nd day after it's made (again, refrigerate to avoid food poisoning!).

As for reviving it, try using "defrost" on the microwave. Micros explode the cells of the food and give things an odd flavor, by using "defrost" you don't let it get so hot so fast and cause as much cellular destruction that full "cook" gives. Otherwise the toaster oven suggestions are good, but they are too small to reheat a pizza conveniently, you have to reheat it 1-2 pieces at a time.

Re:Predictions ...

[Anonymous Coward]

You have more than 1 or 2 pieces of pizza left the next day?

You fail at pizza eating!

simple things

[the_Bionic_lemming]

How bout -

1. Cheap and easy ways to clean water for the world
2. Cheap and easy ways to provide light for the world
3. Cheap and easy ways to feed the world
4. Cheap and easy ways to maintain sanitation
5. Cheap and easy ways to provide education to the world.

That's what I'd like to see a focus on. Unfortunately, we're spending money on forcing the chevy volt on the world instead.

Re:simple things

[TemperedAlchemist]

Easy.

Thorium motherfucking reactors. Goddamn we've had this technology for how long and it isn't used because of some asshole president? Yeah I'm mad as hell. Practically free energy right at our fingertips -- completely free, virtually clean -- AND WERE NOT USING IT.

Re:simple things

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy.

Thorium motherfucking reactors. Goddamn we've had this technology for how long and it isn't used because of some asshole president? Yeah I'm mad as hell. Practically free energy right at our fingertips -- completely free, virtually clean -- AND WERE NOT USING IT.

You beat yourself with your statement. Something that is already known, being developed, and kept in reserve can hardly be the Next Big Thing.

Re:simple things

[khallow]

1. Cheap and easy ways to clean water for the world
2. Cheap and easy ways to provide light for the world
3. Cheap and easy ways to feed the world
4. Cheap and easy ways to maintain sanitation
5. Cheap and easy ways to provide education to the world.

All solved problems. Just use the developed world approach. A couple centuries ago, most of the developed world was as least as bad off as the Third World is now. What changed is that they built the infrastructure which allowed all that. It might not be as cheap and easy as you'd like, but it is cheap and easy enough.

Re:simple things

[gQuigs]

Donate some CPU cycles to the cause:

There are World Community Grid projects for Clean Sustainable Water, Energy, and fighting lots of diseases. They previously had projects looking into improving the nutritious content in rice. http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/

It's powered by BOINC. http://boinc.berkeley.edu/ which also let's you donate to so many other worthy projects. http://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php

Re:simple things

[Anonymous Coward]

yes Yes YEs YES !
LFTRs LFTRs all the way!

ooops sorry don't they have RADATION --- OMG no
we are all going to die because we talked about RADATION.

Re:simple things

[Anonymous Coward]

completely free

BULLSHIT

Re:simple things

[Electricity Likes Me]

Easy.

Thorium motherfucking reactors. Goddamn we've had this technology for how long and it isn't used because of some asshole president? Yeah I'm mad as hell. Practically free energy right at our fingertips -- completely free, virtually clean -- AND WERE NOT USING IT.

You beat yourself with your statement. Something that is already known, being developed, and kept in reserve can hardly be the Next Big Thing.

That's not true: there's plenty of design and technical challenges to implementing Thorium reactors in a scalable way. And the concept could easily be expanded to a re-investment in the development of nuclear fission power generating technology - which, broadly, should go under the umbrella of a widespread investment in fusion projects of all types.

Re:simple things

[Black Parrot]

How bout -

1. Cheap and easy ways to clean water for the world
2. Cheap and easy ways to provide light for the world
3. Cheap and easy ways to feed the world
4. Cheap and easy ways to maintain sanitation
5. Cheap and easy ways to provide education to the world.

Yeah, the last Savior only took care of the first three.

Re:simple things

[Anonymous Coward]

How bout -

1. Cheap and easy ways to clean water for the world
2. Cheap and easy ways to provide light for the world
3. Cheap and easy ways to feed the world
4. Cheap and easy ways to maintain sanitation
5. Cheap and easy ways to provide education to the world.

That's what I'd like to see a focus on. Unfortunately, we're spending money on forcing the chevy volt on the world instead.

How do you think first world countries got all that stuff, magic? You can't just make all that happen somewhere else, while respecting their sovereignty.

It's like "fixing" homelessness by giving someone a house. Are you going to pay their bills, give them a job, keep them from fucking it up, drive them around, buy them work clothes, kick their habits, etc? There's only so much you can solve by throwing money at a problem, the rest needs to come from within.

We didn't get where we are overnight, so it's stupid to look at a developing country and ask why we don't just make them the way we are. You don't control them.

Re:simple things

[rtb61]

The next great goal is blindingly obvious and when we start solving it many problems created by our activities will be resolved, 'GRAVITY'. A real understanding of gravity and the direct manipulation of gravitic fields or gravitons, will make a lot of technological dreams possible and now war required, simply the desire to expand humanity to the other planets in our system as well the orbits about them. Cheaply and effectively getting high mass objects out of our pesky gravity well the obvious goal. Likely a great deal of focused energy will be required to achieve it but logically access to even greater amounts of energy became possible. Of course we could start bumping into the powers that be and some behavioural adjustment might be required so as not to be perceived as a pest that needs to be controlled.

Re:simple things

[Anonymous Coward]

Brilliant! What country do you think it'd be best for them to invade first? I think the easiest target would be the Vatican, their current army could be taken out by a few hundred of AK-bearing kids in a single day. But then they'd have to be careful not to put the new slaves anywhere close the child slaves, so making use of the new workers would be a logistical challenge.

Re:simple things

[lobiusmoop]

I'd settle for a cheap and easy male contraception pill. If that came on the global market soon then I think the other 5 problems you mention would disappear within 25 years.

Re:simple things

[Hentes]

2. Cheap and easy ways to provide light for the world

Windows?

Re:simple things

[hairyfish]

Some third world countries did build infrastructure, it then got destroyed because the people that live there predominately believe in magic. While they still believe in magic, they will forever be stuck in the dark ages.

Re:simple things

[real-modo]

None of those things require scientific breakthroughs. The technologies already exist.

What's stopping us doing those simple things? Politics: corruption, caprice, ideology, handouts to special interest groups, denying ownership rights in land, failure to regulate lenders (120% p.a. interest anyone? Become a poor farmer in rural Bihar), failure to make elemetary investments in roads, water management, health and education. Most of the problems are in "third world" countries themselves, but Europe and North America sure don't help.

We could do those five things now, if our political elites possessed enlightened self-interest.

Now there would be a breakthrough.

Re:simple things

[Confuse Ed]

for 1-4, In parallel we really need to solve the much more difficult http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_law problem first re: overpopulation.

Otherwise the more food and water an area can provide in a perfect scenario the greater the end suffering will be when some inevitable problems occurs and the now larger population's demand's exceed what the land can supply : either due to war, drought/crop-failure or just the feedback delay between successfully increasing child survival rate and there being a baby-boomers population spike in high-consumption adults.

Maybe Education can help with that, but even in '1st-world' countries we still seem to have a problem with some people having many more children than they have the means to support themselves (currently a bit of a hot political topic in the UK with the government wanting to try and reduce the cost of supporting people on 'benefits')

Re:simple things

[DarenN]

I personally think that the great breakthrough that would change everything is energy storage that is significantly more energy dense (orders of magnitude) than the batteries we have today, chargeable, and stable.

Think Heinlein's Shipstones and you've got the idea. Anyone who managed this would need to spend the first half of the money to build somewhere big enough to store the second half of the money.

Re:simple things

[RaceProUK]

How bout -

1. Cheap and easy ways to clean water for the world 2. Cheap and easy ways to provide light for the world 3. Cheap and easy ways to feed the world 4. Cheap and easy ways to maintain sanitation 5. Cheap and easy ways to provide education to the world.

Yeah, the last Savior only took care of the first three.

That's alright - the Romans did the other two :)

Re:simple things

[Tom]

All of these already exist. The main challenges in these areas are not know-how or technology, but social and political. Basically: Getting these things to the people that need them.

Re:simple things

[aliquis]

Peace?

Re:simple things

[Mister Transistor]

And, this gave way to the Fourth Age, the Age of Man...

Re:simple things

[Anonymous Coward]

Who says we don't understand gravity? We understand it very well and can manipulate it competently, subject to a few engineering limits.

If you want to be able to hover away from earth, place a large mass above your head to provide an opposing gravitational attraction to negate earth's gravity. Alternatively, you could dismantle the earth to lower its gravitational attraction.

What? You were hoping for some kind of magical antigrav tech? It's not going to happen like that. Gravity doesn't have the same advantages that electromagnetic fields do. You can't negate them with antimass, since we don't have any antimass. You can't negate them with an induced gravitomagnetic effect, because we don't have anything with gravitomagnetic charge either. Gravitomagnetism with plain old ordinary mass does exist, but is even more useless as an engineering principle than building new planets above your head.

Want to speculate about Higgs field magic? Don't. Higgs interaction is an effect that explains how the particle set we live in gains additional mass above their base values. It does not have anything to say about how mass-energy relates to gravitation, only about where some portion of that mass-energy resides.

Re:simple things

[evilviper]

1. Running water through two meters of sand will filter out nearly all contaminants. It's something any local can do, and costs next to nothing. Instead all kinds of NGOs spend money on fancy, high-tech devices, which require maintenance and replacement, so they just perpetuate a cycle of dependency.

4. Build a toilet (basically a bucket) with a vent pipe which will allow liquids to dry up quickly. Then throw in a small amount of started microbes (for composting toilets). Odor is minimal, and when the toilet is full, it can be dumped out as benefitial compost, and start again with some more microbes. Local production of microbes should make it sufficiently cheap that it'll be easily affordable.

5. Digital electronics, and cell phones in particular, are making this a reality, right now. A little effort by a group of educators to produce the simplest and easiest collection of useful information, tailored to various regions, is just about all that is necessary to get the ball rolling.

If you want to criticize automobile reasearch, complain about the money wasted on ethanol and hydrogen, when everyone knew it was a pointless distraction and dead end. Electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt are the future, and a future where there's less demand for oil means a future where despotic regimes which repress their people will see their funds dwindling, hopefully enough that they'll be unable to maintain their power.

Re:simple things

[Idbar]

Unless the pill is permanent, I'd go ahead and guess that it's the uneducated the one not taking the pill anyways, and the source of those problems.

Re:simple things

[khallow]

I merely pointed out that those problems have already been solved. No need to invade anyone or other illogical gibberish. Sure, it'd be nice if those things were a bit cheaper and easier, since they could be implemented with less infrastructure and sooner which would save and improve many lives.

Re:simple things

[Shivetya]

would probably increase the risk of STDs as more partners would think they don't need protection.

Re:simple things

[Anonymous Coward]

Jus' yooze the internets for all that bull$hit

Re:simple things

[khallow]

We could do those five things now, if our political elites possessed enlightened self-interest.

It's not my political elites that are screwing these particular things up. That's somebody else's job.

Re:simple things

[grumpyman]

1. Cheap and easy ways to clean water for the world

This for drinking water:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioSand_Filter

Re:simple things

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not my political elites that are screwing these particular things up. That's somebody else's job.

Of course, since your job is to get screwed. Fun jobs are reserved to the smart and rich.

Re:simple things

[Anonymous Coward]

Now all we need are the plasma rifles to take out the Judean People's Front!

Re:simple things

[RaceProUK]

SPLITTERS!

Re:simple things

[Anonymous Coward]

2. Cheap and easy ways to provide light for the world
  - Sol
3. Cheap and easy ways to feed the world
  - Population control. Fewer people, fewer problems.

Re:simple things

[evilviper]

We have luxuries in the developed world because we're all rich.

If there was no electric grid, I'd buy solar panels, or a wind turbine, or a propane / methanol / diesel / gasoline generator. And indeed, plenty of people are off-grid.

Building infrastructure where people live on $200/year means few if any can afford to use that infrastructure, and the difficulty of installing it will never be recouped. Do it as an NGO project, and they won't even be able to afford regular maintenance of the infrastructure, anyhow. Plus, you need to consider the difficulty of doing all this in many extremely remote regions.

"The developed world approach" has no common strain, other than that people have lots of money, so bringing them conveniences in any way you can will be profitable. The way the electric grid started in New York bears no resemblance to the early grid in Florida. The water and sewage works are very different in the middle of the desert than they are in coastal areas. The only commonality is that people want the convenience, so they'll pay more money than impoverished people even make, to get it.

Re:simple things

[khallow]

Remember also I said:

A couple centuries ago, most of the developed world was as least as bad off as the Third World is now.

The developed world wasn't always rich.

Building infrastructure where people live on $200/year means few if any can afford to use that infrastructure, and the difficulty of installing it will never be recouped.

The developed world was also in that situation and it didn't need a wealthier part of the world to bail it out.

The way the electric grid started in New York bears no resemblance to the early grid in Florida. The water and sewage works are very different in the middle of the desert than they are in coastal areas.

That means one is more likely to find historical examples relevant to their current situation.

Re:simple things

[evilviper]

The developed world wasn't always rich.

Yes, the developed world has, for centuries, been vastly weather than the currently impoverished areas we're talking about. Pre industrial revolution, people in the western world were much better off, due to natural riches from ample forests, valuable minerals, good soil and climate, or even just nearby navigable waterways... Some parts of the world were simply lucky.

The developed world was also in that situation and it didn't need a wealthier part of the world to bail it out.

Yes it did. History is filled with examples, such as Roman conquest resulting in infrastructure development, and other fringe benefits. In the US, there's no question the wealthier cities / states substantially subsidized the infrastructure for the poorer states, and continue to do so to this day...

Re:simple things

[khallow]

Yes, the developed world has, for centuries, been vastly weather than the currently impoverished areas we're talking about. Pre industrial revolution, people in the western world were much better off, due to natural riches from ample forests, valuable minerals, good soil and climate, or even just nearby navigable waterways... Some parts of the world were simply lucky.

As I was saying, no that is wrong. The Western world wasn't wealthier.

The developed world was also in that situation and it didn't need a wealthier part of the world to bail it out.

Yes it did. History is filled with examples, such as Roman conquest resulting in infrastructure development, and other fringe benefits. In the US, there's no question the wealthier cities / states substantially subsidized the infrastructure for the poorer states, and continue to do so to this day...

You haven't found one such example. Merely noting that some regions are somewhat wealthier than other regions doesn't magically create infrastructure of the sort discussed in this thread. Nor does it magically create subsidies. Someone has to build it and the history of the developed world shows this infrastructure building in great detail.

Re:simple things

[Anonymous Coward]

1. There is no such thing. There is something similar that requires a complex activity biology that can A) never start working B) stop working, or C) go very, very wrong. A and B are much more likely and you aren't liable to notice anything unless you have poor hygiene and a tropical environment.

Re:simple things

[Anonymous Coward]

HERP A DERP I read about thorium on the internet. I am an expert. Why don't we build them? Everyone is so stupid except for me!

Re:simple things

[evilviper]

You seem to be severely fact-challenged.

Putting your fingers in your ears and yelling "No, no, no" won't change things, and doesn't help your argument.

Goodbye.

Re:simple things

[evilviper]

No filtration method is perfect or fool-proof. Slow sand is one of the best. If you'd like to claim otherwise (as you seem to be doing) you'll have to argue with pretty much every respected authority on the planet. Let's start with the World Health Organization:

http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/publications/ssf/en/index.html

Next thing: Fixing the economy

[Anonymous Coward]

Then we can worry about what kind of toys we want to play with.

Re:Next thing: Fixing the economy

[MtViewGuy]

I agree. We need to do the following:

1. Start reducing the size of government by looking for bureaucratic overlap, agency bloat and unneeded/obsolete regulations and use that to cut down the size of government as much as 30%.

2. Massively overhaul the income tax code to reduce yearly compliance costs and to encourage savings and capital investment staying in the country.

Once these changes are in place, the US economy will take off like a rocket.

Re:Next thing: Fixing the economy

[Meeni]

And explode in flight like a rocket, like it did everytime this policy has been applied.

Re:Next thing: Fixing the economy

[khallow]

And explode in flight like a rocket, like it did everytime this policy has been applied.

Or every time this policy hasn't been applied. It's almost like it's a completely irrelevant issue to the bottle rocket economy.

Re:Next thing: Fixing the economy

[Tablizer]

Anti-Keynesian Alert!

There people are really, really stupid

[gweihir]

Breakthroughs cannot be planned. You can put a whole lot of smart people to work, give them everything they want, and maybe you will get lucky. But any attempt to plan and direct breakthroughs will only serve to prevent them. That was one of the lessons from the soviet economy. Don't people ever listen?

Re:There people are really, really stupid

[fearofcarpet]

Breakthroughs cannot be planned. You can put a whole lot of smart people to work, give them everything they want, and maybe you will get lucky. But any attempt to plan and direct breakthroughs will only serve to prevent them. That was one of the lessons from the soviet economy. Don't people ever listen?

I think the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Program worked pretty well. Ditto for the oodles of federal dollars targeted at semiconductor technology in the mid 20th Century. Anti-retro-viral drugs were most certainly the result of large amounts of targeted funding. There are entire foundations dedicated to funding research for a specific type of cancer and survival rates have gone up dramatically as a result. I'll grant you that you cannot predict where or when a major discovery will occur, but with finite resources, research must be directed. Research funding is, in every country, highly targeted because a breakthrough will never occur in a field in which no one is working.

Re:There people are really, really stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep people don't ever listen because there are lots of people pretending to be wise but saying stupid things.

Let's cure your selective amnesia. Remember Sputnik?

Re:There people are really, really stupid

[e**(i pi)-1]

But any attempt to plan and direct breakthroughs will only serve to prevent them.
What about nuclear energy or getting to the moon? These were planned and heavily directed breakthroughs.
Breakthroughs cannot be planned
Is this really true? Modern industry is full of examples where breakthroughs have been planned.
You can put a whole lot of smart people to work, give them everything they want, and maybe you will get lucky.
Isn't this also a form of planning? Maybe we should say that breakthroughs can not be micromanaged.

Re:There people are really, really stupid

[Nevynxxx]

No. The funding came *after* the inital breakthrough which was pure basic science.

People looked at what Bhor had shown, and what Enstein had shown and said, if we put money into this we can make power, or bombs.

Without the pure basic research that came before it, we'd have nothing.

Re:There people are really, really stupid

[khallow]

People looked at what Bhor had shown, and what Enstein had shown and said, if we put money into this we can make power, or bombs.

And that "basic research" explained otherwise puzzling real world phenomena. If you're dumping a bunch of money into experimental physics, then a model that better explains the phenomena you're looking at is big leverage.

Without the pure basic research that came before it, we'd have nothing.

Nonsense, we would as we did, explore relevant basic science as part of the overall scheme.

Re:There people are really, really stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

These weren't "breakthroughs"...they were successful exercises in procurement of the recourses necessary to achieve monumental tasks. Impressive, but not breakthroughs IMO.

Re:There people are really, really stupid

[houghi]

Breakthroughs cannot be planned.

Perhaps not always, but it is easier if you are allowed on the shoulders of giants. (Copyright and patent laws, I am looking at you)

The Next Big Thing is Obvious:

[Anonymous Coward]

Red Giant

Regenerative Medicine

[Anonymous Coward]

Stem cell research and the like is very promising and necessary. I believe our next world-transforming goal is to prolong life expectancy and reduce and/or eliminate aging by means of regeneration of all human tissue/bone etc.

That's a false example.

[Anonymous Coward]

Research is directed all the time and we get more out of it than you suggest. It does not serve to prevent them. The Soviet economy failed for other reasons. This had nothing to do with it.

Lots of wonderful things come from allowing researchers a little freedom, but no direction whatsoever is hippie talk.

Re:That's a false example.

[Anonymous Coward]

YES! Finally, someone who knows that when you spot a point where there may be a developing technology, you need to make everyone look away.

Wait, maybe that's what the president is doing. He thinks he's soooooo smart, doesn't he.

New financial system

[Anonymous Coward]

Recent unrest in the world is due to the unjust fact that today pepole born with money dont need to work and will only become richer by the virtue of having money.
The world can not detirate any more torwards a place where's someones job is to be rich and nothing else while thoe born into poverty have no way at all of climbing out of it.
I'm calling for rersearch into a system which would more closely link the benfit one brings to society and his financial situation and diminish the link between inherited assests and future financial success.

If it all possiable the system should achive this all while mainting incentives for parents to work for their childrens futrue and allow the greatest amount of personal freedom.

Free Market

[mfwitten]

So, Government takes my money under penalty of violence and then spends it asking "So, uh, what exactly should we do with all this money?"

Solutions are best found through variation and selection, processes that are quashed and stifled by central planning; the power structure should be decentralized and localized as much as possible, and that is precisely the point of the Free Market.

Re:Free Market

[Anonymous Coward]

Free markets find solutions to things that allow one to make boatloads of money. Sometimes the best solutions aren't "boatloads of money" solutions.

Re:Free Market

[Black Parrot]

So, Government takes my money under penalty of violence and then spends it asking "So, uh, what exactly should we do with all this money?"

Solutions are best found through variation and selection, processes that are quashed and stifled by central planning; the power structure should be decentralized and localized as much as possible, and that is precisely the point of the Free Market.

Yeah, 'cause everyone knows business are just lining up for an opportunity to spend their money on the kind of basic research the Federal government has funded for the past 60-70 years.

Re:Free Market

[fearofcarpet]

Solutions are best found through variation and selection, processes that are quashed and stifled by central planning; the power structure should be decentralized and localized as much as possible, and that is precisely the point of the Free Market.

The Free Market has no idea how to conduct scientific research or to do anything that requires long-term planning; markets are excellent at efficiency and optimizations for short-term gains. Look at the pharmaceutical industry, which is constantly complaining that the early stages of drug-discovery are too costly and risky and that it should be the responsibility of universities to find promising targets because they don't work under the pressure of quarterly earnings reports and shareholder value.

That is, in fact, the basic model of technology transfer; academic labs (funded by centralized federal agencies!!!) do high-risk, fundamental research. When someone runs into a "hit," venture capitalists fund their start-up. Most fail, but the few that succeed bring us amazing innovations, and are usually absorbed by a larger company to whom you credit the discovery and jump up and down screaming "Free Market! Free Market!"

Do you know how science was done before the scary Government started pooling our collective resources and directing them towards research efforts? Only rich people were allowed to do science, they were self-funded, and they generally got into it as a means to become famous. Where would a middle-class guy like Einstein have wound up without government funding?

Re:Free Market

[mfwitten]

Maybe it would have taken longer, say, to land on the moon under a Free Market; however, when the Free Market did get us to the moon, it would be for something a lot more purposeful than sticking a flag pole in the dust and hauling back some rocks that nobody really cared about—mostly for the purpose of glorifying the State, no less.

You are counting only the triumphs taught to you by Government officials, while ignoring the unrealized ventures and the massive amounts of waste and strife. Evolution, not revolution, is the key to progress in society with as little strife as possible.

Re:Free Market

[mfwitten]

Where would a middle-class guy like Einstein have wound up without government funding?

Probably buried in Germany, having lived a prosperous and peaceful life with the rest of his fellow Germans.

Re:Free Market

[Anonymous Coward]

You're no different from religious fundamentalists. You have a solution (The Free Market TM) and instead of applying it only to adequate problems you try to fit it into every aspect of life.
Private entities (obviously) do research, but you'll never see them investing a significant amount of money in some types of research because they would never see their money back. The government will do it anyway, because if it doesn't nobody will.

Re:Free Market

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you look at research spending at a percentage of GDP over the past half a century or so, you'll see exactly that.

Re:Free Market

[mozumder]

So, Government takes my money under penalty of violence and then spends it asking "So, uh, what exactly should we do with all this money?"

Solutions are best found through variation and selection, processes that are quashed and stifled by central planning; the power structure should be decentralized and localized as much as possible, and that is precisely the point of the Free Market.

Still amazes me that there are people that still think that the "free market" is capable of doing anything.

Government is far more efficient than private industry at doing things.

It is why mail costs 50 cents to deliver via government, instead of $15 via UPS.

Solutions are best found centrally, through planned governments activities. The only thing the "free market" does is introduce inefficiencies through profit. Variation and selection are economic wastes, when you can just arrive at the solution directly.

Let's NEVER speak of the "free market" ever again. It is just a simple idea from people that never went to college and do not know anything about economics.

The more government control, the better. We statists always cause the economy to expand.

Re:Free Market

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, buried in Auschwitz? Einstein was a jew.

Re:Free Market

[Anonymous Coward]

You're aware that "industry R&D" is an absolutely different concept than base research, do you?

Re:Free Market

[TemperedAlchemist]

Basic science or basic research is science done for no other reason than to learn and obtain knowledge. Like the stuff they're doing at NIF or NASA with the recent Mars rover.

R&D is applied science, or applied research. It's purpose is to solve problems or obtain a tangible goal. Google's glasses project is R&D, so too are fusion start-ups

Re:Free Market

[Anonymous Coward]

This has to be a bad joke . . . right? The inefficiency and waste of the federal government is epic, and extremely well known. Statists usually only end up getting a decent (but very expensive) military, a scared populace, and famine, but that is if they are successful. The rest of the statists just starve once they get their way. The federal government has uses, but it clearly isn't efficient.

As to the mail issue, they have been granted so many extra rights and powers that it isn't funny. Eminent domain, government enforced exclusivity to mail boxes, certain classes of mail that are illegal for any other company. I don't know if your pricing is bullshit, but it definitely sounds like it.You should be modded into oblivion.

Re:Free Market

[MachineShedFred]

You didn't just use the US Postal Service, which just got bailed out to the tune of $11B from a Congress that can't agree on anything, as an example of government succeeding where private business fails, did you?

Did you?

The USPS is projected to lose over $14B in operating losses this year alone. Without closing ~150 processing centers and buying out ~100,000 worker contracts (which they'll use some of that $11B to do), they'd be losing $21B/year by 2016 according to their own estimates. But don't worry, because part of the legislation that gives them that bailout says that there can't be any layoffs or buyouts before the November election, because we wouldn't want anyone to lose their seat in Congress behind this mess.

Source for all above numbers, and note the domain - it's not some right-wing rag, but the Huffington Post. The best part, is that they end the article with the following right after telling us that they got $11B from Congress:

The Postal Service, an independent agency of government, does not receive taxpayer money for its operations but is subject to congressional control.

Yeah, what a fantastically managed and well-run agency.

Re:Free Market

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're missing the point: the discussion is not the current funding (or about your source at the HuffPost), it's about the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA).

In an op-ed piece at the NYT, Panzar (2011) notes:

"The crisis environment is heightened by reports that, given projected revenue and cost flows, the Postal Service will "default" sometime next year. This urgency results from what can only be described as an accounting snafu. It is projected that the Postal Service will not have the cash flow to make required payments to the U.S. Treasury to fund its retiree benefit plans. However, this would not be an issue if Congress could agree on a way to refund billions of dollars in overpayments to those plans that all parties agree the Postal Service has made over recent years. If the accounting matter could be resolved, the Postal Service would no longer be on the verge of "default," but the long term problem would remain." (Panzar, 2011)

The same thread was found by Jilani (2011) who reported on a statement by Ralph Nader:

"As consumer advocate Ralph Nader noted, if PAEA was never enacted, USPS would actually be facing a $1.5 billion surplus today:

By June 2011, the USPS saw a total net deficit of $19.5 billion, $12.7 billion of which was borrowed money from Treasury (leaving just $2.3 billion left until the USPS hits its statutory borrowing limit of $15 billion). This $19.5 billion deficit almost exactly matches the $20.95 billion the USPS made in prepayments to the fund for future retiree health care benefits by June 2011. If the prepayments required under PAEA were never enacted into law, the USPS would not have a net deficiency of nearly $20 billion, but instead be in the black by at least $1.5 billion." (Jilani, 2011)

From Nader's statement (2011):

"It is clear that these prepayments for future retiree health care benefits are -- at this point -- the primary reason for the U.S. Postal Service's financial crisis. In fact, simply looking at the numbers reveals that the Postal Service's "financial crisis" is in fact an entirely manufactured "crisis" precipitated by the ill-advised schedule of prepayments for future retiree health care benefits mandated by the 2006 PAEA passed by Congress and signed by President Bush." (Nader, 2011)

More recently, the Postmaster General has continued to ask for Congress to act, not just provide temporary funding:

"[Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe] said the two missed payments totaling $11.1 billion for future retiree health benefits -- payments ordered by Congress in 2006 that no other government agency or business is required to make -- along with similar expenses make up the bulk of the annual loss. ...
Postal unions also say Congress is mostly to blame for losses, but disagree that a reduction to five-day delivery is an answer.

"What is needed is for Congress to undo the harm it has done with the prefunding mandate and for the Postal Service to develop a balanced plan moving forward," said Fredric Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers." (Yen, 2012)

So let's reframe this in terms that people are more familiar with today: foreclosure. Let's say you bought a home with a variable-rate mortgage. After five years, the payment balloons, but you find that you are unable to make the payments. In this case, the last thing you would want would be an offer from the bank for a new line of credit; that only makes the problem worse. What you want, is to renegotiate the terms of the original agreement.

Now that we're on the right topic and we have a better frame of reference, you can ignore the conversations that center around treating the symptoms (e.g. changes in service, workforce, pricing due to the threat of insolvency), and cure the disease by changing the PAEA.

References

Jilani. Z. (2011). A Manufactured ‘Crisis’: Congress Can Let The Post Office Save Itself Without Mass Layoffs Or Service Reductions. ThinkProgres

Re:Free Market

[ProfBooty]

One of the reasons the Post office is losing money is that they have to fund their employee's health benefits for 75 years in advance. That is to say, it has to fund employee benefits for employees that haven't even been hired yet. Its an artificial crisis created by congress.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/us/politics/postal-service-set-to-default-on-billions-in-health-payments.html?_r=0

I'm not defending how the post office is run, just saying there are other issues on its balance sheet.

Re:Free Market

[mfwitten]

Woooooosh!

Last I checked, Auschwitz was Government-funded.

Any organization—any organization at all—that confiscates resources by threat of strike-first violence is a "governmental" organization. When one such organization becomes a monopoly, we call that organization "Government".

Government is simply a bad company that doesn't go out of business because it is able to confiscate your resources by threat of violence; it doesn't give you the goods and services for which you personally think you are paying, but you have to pay them anyway—it's totally absurd and unconscionable, especially when they are using your resources to build places like Auschwitz.

It is not a modern value to coerce resources from people by threat of violence. So, in fact, governments are actually the last barbaric vestige of a pre-modern civilization.

Re:Free Market

[mfwitten]

Those issues are Government.

Re:Free Market

[pseudorand]

> Government is far more efficient than private industry at doing things.
That's just a stupid as "the free market is always more efficient" statement your opposition makes.

The point of the free market is not that it's more efficient (sometimes it is, sometimes it's not), but that when a private company screws up only the people who choose to invest in that company loose. When the government screws up, taxpayers (who are compelled to pay under thread of jail) loose.

As for the post office, they're loosing money, so you have to calculate the cost bailouts we've already paid and will pay for through our taxes. (Those won't total up to the $15 UPS charges, but still...)

The real problem is that supposedly private businesses also get loads of taxpayer money in the form of tax breaks (oil and agriculture), cheap government backed money (crop insurance, home loans, mortgage interest deduction that only exceeds the minimum standard on $250k+ homes and that rich people can take on up to two properties) and bailouts (the financial and auto industries). So the taxpayer is on the hook when things go bad, but investors get all the profit when things go well.

And it's gets worse, because the rich have the poor and middle class by the balls. For example:
* We all like cheap food and gas, so we can't cut the oil and agriculture tax breaks or crop insurance subsidies. We'd go broke and starve while the market adjusted.
* The middle class have most of our net worth in the overpriced housing market, so we can't end government backed home loans or the mortgage interest deduction because we'll loose disproportionately when the housing market adjusts to free market levels.
* If we hadn't bailed out the auto industry, we'd have even bigger middle-class job losses and lose our already failing foothold in an industry vital to our way of life (bad in the long run).
* If we hadn't bailed out the financial industry the rich would have lost disproportionately, but our parents (who's liquid net worth is mostly in retirement accounts) would have had to sell their homes and move in with us.

Government subsidies and tax breaks seem good for the poor but really just make us dependent on government and put the power in the hand of the rich (who buy off our lawmakers). We've all got to keep working hard forever just to stay afloat.

Government's role should be to compete with private industry for vital services when private industry simply isn't doing a good job. For example:
* Communication - This used to be the post office, which worked well. Now private telcos leave huge amounts of America with embarrassingly slow access and expensive costs. The feds need to run some wires like they do in other countries. (Granted, S. Korea needs much shorter wires, but...)
* Energy research - Cheaper, cleaner, more diversely sourced and more efficiently used energy is obviously the #1 limiting factor in our economy. Water? With free energy we just desalinate seawater and pump it. Fertile ground? Takes energy to make and distribute fertilizer. Shipping goods where they're needed? How much do truckers spend on gas? But come one private industry? Where's our nation-wide smart grid and smart appliances? Why don't we pump water up hill when the wind is blowing and sun is shining and use hydroelectric when it's not?

Education is the counter-example though. The government has screwed that up, possibly due to teacher's unions keeping bad teachers at high costs. But educating everyone benefits everyone ('cuz that dropout will be the one robbing your house instead of designing your car or fixing your computer), so we still need a solution where everyone pays and everyone gets a good education. We just need free markets to fire bad teachers and get paid based on results (where job/salary=results).

Re:Free Market

[Anonymous Coward]

Still amazes me that there are people that still think that the "free market" is capable of doing anything.

Government is far more efficient than private industry at doing things.

It is why mail costs 50 cents to deliver via government, instead of $15 via UPS.

Really, the entity that is currently loosing a considerable amount of money due to the down turn in the economy. An entity that doesn’t even have the authority to raise the price of stamps to offset its loses. An entity that is in a finical crisis to due to congressional mismanagement. That is the model we want to duplicate?

Solutions are best found centrally, through planned governments activities. The only thing the "free market" does is introduce inefficiencies through profit. Variation and selection are economic wastes, when you can just arrive at the solution directly.

I have a read a number of books that support ‘free markets’ and warn against the dangers central planning. None of them has ever said that ‘free markets’ are more efficient at organizing and directing economic resources. In fact all have acknowledged the most effective use of resources, to a specific end, is achieved through forced government action. However, they are all clear that the sacrifice is always personal liberty.

Let's NEVER speak of the "free market" ever again. It is just a simple idea from people that never went to college and do not know anything about economics.

The more government control, the better. We statists always cause the economy to expand.

Perhaps you are correct in a purely economic sense, but your post reads as though you have spent all your time reading economics and never picked up a book on governance or history. What is the point of a strong economy if people are not free to enjoy its fruits?

Re:Free Market

[cheesybagel]

Private corporations don't have those problems nearly to the same degree you said. There is less of a pressure on quarterly earnings since the owners of the corporation have their own skin in the game and less external pressures hence they often choose strategies to maximize long term corporate viability rather than focusing on short term earnings. Other examples are public corporations largely still controlled by their founders like Google.

Re:Free Market

[fearofcarpet]

There is an ocean of difference between a tech company like Google and a pharmaceutical company. The latter openly seeks to offload expensive and time-consuming research to academia. Scientific research (particularly in Medicine and Chemistry) is just too time consuming, expensive, and risky for the short-term mentality of publicly-traded companies. And just because the founders still "control" a company, that does not mean that they are immune to share-holder pressure. The board can force a CEO out if they deem the CEO's actions detrimental to shareholder value, no matter who the CEO is.

Re:Free Market

[MachineShedFred]

Great. And who enacted that legislation? The United States Congress.

The United States Congress is a branch of what? The Federal Government of the United States of America.

The USPS is being run into the ground by the government in which it is an agency. QED.

so ez

[Anonymous Coward]

driverless cars, uav/ugv swarms, quantum computers, genetic modifications of *, bio-hacks/synthetic biology , graphene graphene everywhere, etc...

Re:so ez

[Black Parrot]

genetic modifications of *

Really, it's ok to say "penis size" here.

Re:so ez

[91degrees]

All cool stuff, but these are things that have fairly direct commercial applications. The private sector can, and in many cases already is developing this stuff. If the government is going to invest in something, it should be the sort of long term project that no individual company would be interested in.

Re:so ez

[peawormsworth]

driverless cars, uav/ugv swarms, quantum computers, genetic modifications of *, bio-hacks/synthetic biology , graphene graphene everywhere, etc...

The answer is just: "quantum computing". IMO, Period. From what we know it will be able to do unbelievable computations. That is what we know. I expect the result we dont know will be far more useful and exciting. I hope useful quantum computers come online in my lifetime.

I most often here about quantum computing in regard to cyptography. I think this will prove to be a narrow short term usage of it. It will simply be used to unlock some secrets of the past and then we will simply apply a new level of cryptography for the future.

The Internet already provides massive amounts of data waiting to provide us with useful information in weather, health, politics, environment, history, etc etc. The problem is that we are unable to process this information to provide useful conclusions. Or rather we can only process this information in limited ways. Quantum algorithms allowing this data to be processed in linear time could provide surprisingly usable results. I believe quantum computing will provide us with the most unexpected tools of analysis in the future.

I also believe that quantum computing will change our views on privacy. I think once we see the benefits of massive data analysis, society will begin to allow personal information to be easily added to massive data sets in order to better humanity. For example, all our daily activities or movement, usage, health, feelings and observations will be uploaded to "the cloud". The cloud in this case being a massively sharable data set. I think most people will be giving up much of their privacy in order to better the future and understand of ourselves as a whole in real time.

How about patent reform?

[Anonymous Coward]

Want the next greatest thing? Reform the )(*@#(* patent system.

Re:How about patent reform?

[real-modo]

Occasionally, an AC says something sensible. Yes! Reform the )(*@#(* patent system!

Re:How about patent reform?

[poofmeisterp]

Want the next greatest thing? Reform the )(*@#(* patent system.

They can't do that!

If "New Big Things" are to be developed, they need to abuse the hell out of the patent system so much that it becomes overloaded to the point of compl(*@)#$(*Q#$)(*#%(*EJF(IJ))@#*&^YGBC
NO CARRIER

The big problem: It's DARPA

[Casandro]

And it's very hard to subvert that. Whatever kind of technology you give to them, it _will_ be used to kill people first, then maybe for other users.

Other ideas which would be beneficial to the world will probably be ignored. I mean the US is spending close to $700 Billion on "defence". If you'd simply divide that by 7 Billion (number of people), you can give everyone $100 a year, enough to afford them basic education. Or we could probably even settle on the moon and work on interstellar flight.

Re:The big problem: It's DARPA

[Anonymous Coward]

Like that damn internet. Nothing but an unstoppable killing machine from day 1.

Re:The big problem: It's DARPA

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, DARPA researched internet communication technology decades ago specifically so you could post youtube videos of your Cheetos stained cat today. It had nothing to do with wanting to maintain communications in the event we and the Soviets obliterated each other with nukes.

Re:The big problem: It's DARPA

[Anonymous Coward]

Still, that's not killing anyone.

Re:The big problem: It's DARPA

[Anonymous Coward]

Other ideas which would be beneficial to the world will probably be ignored.

Heavens no ! The whole point of course is to subvert these no-good-for-war useless ideas.

The other ideas will of course be patented or otherwise made into tools in the US-led-war-against-common-sense-and-decency

Re:The big problem: It's DARPA

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't you seen Terminator?

Re:The big problem: It's DARPA

[jittles]

You really have a bone to pick with the US Military complex don't you? First of all, not everything funded by DARPA is for the purpose of killing. Perhaps it can be used to help people kill others, but a lot of the time, money and effort they spend goes towards protecting troops. You may argue that we need less military, but if we are going to have one, they might as well be as safe as we can make them. They are working on driverless cars and supply carrying robots precisely so that humans do not have to risk their lives doing these things. You can hate DARPA all you want, but I admire the work that they do to save lives.

Also, I would be willing to bet that the state of trauma healthcare would not be what it is today without the advancements made by military doctors during WWII, Korea, and especially Vietnam. Even to this day they are developing new technologies to keep wounded soldiers alive long enough to make it to a field hospital. Those same technologies are very applicable to people who are shot, stabbed, or in plain old accidents in the real world. So please, try to be more open-minded, and understand that DARPA doesn't just want bigger bombs.

Re:The big problem: It's DARPA

[Anonymous Coward]

"You really have a bone to pick with the US Military complex don't you?"

The positive spin-off effects from the investment in the US Military are well known and you make a good case for them. I don't think people are questioning that there are benefits. It's a question of scale. I mean, 40% of the entire world's spending on the military? Almost 5x the next highest country? 4.9% of GDP?

It's whacked. Completely, utterly, insane. Not in principle, but in sheer size.

Re:The big problem: It's DARPA

[Anonymous Coward]

Look simpleton, if all those funds were allocated solely to civilian purposes, we would have fucking cars working on water and a cure for the flu. DARPA is about killing people, not saving them. Oh I forgot, you think that anybody who hasn't white skin and an American passport is an animal. I wish you'll soon get raped by a (fellow?) TSA agent.

Re:The big problem: It's DARPA

[Tom]

Whatever kind of technology you give to them, it _will_ be used to kill people first, then maybe for other users.

Which is why they invented this thing a few people use every now and then. I think they call it the Internet or something.

Re:The big problem: It's DARPA

[MachineShedFred]

We wouldn't be able to get to the moon without the defense spending into the Redstone rocket, or the Titan II missile, which were the rockets used to get man into space to begin with in Mercury and Gemini. But that's just an inconvenient fact, I suppose.

Re:The big problem: It's DARPA

[jittles]

Look simpleton, if all those funds were allocated solely to civilian purposes, we would have fucking cars working on water and a cure for the flu. DARPA is about killing people, not saving them.

I wish I had your ability to view all alternate possibilities to the future.

Oh I forgot, you think that anybody who hasn't white skin and an American passport is an animal. I wish you'll soon get raped by a (fellow?) TSA agent.

Oh you got me bro. I took a year off from my studies and did volunteer work in the 3rd world on my own dime because I hate anyone who isn't white. And all those friends I had from Vietnam, the Philippines, Korea, the Pacific Islands, all of them were fake friends. I was just using them for their delicious food and amazing volleyball skills. You really are clairvoyant.

Re:The big problem: It's DARPA

[jittles]

"You really have a bone to pick with the US Military complex don't you?"

The positive spin-off effects from the investment in the US Military are well known and you make a good case for them. I don't think people are questioning that there are benefits. It's a question of scale. I mean, 40% of the entire world's spending on the military? Almost 5x the next highest country? 4.9% of GDP?

It's whacked. Completely, utterly, insane. Not in principle, but in sheer size.

Yes a lot of money is spent on the US military, absolutely. Yes it is insane. But most of that money does not go to DARPA. With Solyndra and what not, its hard to say that investing that money in private corporations directly would have the desired effect, either. The nice thing about some of these DARPA projects is that you don't get the prize until after you've spent your own time and money on research. Sure they sometimes pay companies to investigate things, but a lot of these prizes are attempted by people looking for the prestige and the prize, not to put bread on the table every day. I think there are a certain set of people who work harder in these scenarios.

well sure

[swell]

Why shouldn't we give our billion dollar ideas away?
And who is more deserving than our military establishment?

3D Printing and the End of Mass Manufacturing

[Anonymous Coward]

Advances in 3D printing may mean the end of factories other than assembly lines, and even then we may see a generic, programmable assembly function via general purpose assembly robots. Creation of devices can then be stripped down to (a) materials extraction and (b) design. Home fabrication could replace the need for many items in retail stores, but will most likely instead replace stockrooms, since an all-purpose (i.e. any material) 3D printer is a *long* ways off.

In the intermediate time period, we'll probably see some stores replaced with small workshops. (We'd probably more of a web presence with fabs replacing warehouses than 3D printers replacing part of Wal-Marts.)

It will be one more step towards a world in which labor is made irrelevant in the face of ownership of capital or of ideas (for better or worse). I predict social turmoil as a result.

Re:3D Printing and the End of Mass Manufacturing

[Electricity Likes Me]

This is a good one: general research in micro-scale materials extraction and processing is exactly what we need, since it's the big unanswered challenge to 3D printing: creating a group of machines which, working together on a small scale, can replicate all the processes needed to manufacture them.

You can really go long with this idea too: I for one have always wondered where the limits on small-scale semiconductor manufacture might lie. Namely: could sand and rock be used to ALSO create the logic circuits for such a thing (or maybe we'd do it some other way - inkjet printed assemblies of nanoparticles?)

Re:3D Printing and the End of Mass Manufacturing

[Anonymous Coward]

Tea, Earl Grey, hot.

Wanker.

DARPA is asking the public?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't DARPA asking the public what the future holds really just them saying "Hey, can you guess what we invented 2 years ago?"

Fiber Optic Internet

[JediPhreaK]

We need to invest in increasing Internet transmission speeds. There are a lot of reasons high speed internet everywhere in the USA and then eventually abroad would be a great investment. For one it would create a lot of jobs to get such a system in place and build a Internet that will have future proof speeds for years to come.

Already people are watching more streaming media than ever before, youtube, netflix, the list goes on. There are numerous other benefits, such as various businesses able to work more quickly and in conjunction with one another. Sending data, like video from various surveillance cameras. Various Entertainment companies sending massive amounts of data such as movies that are being worked on between several companies back and forth to facilitate and streamline the editing process etc.

A lot more people would start to store their data in the "cloud" since a faster internet would enable them to stream their stored media etc in a central and mostly safe location. The demand for that service which has already started to become a big thing would become an amazing and competitive business, it would grow so much faster. Other companies could also deposit other things into your cloud storage, like say if you gave them family videos to convert etc. They could as soon as the process was done send you it in digital format if that's what you wanted.

There are also numerous other reasons such as Telemedicine, Distance Learning and so many other things. A better and faster internet is good for everyone businesses and private users. How many people who also don't have access to high speed internet would potentially buy services from these US businesses which would in turn make more jobs.

Re:Fiber Optic Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

"high speed internet everywhere in the USA and then eventually abroad"

We are already doing this in Australia http://www.nbnco.com.au

Re:Fiber Optic Internet

[Electricity Likes Me]

"high speed internet everywhere in the USA and then eventually abroad"

We are already doing this in Australia http://www.nbnco.com.au/

And we have tons of people insisting that it's totally not necessary at all!

(which I find staggering in a country dominated by distance and sparse population, in a world where the largest growing sector is coming from internet business startups).

Re:Fiber Optic Internet

[JediPhreaK]

What I meant was fiber optic connecting everyone, so fiber lines to the various other continents etc. A true world wide fiber connected world. There are a lot of places such as Japan and South Korea who have much faster Internet than the USA now, we are way down the list.

Re:Unlimited clean energy?

[Culture20]

I don't see the problem. People still have to do stuff with that energy. Energy suppliers would go out of business, but things like oil will still be useful for fertilizers, plastics, or lubrication of machine parts. Trade of goods would continue, and it would be more brisk, as everyone would have limitless energy to move goods from one locale to another.

Re:Unlimited clean energy?

[bertok]

It would change things for the better, not worse.

There might be some very short-lived havoc in the markets caused by the sudden devaluation of energy company stocks, but that's it.

First of all, most energy consumers aren't using fungible energy forms like electricity, but specific forms such as coal (smelting) or oil (fertilizers, fuel). Even if electricity was made free overnight, petrol would still cost money the next day! Converting all factories to purely electricity and building plants to generate hydrocarbon feedstock from CO2 and electricity would require massive investment in capital works. The markets would recover, and the result would be a boom like no other. Engineers that lost their jobs in the oil extraction industry would retrain and find jobs in the oil generation industry, or the oil-to-electricity plant conversion industry.

On top of that, whole new industries would pop up or get a massive boost. For example, recycling is mostly a question of energy. Currently, it's just not worth it for a lot of things. Given unlimited free energy, the local rubbish tip suddenly becomes an worthwhile source of rare metals.

To see how stupid your statement is, imagine living on a Moon base. What if somebody proposes a new technology for the free production of Oxygen:

"Because cheap (or free), clean, unlimited oxygen would collapse the economy overnight and the ramifications of that would change the world as we know it. I'm all for unlimited clean air because I'm sure that stuff is great for people, but not at the expense of my life style. So if someone does come up with this, it better cost a few hundred million (or more) bucks to build a reactor and get it online."

See how stupid that sounds?

Is the Earth's economy endangered by an endless supply of free Oxygen?

How about the endless supply of free sunlight?

3d Printing

[zbobet2012]

Dunderheads. We are on our way to being able to print anything we need. 3d printing will probably make traditional manufacturing a bygone technology in the next twenty years.

Re:3d Printing

[Anonymous Coward]

3d printing will probably make traditional manufacturing a bygone technology in the next twenty years.

Not if the copyright maximalists that control our government--or at least those that do--have anything to say about it.

Re:3d Printing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, all we really need is 3d printers capable of printing ICs, electronics, motors, steel parts, rubber parts, plastic partst of all kinds of plastic, wooden parts, ceramic parts, etc. Any day now.

Re:3d Printing

[Electricity Likes Me]

3d printing will probably make traditional manufacturing a bygone technology in the next twenty years.

Not if the copyright maximalists that control our government--or at least those that do--have anything to say about it.

Trying to enforce Fabrication Rights Management seems like it'll be even more of a comical failure - not to mention far more likely to raise the ire of the general public.

Re:3d Printing

[Animats]

Trying to enforce Fabrication Rights Management seems like it'll be even more of a comical failure - not to mention far more likely to raise the ire of the general public.

Cubify already has a DRM-crippled 3D printer. They have an "app store", from which you can download designs you can only print once.

Re:3d Printing

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's why they are a laughing stock of the 3D printing industry. Build your own 3D printer!

Re:3d Printing

[necro81]

Dunderheads. We are on our way to being able to print anything we need. 3d printing will probably make traditional manufacturing a bygone technology in the next twenty years.

Spoken by someone who, I am willing to guess, has never actually worked in manufacturing. As a practicing engineer, I use 3D printing technology on a near-daily basis. It's great for all kinds of things, but it isn't a wholesale replacement for traditional manufacturing. You aren't about to 3D print a car anytime soon, or even the majority of its parts. Even 3D printers that handle metal (which start at about $250,000) can't produce parts that match the characteristics of the native material, nor reproduce the properties that come about by traditional manufacturing processes like heat treating, forging, etc. Finally, although 3D printing is great for making a limited number of something, it doesn't have the throughput or economy of most traditional manufacturing processes. You could fill a warehouse with Makerbots or-what-have-you, and collectively they wouldn't produce the same number of widgets at the same cost as, say, one conventional injection molding machine.

Mark my words

[Anonymous Coward]

The next great commodity is Truth in the post-truth era.

Ponder that. Take all the time you need. Please.

Not so much.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really think humans need more ways to kill each other?

Yes. Because the more ways we have to kill each other, the less we are likely to use them...

I hope you were being facetious. History is rife with examples to the contrary. My personal favorite is the Maxim machine gun, the first automatic rifle.

But it should be noted that Maxim hoped to arm the world against war. He looked upon the Maxim gun as a deterrent; He felt the destructive power of his weapon was so great that nations would never again go to war.

Within scant few years, his invention would be called the "Devil's Paintbrush"—responsible for millions of deaths in World War I, the greatest war the world had ever seen.

But what, you may say, about nuclear weapons? Weapons of mass destruction only imbue stability at a state level. Conflict still burns, via asymmetric warfare and proxy wars. Mutually assured destruction has to be credible, comprehensive, and inevitable in order for it to be effective.

All that said, I prefer the march of progress, including weapons technology. If conflict comes, I hope my side has an unfair advantage. Drone pwn.

I just don't have any illusion that more efficient killing machines somehow lead to pacifying ethical crises in their potential users.

Re:Not so much.

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

"Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim Gun, and they have not."

Hey, I've got a great idea!

[AdmiralXyz]

Oh wait, some NPE just sued me for patent violation. Never mind, guess I'll go develop it in some other country.

Re:Hey, I've got a great idea!

[poofmeisterp]

Oh wait, some NPE just sued me for patent violation. Never mind, guess I'll go develop it in some other country.

HEY, that's a GREAT IDEA!

Is developing things in another country a patent violation now, however, now that the idea is pending?

THANKS, Admiral. Thanks a bunch.
 
:}

The Metric System?

[Everything Else Was]

Enough said...

VR and AR

[ShadowC001]

Augmented reality and true virtual reality using mobile devices with some such wireless tech. Personally I was hoping for a holodeck.

Research

[Taco Cowboy]

Too much emphasis has been put into basic research.

I am not pooh-pooh the basic research, but we outta understand that basic research is just one of the many kinds of research out there.

Japan leapfrogged Europe and USA back in the 1970's to 1980's by NOT focussing on basic research. They just took what the West had researched and applied the knowledges to the things they made.

And now China and India are doing what Japan did 30 years ago.

Re:Research

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea well, the problem with that is you can't just copy basic research from someplace else, because there isn't anyone to copy from. With China catching up and most likely passing the US soon enough there will be. But that really means research will shift to China, and US will be the copycats. Good luck with your IP rights protection attempts and trying to copy things at the same time.

Re:Research

[Electricity Likes Me]

Too much emphasis has been put into basic research.

Clearly a quote from someone not working in research. The problem facing research and development today is that there is not nearly enough focus on basic research - everything is about immediate, applied applications - which is the highest risk type of research you can do, since the goal is "build a very specific thing". And it doesn't broaden your horizons since you're aiming at specific targets informed by existing theory.

Re:Research

[Anonymous Coward]

The next big thing emerging technology is
  body armor and witness protection programs for scientists/engineers who can truly get rid of oil dependence .and make efficient cheap electric vehicles.

Re:Research

[Anonymous Coward]

So, where does the basic research come from if we abandon that approach and just try to sponge off other societies that actually do the basic research? What if everybody adopts that approach? Answer: no basic research gets done.

Great plan.

Re:Research

[That_Dan_Guy]

I"ve gotta stick in the video from Neal deGrasse Tyson here on this very topic of "The next big thing"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjY0vqgDMnE

Lots of people talking about hitching a ride with other people doing the research and work are foolish. You do that to catch up, not to lead. If you wait for someone else to pass you so you can follow them, you'll end up at the back of the line.

Re:Research

[khallow]

The problem facing research and development today is that there is not nearly enough focus on basic research - everything is about immediate, applied applications - which is the highest risk type of research you can do, since the goal is "build a very specific thing".

Clearly a quote from someone working in basic research, So I'm to believe that there's research out there for which you can't come up with an "elevator pitch" of near future benefits? Why fund it then? My view is that if you can't justify your efforts with near future benefits, then it is welfare not research.

One merely needs to look at history to see that every significant development has had near future application. Electricity? Lightning rods. Relativity? Explains much of those funky astronomy and physics observations. Number theory? Codes for encryption, better algorithm development (eg, among the earliest would be how to add, multiply, and divide by hand), and astronomy calculations.

And it doesn't broaden your horizons since you're aiming at specific targets informed by existing theory.

That's never been true in the past. Even very specific research requires novel knowledge and development of technologies to handle the task. For example, there was yet another story on high frequency trading. Research in that area has a very narrow focus - make money by millisecond to microsecond scale trading. But to get there, one needs developments in computer technology, algorithm design (namely, how to quickly make decisions on those time scales and how to generate profitable economic models on those time scales), and some game theory and stochastic calculus.

So does any other research that pushes the envelop. If it was straightforward to do something, then it probably wouldn't need to be researched.

So that is two of the hidden truths of this whole debate. Valuable science has always had near future application and a lot of "immediate, applied applications" is basic science.

Re:Research

[khallow]

I think the problem isn't whether money is spent on basic research, but rather what approach we use for basic research. If we fund basic science because it has near future utility, then we're doing a good approach. The money we spend has some concrete intent to it, and more importantly, we have a metric of how well we're doing and whether the money is spent well.

But if we spend money on SCIENCE without regard to the value of the research, we're going to end up with greatly unproductive efforts. That's what I see current advocacy of basic science as. It's an attempt to evade responsibility and accountability, not an attempt to do more basic science.

Re:Research

[Anonymous Coward]

applied the knowledges

You need to do some basic research on how to apply your mind when expressing yourself.

Re:Research

[Anonymous Coward]

Science is simply the discovery of knowledge. Nowhere does it require the discovered knowledge to have near future utility, or even productive uses.

The way I see it, Sturgeon's law applies to science. So you can't avoid having a great deal of your research money leading to crap, a great deal of research results not being productive,

Even a famous inventor (as in, he's not doing it for SCIENCE, he's looking for ways to use science in a productive manner) once said: I did not fail 10000 times. I succeed in finding 10000 ways which did not work.

Re:Research

[khallow]

Science is simply the discovery of knowledge. Nowhere does it require the discovered knowledge to have near future utility, or even productive uses.

No, we're discussing the funding of scientific activities and to some degree, the public funding of such. In that case, the activity in question should reflect the desires of the funding sources.

The way I see it, Sturgeon's law applies to science. So you can't avoid having a great deal of your research money leading to crap, a great deal of research results not being productive,

But it's not all crap or scientific activities would be on the scale of bridge clubs or crossword puzzle enthusiasts.

Even a famous inventor (as in, he's not doing it for SCIENCE, he's looking for ways to use science in a productive manner) once said: I did not fail 10000 times. I succeed in finding 10000 ways which did not work.

Irrelevant to your original assertion since he found value in even the less fruitful activities.

Re:Research

[Anonymous Coward]

No, we're discussing the funding of scientific activities and to some degree, the public funding of such. In that case, the activity in question should reflect the desires of the funding sources.

What do you mean no? My statement is quite relevant to the discussion: I'm pointing out the desires of the funding sources aren't always about near future utility. They may very well desire science for the sake of science.

But it's not all crap or scientific activities would be on the scale of bridge clubs or crossword puzzle enthusiasts.

I never said it's all crap. That's not how Sturgeon's Law works. I'm saying you can't help but end up funding a lot of duds. There is no panacea to pin point what research "should" be funded and which shouldn't

Irrelevant to your original assertion since he found value in even the less fruitful activities.

It's very relevant. I'm showing how he didn't just magically found value without a lot of trial and error. I'm showing how even the best inventors accept a high rate of failure, and how instead of seeing failure as some bad thing that ought to eliminated in some collectivist controlled system, you just accept it as a learning experience.

Re:Research

[Anonymous Coward]

Lightning rods came far after electricity's discovery. "Explains much of those funky astronomy and physics observations" -- if your near future benefit is explanations then you are agreeing that basic research is its own end.

The obvious examples of how research with no obvious near future benefits is research with unknown near future benefits, research with long term benefits, and research with a possibility but not certainty of future benefits.

The big government-funded basic research programs have had near-future side-benefits that weren't really predicted.

Re:Research

[cayenne8]

How about a quick and safe food additive or supplement that will address the obesity levels in the US.....

So we won't be stuck with so many fat chicks....

I believe we could address this...if we changed the way we subsidize the very food sources that make us fat, but with the corp hold over congress, I, sadly, don't see that happening realistically.

Re:Research

[Your.Master]

Well in that case the assertion that all research should have near-future applications is vacuous because one near-future application is "well, this doesn't work".

Re:Research

[khallow]

What do you mean no? My statement is quite relevant to the discussion: I'm pointing out the desires of the funding sources aren't always about near future utility. They may very well desire science for the sake of science.

It's a tautology. You need to say such things first. I can only discuss what you actually wrote. As to your elaboration, it's fine if the funding source wishes to fund science for the sake of science. That's just not the case with public funding which is a big part of this issue.

But it's not all crap or scientific activities would be on the scale of bridge clubs or crossword puzzle enthusiasts.

I never said it's all crap. That's not how Sturgeon's Law works. I'm saying you can't help but end up funding a lot of duds. There is no panacea to pin point what research "should" be funded and which shouldn't

The point is that the vast portion of scientific funding happens because of the small part that has value not the huge part that didn't work out.

Irrelevant to your original assertion since he found value in even the less fruitful activities.

It's very relevant. I'm showing how he didn't just magically found value without a lot of trial and error. I'm showing how even the best inventors accept a high rate of failure, and how instead of seeing failure as some bad thing that ought to eliminated in some collectivist controlled system, you just accept it as a learning experience.

No one made the mistake of seeing failure as a bad thing, hence why your observation is irrelevant to the argument. What I'm talking about is rationalizing scientific activities on grounds that can't be and never need be verified before the funding is long gone. That's ideal grounds for committing outright fraud, which is IMHO happening to a lot of the big projects (and many of the little ones) out there.

The problem as I see it, is that when you don't have any grounds for evaluating the near future potential of scientific work, then productive scientists look exactly like ones who won't ever deliver scientific output of note. It's not the possibly high failure rate of the activity, but the inability to distinguish between someone with a high failure rate and a few good successes and someone who will never have successes.

Re:Research

[Anonymous Coward]

My view is that if you can't justify your efforts with near future benefits, then it is welfare not research.

Your view is objectively wrong.

Re:Research

[khallow]

Lightning rods came far after electricity's discovery.

But not after the first significant work on electricity. For example, they first figured out how to store electricity in 1745 (with the first capacitor) and the first lightning rod was developed in 1749 by Ben Franklin.

The obvious examples of how research with no obvious near future benefits is research with unknown near future benefits, research with long term benefits, and research with a possibility but not certainty of future benefits.

Examples which you don't give.

The big government-funded basic research programs have had near-future side-benefits that weren't really predicted.

And why were those big government-funded basic research programs done? There's all sorts of public justifications out there for those programs. Because it leads to benefits in a few centuries isn't the argument they lead with. Why did they pick who they picked to conduct those programs? It's because they had a purpose in mind other than just doing an activity for the sake of doing the activity.

Re:Research

[khallow]

Well in that case the assertion that all research should have near-future applications is vacuous because one near-future application is "well, this doesn't work".

And why should I consider that an application? Sounds to me like you're drawing an unwarranted assumption from my post.

Re:Research

[khallow]

My view is that if you can't justify your efforts with near future benefits, then it is welfare not research.

Your view is objectively wrong.

Then you should able to show that, not merely make an unsupported claim.

Re:Research

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to say such things first. I can only discuss what you actually wrote.

Nah, you can discuss whatever you want. You're a free person. You're only placing limits on yourself.

As to your elaboration, it's fine if the funding source wishes to fund science for the sake of science. That's just not the case with public funding which is a big part of this issue.

The source of public funding is the public So you're saying EVERYONE in the public don't want science for science's sake?

The point is that the vast portion of scientific funding happens because of the small part that has value not the huge part that didn't work out.

... which agrees with my point. The vast majority don't work out. There's no magical way to tell which ones will.

No one made the mistake of seeing failure as a bad thing, hence why your observation is irrelevant to the argument.

I never said anyone made the mistake of seeing failure as a bad thing, so you calling my observation irrelevant is what's irrelevant.;)

What I'm talking about is rationalizing scientific activities on grounds that can't be and never need be verified before the funding is long gone. That's ideal grounds for committing outright fraud, which is IMHO happening to a lot of the big projects (and many of the little ones) out there.

What I'm talking about is that it's NOT rationalizing anything. It's a fact of life. There's always risk in life. There's always uncertainty. There will be fraudsters.

The problem as I see it, is that when you don't have any grounds for evaluating the near future potential of scientific work, then productive scientists look exactly like ones who won't ever deliver scientific output of note. It's not the possibly high failure rate of the activity, but the inability to distinguish between someone with a high failure rate and a few good successes and someone who will never have successes.

Well, like it or not, you don't have any grounds. How do you even decide those grounds? Near future utility? How near is that? 5 years? 1 year? 50 years? Utility to who? "Society"? Who in society? Maybe I discovered the 100% foolproof way to track individuals' thoughts to prevent thoughtcrime. I'm sure various interest groups in society would find a lot of "utility" out of that, but others would probably want me dead.

If you're so afraid that you can't who's , then you might as well not fund anybody at all. ...or, you do what free market capitalist businessmen do everyday, and take some risk.

Re:Research

[khallow]

The source of public funding is the public So you're saying EVERYONE in the public don't want science for science's sake?

Obviously the people getting the low obligation money would want it. But public funding is not free. It comes from someone. And frankly, I think those people deserve the money more than pretend science does.

No one made the mistake of seeing failure as a bad thing, hence why your observation is irrelevant to the argument.

I never said anyone made the mistake of seeing failure as a bad thing, so you calling my observation irrelevant is what's irrelevant.;)

So let me get this right. You make a point that never was in contention. You now claim that you knew it was never in contention. And you continue to repeat it. Why?

Another activity that has a high risk to it is being a victim of fraud. Except that there's no silver lining to it.

The problem as I see it, is that when you don't have any grounds for evaluating the near future potential of scientific work, then productive scientists look exactly like ones who won't ever deliver scientific output of note. It's not the possibly high failure rate of the activity, but the inability to distinguish between someone with a high failure rate and a few good successes and someone who will never have successes.

Well, like it or not, you don't have any grounds. How do you even decide those grounds? Near future utility? How near is that? 5 years? 1 year? 50 years? Utility to who? "Society"? Who in society? Maybe I discovered the 100% foolproof way to track individuals' thoughts to prevent thoughtcrime. I'm sure various interest groups in society would find a lot of "utility" out of that, but others would probably want me dead

Five years is a good number. If you can't prove you're doing something useful in that time frame, then you might as well be flipping burgers.

If you're so afraid that you can't who's , then you might as well not fund anybody at all. ...or, you do what free market capitalist businessmen do everyday, and take some risk.

Did someone show "fear" in this thread somewhere? Are people who you think you disagree with naturally afraid? What is the basis of this accusation?

And the reason I don't advocate taking such "risks" with taxpayer money is because I have respect not fear for where that money came from. If this activity is important to you, then put your own money into it, not someone else's who didn't have a choice in the matter.

Re:Research

[Electricity Likes Me]

The problem facing research and development today is that there is not nearly enough focus on basic research - everything is about immediate, applied applications - which is the highest risk type of research you can do, since the goal is "build a very specific thing".

Clearly a quote from someone working in basic research, So I'm to believe that there's research out there for which you can't come up with an "elevator pitch" of near future benefits? Why fund it then? My view is that if you can't justify your efforts with near future benefits, then it is welfare not research.

Define near-future benefits. Because if this:

One merely needs to look at history to see that every significant development has had near future application. Electricity? Lightning rods. Relativity? Explains much of those funky astronomy and physics observations. Number theory? Codes for encryption, better algorithm development (eg, among the earliest would be how to add, multiply, and divide by hand), and astronomy calculations.

is you definition, then guess what - you support fundamental research projects!

Because there was no immediate application for General Relativity when it was developed. But it was generally understood that a more complete understanding of the physical behavior of the universe would probably enable future developments. We didn't know what they were at the time - but here we are in 2012 and every modern cellphone has a chip that does Lorentz force calculations to make GPS data accurate. GPS was not even imagined at the time the work was done.

When the LASER was built, initially, there was no idea what it would be useful for - it was built because theory showed that the sample principles of the MASER should be applicable to optical systems, and were investigated. We then had no idea what we would use them for - but that we knew how to make them meant when others encountered a problem which required a coherent light source, hey, that research and knowledge existed.

Scientific progress grinds to a halt - you won't find revolutionary discoveries - if we start predicating that on whether we should try to understand something on the basis of whether we think it will be immediately useful. We should try to understand things if we don't understand them.

Sensible patent laws?

[Ice Tiger]

So money can be spent on innovation rather than lawyers?

i know rank 31 in math

[Anonymous Coward]

GO FOR IT we know you yankies can do it...ready set count....

move on

[fonitrus]

we have done enough here. now its time to fk up Mars. irst we need to terraform it so we can ruin its atmosphere all over again.

Re:move on

[ikaruga]

If we had enough tech to terraform Mars, we could easily fix the Earth.

US *Govt Looks For Input On "The Next Big Things"

[markz0r]

I am definitely not against gov't intervention in cases of market failure. I don't, in this case, understand how the heavy overhead of gov't intervention in this case is efficient. The Gov't is using tax payer money to review and possibly fund ideas from tax payers. It is the reallocation of resources based on the opinions of a small number of people who are not directly (financially) responsible for their decisions. Maybe they will hit home runs but I would content that the iterative process of the private sectors has a better track record (I probably should find something to support that...)

What good are big ideas when..

[Anonymous Coward]

What good are big ideas when funding for science gets cut year after year?

Think of ways to get rid of money..

[Anonymous Coward]

Cause it is the root of all evil...

Re:Think of ways to get rid of money..

[Black Parrot]

Cause it is the root of all evil...

You can send it to me. I'm specially trained to handle it.

Re:Think of ways to get rid of money..

[poofmeisterp]

Cause it is the root of all evil...

You can send it to me. I'm specially trained to handle it.

Are you CERTified?

Artificial General Intelligence

[StefanWiesendanger]

Those could help us solve all the other problems faster and better. Or well, at least be our new overlords...

Too Much Magic

[musth]

DARPA and the White House asked:
What are the next big things in science and technology?

To stop constantly using science and technology to kill and dominate people in the US's quest to be the most amoral imperial asshole state the world has ever seen?

Recommendation for the new James Howard Kunstler book:
http://www.amazon.com/Too-Much-Magic-Thinking-Technology/dp/080212030X

The next big thing is freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet has made it far more difficult to sustain a lie, and without the ability to lie and make it stick, it's game over for the ruling class. They're trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle, but it's too late. Governments will be held accountable for their crimes.

Anti-Aging Research

[Ryanator2209]

With the goal of allowing people alive today to live much, much longer. Like the Manhattan Beach Project is working on, but with more funding.

Down the list

[AHuxley]

1. Lack of safe drinking water. - a solar panel, 2 filters, a UV filter - can make water for 100's.
Beyond that you need to build it right.
2. Continuously monitors an individual's personal health-related data - big blood test at a clinic - chip system once problem area is found.
3. Generates off-grid water and energy for a small village derived from human and organic waste. NGOs have had this for years and years...
Small and large scale, gas, solar in a box, wind, led....
4. Autonomous underwater vehicle - NSA and US nuclear subs/mini subs have done that many times...
5. At risk foster children - read the stats on state abuse and care, spend cash on better care.
6. Invasive and brain sounds like infection and risks low moral - better to surround the head and fit a super computer near the "pilot".
7. Distances greater than 200 miles - sounds like an isolated fire base is running low on juice? Air to air can get close, if you have distances greater than 200 miles that are not yours, you have a mini Stalingrad and are losing ... energy is then a small issue.
The bad guys can usually work out where the juice is going too.. not the best idea.
8. Point-to-point passenger travel system - give cash to France and the UK - they did Concorde right vs the flying tourist bus and sr71...
9. Optical networks - if the US let basic blue sky optical research slip to need to ask that question - game over. Buy from South Korea, China, Brazil, South Africa, Ireland when they have a product to sell...
10. A mainstream platform for low-cost fabrication and packaging of systems on a chip for communications, sensing, medical, energy, and defense applications? You have the internet '2' - thats fast- communications, sensing, medical, energy, and defense applications your Universities can pump that out with funding any day of the week... US telco/medical 'brains' are one area that the US has covered many times over.
"low-cost fabrication" is the Soviet Union in the 1980's question - pay more+++++ for sealed local labs or let Australia, UK, Canada, NZ bid for trusted sealed labs - If your "defense applications" need "mainstream platform" something has gone wrong with your massive hardline mil optical/sat networks- too expensive? not looked after? too much data been collected? Only loser countries like Australia are poor and have to mix "mainstream platform" and "defense applications"...a very strange question for the USA to have to consider.
11. "high-bandwidth free-space communication, laser strike, and defense against missiles?" Just like the US did in the 1960's70's80's90's - spend lots of cash on sats, think big, send lots and lots up.. Get next gen "Cray, IBM, Honeywell" to place massive amounts of CPU power in Australia, UK, Canada, NZ as the raw data flows... use massive new optical/sat networks to send data back to the US in small sorted encrypted amounts ... spend big to rule the world... its not hard work - ask the NSA for ideas.
12. Cost parity across the nation's electric grid for solar power - the US lost its solar in early 1980's when solar was removed from the White House.
Any US public investment in that area will be in a lab in Germany, France, Spain, South Africa, Brazil, China in a month and been mass produced under old and new brands months later. If the US wants solar, offer real cash buy back from solar homes (FIT), stop states from over charging for site 'engineering'/'code' inspections adding $1000's onto costs. Buy in China and watch US suburbia be covered.
13. increased resolution in manufacturing? Give massive cash and tax breaks to Intel? Give massive contracts to Intel.

Re:Down the list

[rally2xs]

#8 - Personal rapid transit (PRT), done with electricity, individual rail cars travel at 300 mph erected over the interstate highway system, all controlled automatically by computer. 1000 mile travel = 3 hrs 20 minutes, which cannot be done with even jet airplanes because of the lengthy security procedures, driving to the airport, etc. which causes the airplane to take about 4 1/2 hours total. PRT would serve small communities as well as large, and carry 1 - 4 people in a very small vehicle, probably 36" high by 30" wide, allowing about 350 horsepower to achieve 300 mph for the lead PRT vehicle, subsequent vehicles in the slipstream of the 1st would use much less (IOW, its green too...). Railcars would be handled individually, being inserted at the rear end of each "train", be self-powered by electric motors in each vehicle, and switched out of the moving "train" from any position without slowing the train. No TSA security theater as this would be futile, since the way to blow up a PRT is to drive a truck full of explosives under it, and set that off. And that would only kill a very few people until the computers shut down that line. NY to LA in 10 hours without lifting you 38,000 feet high, climb into it and sleep most of the way there, as these could run at night very easily, which most airplanes do not due to noise.

state in mind of the people

[Anonymous Coward]

the mind control state.

Re:US *Govt Looks For Input On "The Next Big Thing

[Electricity Likes Me]

Very few businesses ever invest in fundamental research, and even fewer in trying to open up new fields of inquiry. This is sensible - it's standard business logic - stick to your core business.

The history of the modern world is that all the big ideas were funded by the government and spun off into tech companies once commercial viability had been proved, but this was not a quick process, and there's plenty of stuff which never is - that's the whole point of Linux and GNU to some extent: they're basic computer tools which are so fundamental that everyone benefits from them existing, but would be very difficult to justify creating if they had to be created by just the one company, or a group which needs to show immediate commercial viability.

peace. or more realistically, space

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously, let's start terraforming and colonizing the moon and Mars.

get rid of patents

[shentino]

Hey, genuises in office.

How about some patent reform to stop megacorps from locking innovators out of the market?

Patenst are supposed to make people go forward, not keep others back.

Re:get rid of patents

[runeghost]

lol. The 'genuises in office' are owned by the megacorps. We'll see patent reform only once the megacorps are dead and buried.

Re:get rid of patents

[shentino]

Kinda my point exactly.

Re:get rid of patents

[poofmeisterp]

Hey, genuises in office.

How about some patent reform to stop megacorps from locking innovators out of the market?

Patenst are supposed to make people go forward, not keep others back.

That makes too much sense. It can never work. :}

This reminds me of school... Teacher asks a question as to how to solve a problem. I raise my hand, get called on. I suggest a simplistic idea that works around the complex processes to just get to the end result with zero flaw in the suggested process. I get shunned. Kids laugh at me. Teacher goes back to "Now, does anyone know the correct way to solve this?"

Teacher points to text book with raised eyebrows.

Last sentence pretty much says it all.

Ceres

[symbolset]

If Mankind has a greater future than for ever increasing populations to devolve into fighting over food and other resources, a better end than the dinosaurs, the only path goes through Ceres. Ceres is key to exploiting the solar system and is the gateway to the stars. It has vast resources of water in near zero g. There can be no higher goal for Human science than to forestall the end of Man. Before we lose the resources to do so we must exploit Ceres. If we fail in this our end is set. We need to convert a good fraction of that water ice to rocket fuel and bring it back and that takes energy. The US has until the Dawn mission's arrival at Ceres to prepare for the gold rush that will follow. Now would be a good time to prepare.

Re:Ceres

[dargaud]

I agree this is a worthy goal, but I can imagine others that may come more naturally. For instance we get better and smaller computers: cell phone, then mind-extending implants always connected to the cloud. Then we can back up our own brains. Then why try to build new brains ? Simply run them in the cloud in whatever simulation or reality-extension you see fit. Then colonize space by sending small Von Neumann ships with a lot of 'brains' backed up. At this point you may not even care about bringing sperm and eggs to grow 'real' be antiquated humans. And all this without even needing artificial intelligence or singularity.

Re:Unlimited clean energy?

[TemperedAlchemist]

It would improve your quality of life.

Cheaper energy lowers how much people have to pay for electricity. This in turn gives people more money to spend on other things. So instead of having to pay $120 on your next electric bill you pay $60, meaning you use that extra $60 however you please. Like buying new clothes or going out to eat more often.

Free energy wouldn't necessarily be free to consumers, since they still have to pay for the upkeep of the system + labor costs, but I'd imagine a normal electric bill to be just a few dollars. But now you basically have an extra $115 in your pocket every month. And could you imagine the sales in electric cars? The market would explode because people would save tens of thousands of dollars by owning an electric vehicle. You need engineers and factory workers to build those.

Oh, and thanks to the unlimited virtually free energy, businesses have lower operating costs, meaning the price of items across the board would drop.

WTF?

[BlackPignouf]

Let's see, what about the fact that the whole civilized world is based on abundant and cheap oil?

I know I know!

[kamapuaa]

Something about alarm clocks that turn off when you tell them, but then 10 minutes later they won't turn off until you're in the shower.

Also, a card that has your computer desktop password linked to it and you take it from terminal to terminal I think.

Yes they can

[Anonymous Coward]

There are methods to predict success in certain fields. Even without a breakthrough, a technology almost always yields benefits. The space program is one example. The technologies range from a ballpoint pen to higher tech.

Research takes tens of years to reach consumer and to have an economic impact. for example, hard disks, databases, and communication technologies (Internet) all took more than ten years to have the theory reach its potential. Cruise missiles have been actively developed and modified since 1950s.

With limited funds there is always a need to give preference to one project over another. One good example is health care and the Genome project. The benefits will need several more years to be solidified and tens of years to reach potential.

You just need some one or some group with a vision and a strong foot hold in science. There is no possibility for advancement while holding a Bible, a Quran or other religious doctrines.

Re:Unlimited clean energy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheaper energy lowers how much people have to pay for electricity. This in turn gives people more money to spend on other things.

As more people gain more disposable income, prices of goods and services rise in response.

here are some thaughts...

[Razgorov Prikazka]

FTL, cold fusion, time travel, snu-snu with green women from an exotic planet.

Re:here are some thaughts...

[maroberts]

FTL, cold fusion, time travel, snu-snu with green women from an exotic planet.

I'll volunteer for the snu-snu research program.

It's obvious

[Hentes]

Flying cars!

Re:It's obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Airplanes?

Let me guess

[Anonymous Coward]

It's going to be yet another global warming circle jerk.

Brain-Computer Interface.

[Anonymous Coward]

Initially, to control machines with your thoughts.

An interface like that would be the end of the keyboard and the mouse.

Later on, to get information from machines without using traditional senses like sight or hearing.

That would make screens unnecessary.

It's unlikely that all this could be achieved without some kind of invasive surgery though :/

Genetic Engineering to reduce disease

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering how much this country spends on health care for the elderly, genetic engineering newborns to be less susceptable to expensive ailments seems like a no brainer. I guess this could count as part of eliminating aging.

COTS for Thorium reactor

[WindBourne]

Seriously, we need a COTS style program to get multiple companies building thorium reactors. Why? If done right, these will burn up 95% of nuke 'waste'. And it will do it SAFELY.

The next big thing will appear...

[Pikewake]

... outside the U.S. and we're not telling :-P

Urban material internet

[sberge]

That's what I'd make. Tube mail, autonomous micro rail, urban cannon relay network, whatever works. The goal is to move small objects efficiently and cheaply around cities at 200 km/h from any building to any other building. Most cities are less than 10 km in radius and the average transport from anywhere to anywhere else in the city would take about 90 seconds, meaning that you don't need to stock anything at home. Supermarkets can shut down - their role can be filled by an amazon / ebay-like service. Items are shipped directly from supplier. Fresh bread from the baker, meat from the meatpacker, produce from a distributor that buys directly from farms. We would skip 2 or 3 levels of storage, distribution and profit. Things would be fresh and cheap. Any small supplier would be able to distribute to a whole city with a single outlet. We would liberate the work resources of hordes of shop employees and transporters, free up large swaths of premium property, reduce traffic and waste.

Cheap Energy needed

[maroberts]

Keep NIF funded and also plough money into seeing if other avenues to Nuclear Fusion are viable. Also invest in nuclear reactors in the mean time, possibly looking at the thorium fuel cycle as a method of doing it relatively cleanly.

The happy clappy brigade putting up millions of wind farms are never likely to generate the volume of energy we require.

Thorium Reactors

[gallondr00nk]

It astonishes me that a technology as safe, environmentally friendly and cheap as this still isn't being used. As always, the political will and understanding is lacking. For christs sake, here in the UK we're still talking about building "traditional" nuclear stations and natural gas burning plants!

Cheap, abundant electricity without the CO2 emissions of burning fossil fuels will be a revelation.

Re:Thorium Reactors

[Anonymous Coward]

If Thorium reactors are so great, why haven't you bought one and installed it? Oh, that's right. Because they're goddamn expensive...
Don't be astonished. Just put your money where you mouth is or shut it.

Re:Thorium Reactors

[cheesybagel]

Thorium reactors are mostly a concern for countries like India which have low Uranium reserves and want to be self-sufficient energetically. If you aren't concerned about being self-sufficient it is a lot cheaper to buy Uranium from Australia or Canada or whatever.

This is the USA of Romney

[SmallFurryCreature]

Next big thing?

The iPhone 5s

Re:This is the USA of Romney

[RaceProUK]

Next big thing?

The iPhone 5s

You mean the iPhone 10

The ultimate big thing

[hcs_$reboot]

will be human brain like computer - which, unlike humans, will be able to dramatically expand its own capacities. and from there... other big things will come [ and big thing doesn't always mean good thing ].
oh and it will be from google.

Low Energy Nuclear Reactions

[Anonymous Coward]

Low Energy Nuclear Reactions is the next big thing. Many large institutions and small companies are working on solving the last hurdles.

http://futureinnovation.larc.nasa.gov/view/articles/futurism/bushnell/low-energy-nuclear-reactions.html

http://coldfusionnow.org/what-can-you-tell-them/

http://www.quantumheat.org/

Zero taxes, and legalize POT

[cheekyboy]

Thats the future.

Man, I cannot wait till these old farts die off.

Wireless Power Transmission

[Anonymous Coward]

7. Wireless Power Transmission - Wireless transmission of electricity over distances greater than 200 miles while losing less than two percent of the electricity during the transmission.

We already know how to do this. Unfortunately it's used for high-energy weaponry instead of efficient power transmission.

Google 10 to the 100

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't Google do this already like 5 years ago?

Pretty sure...

[BorisSkratchunkov]

... I'm going to poop, actually. (Yes, I did stoop to that level)

US Not Doing its Job

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not government's job to determine what the next big things will be. We've had nearly 4 years of that bullshit with government trying to ram down our throats a mountain of "green" technology (that isn't green) that nobody wants or can afford.

The market can and will determine what the next big things will be, and private enterprise will provide the solutions to the next big problems we face. Get government out of it.

Re:US Not Doing its Job

[cheesybagel]

Government funding can help spur innovations. Some times it works, other times it doesn't. Not all "green" technology investments went wrong in my perspective. Tesla managed to build electric cars with much greater range and performance than previous cars to the point where these cars can start competing with internal combustion engine vehicles. Much of the installed wind power capacity generates a useful resource at a reasonably low price per kWh in otherwise depressed areas.

Much of the issue however is that unlike in the past the government no longer is funding large high risk projects to provide capabilities itself needs but instead they are funding things they think citizens will need in their daily lives. Nuclear research, the Internet worked a lot better because since the government is the actual client they can actually evaluate the worth of a technology better than they would otherwise. DARPA does well to seek 3rd party ideas but they should try to focus on defense related R&D even if it has non-military applications as well.

Food

[gmuslera]

Considering how much the government care about and respect privacy and rights, for 99% of US people and 100% of people of other countries, i would say that the next big thing will be a new food. I propose to call it Soylent Green.

My list

[mattr]

Their list has a bunch of things that are neither the next big thing nor needing to be on the list, and lean towards military applications. We have plenty of military applications already. Here is what we basically need:

1) Stop burning petroleum for power. We need to use this precious resource for chemical synthesis.

2) Invest in developing technology to build solar power satellites capable of collecting power over huge surface area and beam to Earth or the moon. Convert power received at base station to hydrogen or some other transportable fuel.

3) Similarly invest more in power generation from renewable sources and nano/biotechnology based solutions.

4) Power the humanitarian items on the list using this power.

5) Of course when they say "mind over matter" they ought to be meaning an intelligently directable self-assembling nanotechnology (or microtechnology even) which would revolutionize production. I guess that is too far away to be considered the "next" big thing?

Famine, War, and Pestilence

[anon mouse-cow-aard]

Robotics and autonomous systems are progressing to the point vehicles will be self-guiding... not just cars, but trucks, farm equipment, tractor trailers. Expert systems, such as Siri and Watson, will become skilled enough to replace most white collar work. Productivity of current technology is such that material needs are satisfied event with 30-50% unemployment today (look at Spain, Greece) China will not escape, the next iphone will be assembled robotically. We will be left with a natural employment level of perhaps 5%. If we have 95% unemployment... what does that mean? The next major revolution is the end of work as a meaningful way of dividing the spoils of the economy, defining our worth. If we dont figure out how to deal with that, then there will be roving bands of desperately poor people, who get hungry, being corralled by robotic soldiers (likely remotely supervised) to protect property. Desperately poor people and hungry people in large groups have a tendendcy, similar to large herds of farm animals, to incubate new diseases.

Re:Famine, War, and Pestilence

[rally2xs]

If we could avoid the concentration of wealth among a few, then we could have pretty much the hoped-for life of leisure with robots meeting all our needs. Lounge by the pool with Rosie the Robot bringing the mint julips while the other robots maintain the pool, etc. Robots work the mines, robot do everything... for us... Acheivable? Probably not, there will be instead war and the attempt of the few to be the only ones with the life of leisure.

Re:Famine, War, and Pestilence

[WillAdams]

Fictional look at this:

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Re:Famine, War, and Pestilence

[Anonymous Coward]

I read this and while the concept is interesting, there are deep-running flaws in it.

His utopia at the end is every bit as horrifying as the dystopia he tries to present in the beginning. He "eliminates crime" by giving an authority total control of your
body to prevent you from committing it. If the authority decides that "not working fast enough" is a crime...
In other words, it's a 100% slavery police state. Could it be more awful?

His fast-food boss automation scenario makes no sense either. In a market with minimum wages, it makes no business sense to automate away the bosses rather than the line workers, and it makes no sense for the auto-boss to be overly strict unless there is a labor surplus - in which case, the labor surplus is the problem, and the auto-boss is a non-issue.

Also, for automation to be profitable, it must be reducing the prices of things. So, the food, in this case, gets cheaper to the point that more people have money to spend, and this creates demand for more labor, unless there is no way to spend it fast enough, or unless the money is in the wrong hands - in which case that is the problem. In no case is automation itself the problem.

So the reality is that there may be a labor surplus, which is a real problem, but it's not caused by automation. It's caused by wealth distribution and/or population growing faster than the economy can keep up. The solution is, of course, war, which will redistribute wealth and/or kill off excess population until the labor market reaches equilibrium, at which point there will be a temporary utopia, but only for the survivors of the war.

the next big platform

[Anonymous Coward]

its the platforms we create that allow for the next big things. Science fiction has it right I think. The 'singularity' is the next big thing. When we have that level of computational power, the big things come to us more than us going to them..

Nuclear Fusion

[amoeba1911]

Nuclear fusion holds the top spot on my list. Once we can achieve controlled nuclear fusion that provides more energy than goes into it, it will be a paradigm shift from the two centuries of being dependent on fossil fuels.

Sure, nuclear fusion is being actively researched right now, but funding given to nuclear fusion research is a tiny fraction (in the single digit percents) of the welfare money handed out to oil industry every year (in tax breaks and direct subsidies)

I don't mean cold fusion - there's no telling if that's even possible right now. Hot fusion already works and we know it works. It's just a matter of harnessing it for energy.

Fusion

[Anonymous Coward]

The Future is Fusion.

Next big thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Evolution!

Mining Asteroids

[rally2xs]

We could probably pay off the national debt from the sale of the precious metals in the asteroid Eros, although this is probably not the NEXT big thing... its a bit farther in the future than that.

Instantaneous and Unlimited Distanc Communications

[flappinbooger]

The next big thing will obviously be Quantum communications.

https://www.google.com/search?q=quantum+entanglement+record+broken

Instantaneous signalling, unlimited distance, perfect "reception" at all times, inherently secure.

Of course, I would presume our military already has it, (lag would suck for the drone pilot, hmmm?) but hey, I'm talking about something I could get in my future cell phone.

The next big thing

[drinkypoo]

Governments which do the will of the people.

Governments who, when they put up a website to solicit the opinion of the nation, do not immediately ignore it. (Guess what the #1 suggestion on change.org was, and guess what Obummer's reaction to it was.)

I wouldn't sell this government the sweat off a dead dog's balls in the middle of the Mojave. I sure as shit won't tell them what the next big thing is.

In basic research

[jandersen]

The next big thing - in which sense? Moneywise? Or ...?

To me, the next big goal is to get beyond quantum mechanics somehow. It's going to be really tough, though.

Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in physics - (the other being General relativity - but unlike GR, it is full of rules of thumb, poorly understood mechanisms and vague concepts. I think we need to establish a much more firm basis for the concepts employed in QM, otherwise we won't really be able to unify our two most successful models of the physical reality. What I am after is good answers to questions like "What is a particle?" and "Why is time different from space?" - and by "good" I mean something that does not invoke the Copenhagen interpretation or other quasi religious claptrap.

Traditionally at this point I get asked why I think it QM that needs to change, not GR, so I might as well answer that. There are several reasons - one is that is it QM that has a problem explaining what dark matter and dark energy are; GR offers no opinion on what particles there ought to be. Another is that it is beginning to show some crumbling along the edges - just take the recent results which demonstrate that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle may not be universal.

Uh, isn't that iPhone X?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, isn't that iPhone X? O

Re:Uh, isn't that iPhone X?

[RaceProUK]

Maybe :)

Cryobiology / Cryonics.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cryobiology / Cryonics. Most underrated/underfunded field of R&D at the moment.

solve political delusion / psychosis

[Anonymous Coward]

find a way to put an end to the mass delusion that leads to people voting republican that is plaguing our country. seriously, that would lead to serious breakthroughs in science and technology.

Democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a little research into Democracy? I mean the development of a true democracy, and not this sham where monied interests buy our elected officials from a false dichotomy of two deeply entrenched parties. Surely our best scientific minds can come up with a system whereby my vote has as much meaning as, say, George Soros', right? Ah, there I go talking crazy again.

Re:Unlimited clean energy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and thanks to the unlimited virtually free energy, businesses have lower operating costs, meaning the price of items across the board would drop.

Oh, and thanks to the unlimited virtually free energy, businesses have lower operating costs, meaning the price of items across the board will remain the same, and the amounts in the bank accounts of the board members will rise.

FTFY.

In America

[Anonymous Coward]

In a country where overeating is considered a widespread problem, basic necessities are found in abundance- often for free or very little money.

The economy IS the kinds of toys we want to play with.

3d printing...

[Anonymous Coward]

is the next big thing, hands down. It's the natural thing on the way to nano-assembly, which is the holy grail pretty much.

Re:Unlimited clean energy?

[necro81]

"Because cheap (or free), clean, unlimited oxygen would collapse the economy overnight and the ramifications of that would change the world as we know it. I'm all for unlimited clean air because I'm sure that stuff is great for people, but not at the expense of my life style. So if someone does come up with this, it better cost a few hundred million (or more) bucks to build a reactor and get it online."

See how stupid that sounds?

Is the Earth's economy endangered by an endless supply of free Oxygen?

I don't know about the economy, but clearly this guy is suffering from oxygen deprivation. No wonder he is gung ho for cheap, unlimited oxygen - he's in such dire need of it. Just don't let him anywhere need the mega-maid

Really ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting rid of patents is the next big thing. When innovation and progress can stand of the shoulders of what came before, just like the big wigs of today did and now are trying to stop others, but that has happened throughout history.

Umm NO

[Anonymous Coward]

I am good at predicting the future, but the government sucks at protecting it. So... No

Once upon a time...

[Jawnn]

...well-funded scientists, most working in academic settings doing "pure" research, went out and found those things. Now, owing to the pervasive and deeply idiotic notion that such pursuits are "government waste", relatively little of that type of research is done. Now, "research" must have at least the potential of producing a profitable result if it is to receive funding, from any source.

They should ask Samsung

[Anonymous Coward]

According to this ad, the next big thing is already here. So these guys shouldn't waste their money, they just need to go look at foreign companies for ideas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf5-Prx19ZM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4VHzNEWIqA

Cures

[morgauxo]

The next big things will probably be cures for male pattern baldness and impotence.

innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

Innovation usually just happens. You can't force ideas to come or plan on what will be the next big breakthrough.
If innovation is not coming then it's probably because IP law has stifled innovation to the point where big ideas never see the light of day. This is why America is standing around, scratching it's head, asking "well now what do we do?"
You don't do anything, because if you dare to do anything, someone will fucking sue your ass.

"Physics of the Future" by Michio Kaku

[Felgior]

Read "Physics of the Future" by Michio Kaku. He has made those predictions up until 2100.

AI, makerbots, and energy development.

[gestalt_n_pepper]

If the military really had its act together, they would be developing a heterogeneous environment of different forms of AI, using genetic algorithms for on-site design and modeling, swarm intelligence in automated battlefield weapons, an array of watson-like expert systems, and most importantly, integrating all of that into portable, secure, phone platforms that can be immediately and wirelessly become the "brains" of any larger device like a tank, a drone, or even a ship.

Humanlike neural net based AI, of course, would be best, but IBM is pretty far ahead on that one. In a decade, we should have commercial units for limited applications.

Robust field maker-bots for on-site construction of metallic and non-metallic parts.

After that, thorium, safe uranium-based nuclear, portable nuclear power, cheap high efficiency solar, batteries and battery/capacitors that don't suck, hydrogen fuel cells that don't suck. I exclude biofuels because they're just inefficient solar collectors and will never scale worth a damn.

Like trying to grow an orchid in concrete...

[ZeroPly]

We already have plenty of great ideas. We also have a moron in Congress, on the _Science_Committee_ of all places, who doesn't believe in evolution, and thinks the Earth is 9,000 years old. Who, additionally, is not even alone in his idiotic beliefs. This is one of the guys deciding the scientific future of this country, along with "legitimate rape dude" and others who keep their beliefs to themselves.

The problem isn't that we don't have enough smart people. The problem is that we have too many stupid ones.

Ask Apple

[Ravaldy]

Ask Apple. People are more interested in what the next smart phone feature will be than what's going on in the world of science.

Re:US *Govt Looks For Input On "The Next Big Thing

[poofmeisterp]

I am definitely not against gov't intervention in cases of market failure. I don't, in this case, understand how the heavy overhead of gov't intervention in this case is efficient.
The Gov't is using tax payer money to review and possibly fund ideas from tax payers. It is the reallocation of resources based on the opinions of a small number of people who are not directly (financially) responsible for their decisions. Maybe they will hit home runs but I would content that the iterative process of the private sectors has a better track record (I probably should find something to support that...)

You have to admit (while I completely disagree with this behavior).... Making "the little people" feel more empowered by coming up with a futuristic idea is quite a way to get free R&D.

In other words, Joe Blow from WI would rather have his name go down in history like Tesla rather than play the game the "right way" and make a bunch of money off of a privately patented idea.. Just sayin'.

I have an idea!

[metrometro]

Perhaps we can have a grand challenge for clever ways to stop pouring millions of dollars into subsidies for the oil industry?

Sometimes the best new ideas are to stop doing the bad old ideas.

The next big thing will be...

[Anonymous Coward]

Over population by humans and mass starvation and the world's resources being consumed to the point of creating an ecologic and environmental disaster.

Re:Unlimited clean energy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly what the Lorax was about.

People thought they had to buy air. Planting trees was illegal because it would break the business model.

agree...unless you are Carnagie Mellon

[globaljustin]

Those "DARPA Grand Challenges" are total frauds...gamed from the start. The 'contest' is for publicity.

I put a few links below, also watch the Discovery Channel videos if you want to see it before you eyes. It really is a propaganda stunt...I felt really sad after I realized what was happening. Read between the lines.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2003/11/61030
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxAv4Pm3z40 (link to promo video...the full vid of the Science Channel show is readily available)

Flying cars!

[Tablizer]

2D traffic-jams suck

Fusion and AI

[Yvanhoe]

These things are promised since decades, progress have been made, but get there first, they are reachable and world-changing.

Base on Moon

[Anonymous Coward]

Dig a mine on the moon....
Not because it's easy, but because it's hard... ;-|

Why not fixing current problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Find a solution for climate change... Without a world who needs fun stuff.
2. Fix economic curruption...

A crowdsourced method of mining for Big Ideas

[Dast]

My "Next Big Thing" is the best. (Always wish for more wishes!)

The issue isn't that we need one specific "Next Big Thing"; our future requires that we maintain a steady stream of "Next Big Things". So...

If we only had a way we could harness the power of the "crowd" and come up with a method of mining ideas for the "Next Big Thing"... Perhaps a forum for professionals, engineers, and suits where they can post and discuss a stream of ideas about the "Next Big Things". If only such a thing existed...

And don't even think about trying to use this idea. The patent is already applied for and I'll sue you into the ground.

no one wants to hear this but

[KingBenny]

there's only one number one issue for starters : global birth control. If nothing about that is done you'll find that none of the others matter by 2100 :) , yea, that's kindof a i will tell you told you smiley there
that's the only one right now, anything depends on that, i found the guy who calculated how many people the earth can sustain, i still havent found the one who calculated how much matter is available before the whole planet has turned to humans