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Sir Arthur Clarke Writes About the 21st Century
A.Cow writes "CNN has an article by Sir Arthur Clarke with his predictions (extrapolations, as he puts it) for the 21st century..." The article's subtitle: "Man lands on Mars, the elderly retire to the moon, humans are cloned.
Welcome to the brave new world."
>Nothing is as difficult as predicting.
:-)
>Especially predicting the future.
Predicting the past doesn't *quite* have the same ring...
>It will be here before Windows 2003
sometime in 2020?
>Then there's the nuclear bomb going off in North
>Korea in 2009. Why North Korea? I mean, isn't
>the probablility bigger that some terrorist
>group or crazy dictator gets/makes one and
>smuggles it into US?
North Korea is going to self destruct really badly soon. Really, really badly. It's gonna be messy, it's gonna be violent and China's gonna step in and 'help'.
>Oh, and life on both Europa and the Halley's
>Comet. Maybe they'll also be able to find that
>spacecraft behind the comet too? The one where
>you get by making a suicide. Elvis pilots it
>BTW.
2002 Microsoft's stock collapses and hundreds of programmers leave the company to join other companies to develope for Linux.
>2000-2020 A massive earth quake destroys Tokyo
>resulting in worldwide economical problems when
>the Japanese people pull their money back to >rebuild the city.
2025 A terrorist with Genetic Engineering creates a mutant, fire breathing lizard and send it to destroy Tokyo. Luckily, all of the Tokyo Emergency Services grew up watching Gojira movies and just nuke the slimy bastard before he gets within a hundred miles. (They also make helicopters that can go up.)
>But in the end it's sad to watch these
>predictions. A space hotel is more important
>than helping developing countries and getting
>food for everyone. Also first world people get
>to live on the moon while tens of thousands of
>children die of hunger and wars.
People were starving in Europe when the New World was discovered. It is not the job of humanity to protect people from themselves.
dave
I just read an article the other day that said the hole was actually shrinking.
Don't forget that in 2019, Los Angles is going to be a dark rainy place filled with Asian Americans who build replicants for Tyrell corp.
Oh yea - ATARI will be back in business, and everyone will have cool umbrellas with neon lights on the handles!
Could you see a Justice system run by AI's, or a political system where the politicians are incorruptable and always
logical. Done right it could be a wonderful thing.
Compassion != logic, tho.
Ah, OK, I know now what you mean. When you were referring to "drift" I instantly thought about population genetics.
Well, I'm sorry if I sound a little like an "smartass", but what you are referring to is more or less group selection, which, I'm sorry to say, is - whith a few exeptions - abandoned in modern population genetics. I'm sorry to state that what you say is contrary to what is now accepted in genetics. If the parents have a high intelligence, than in the case of a multi-loci trait like IQ, the distribution of this trait in offspring will be according to the binominal distribution, with the mean being the mean for the two parents. That means that the chance for the offspring to have an even higher IQ is quite good.
Imagine two people, each having 20 cards, black and red (red denote genes for "high" IQ. The exact number is unknown, of course). Now, let those people randomly choose 10 from their cards and pool them together, to get another 20. Now, if those people have a lot of red cards in their hands, do you expect that in the resulting 20 cards there will be significantly smaler proportion of red cards? Why?
Regards,
January
I think you have totally misundestood me, but as a dumb foreigner I am not capable of expressing myself more clearly than I did in the original post.
By the way, I was on the vacation in Etiopia. Tried to talk to them about integrated sustainable farming, with not much succes, though. Wonder why.
j.
If I do recall, the society that did that ended up dying from a horrible epidemic because they got rid of all their telephone sanitizers. =)
Get your reruns here.
IMHO, the human kind should take into account the knowledge about entropy into account for another time which already led to the industrialization by the invention of the steam engine based on the fact that there is no perpetuum mobile.
The next century should be dedicated to the earth. We have enough to fix here. The sun is the nuclear power plant that has the right distance to us! And don't tell me, it's use is inefficient! The botanical plants are using it since the beginning!
There's plenty of room for 100 Billion or more on this planet, postulating that land will no longer be used for food production, and replicators will make deserts and seabeds (not to mention nearby moons, planets, and asteroids) liveable...
Have you ever really looked at a map of Canada or China or Siberia? Literally millions of square miles of completely unpopulated wilderness are still there waiting for settlers.
We're good for a few centuries of Utopia at least.
Whenever anyone uses the phrase "pipe dream" it's a sure sign that they have no counter arguments other than prevailing opinion.
That's Iain M. Banks.
And I recommaend any of his books to any science fiction fan. Truly spectacular stuff.
The above has been moderated up because it's funny, but let's look at the deeper truths, shall we?
The post is dark. Most of the lines deal with stupidity, malice, and short-sightedness; it includes references to the accidental annihiliation of an entire planetary biosphere, the brutal gunning down of protestors, and the destruction of Earth's civilization because of political difficulties.
More than half involve deaths.
Yet, it is funny, because it's exaggerated, of course, and because it is consistent with how humans behave. Clarke's list reads like old Westerns about How The West Was Won, where everyone was noble and right.
Well, we are humans. We will fail, we will make mistakes, there will be tragedies and cruelties and pain. It is unavoidable.
And that, oddly enough, is why we laugh.
Dec. 26, 2012
As the Mayan calendar ends the outer crust of the Earth, unbalanced by the immense weight of the polar ice caps, slips around the interior of the planet like a loose orange peel, leaving the former poles at the equator and some unfortunate equatorial regions at the new poles.
The violence of this upheaval sloshes the water out of the oceans, completely shaving the continents of plants, animals, topsoil and manmade structures. It also triggers a cataclysmic series of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions which serve to obliterate any remaining multicellular life.
Many aeons later everyone who ever lived on Earth is recreated from DNA by a benign superbeing who restores our memories and we all live happily ever after...
I mean come on, it's so obvious. ;^)
Recently I have had the pleasure of listening to a speech by Stephen Jay Gould on the subject of predictability - or the lack therof. According to him, the hope that New York will exist in even 50 years is a question. We as humans seek patterns, patterns which truely do not exist in nature. As a history major, I don't know if I agree, but I am strongly leaning towards Gould's take.
Hey Folks,
I remember when the Apple Newton came out that it seemed like a very familiar device: Handheld computer, holds mostly personal data and contacts, modified (limited) input, infrared deelie to communicate with a larger computer, invented in the 1990s... Yep, Clarke described the PDA (he called it the Minisec) in his 1976 novel Imperial Earth. Of course in that novel the Titanic was raised and brought to New York as a tourist attraction... Still think his record is better than Nostradamus or modern prognosticators.
Z
--
I am quite civilized, and I should be brought a beer immediately. -- Bruce Sterling
Because nothing but members of the 'human race' count. If it had, people would have to chang their eating habits and their view on the world around them ("Natural Is Good", "Killing [humans] Is Bad", ...)
So until meat is made by machines todays attitude of "Ingnore the issue, shut up about it and pretend it doesn't exist. Whit^H^H^H^H Humans above all!" will dominate.
Some important predictions for the short term future are :-
1. Thrid world countries get on the internet.
2. Internet telephony allows for cheap communication. Business flourishes because of the internet. It is no longer important that you are in the same geographic zone as your customer.
3. Deployment of 3rd generation of wireless in Europe and Asia.
4. Virtual cities are created. Everyone has virtual identity.
There can be a lot of interesting changes in life because of internet. Would love to see someone predict those.
CP
I'm sure that this has been published already, albeit slightly modified, in the Daily Telegraph, shortly before Kubrick's death.
/.ed then?
Was it not
qts
I moot for commercial replication of Arthur C Clarkes rose-tinted virtual jack-in kit, and suggest that he's lost touch with the time continuum. Either that or his LSD is kicking in.
There were no real surprises in the 'futurist visions' -- it's just the timeframe which is a little hard to swallow. Is it spit or swallow? I'd like to believe ACC [he says he's spared us the grisly bits] but it's all too unbelievably Utopian for me. I give us 12 years max until TEOTWAWKI.
Before then it'd be grand to see the Dalai Lama restored to what the Chinese left of Tibet. Oh, and Cold Fusion. I won't hold my breath -- I'll only go blue and clash with my dress.
Tempus fugit...especially in a Tardis.
BLAMMO shaken not stirred
I think you guys are taking this a bit too seriously. It's just a fun read - just like any other scifi book.
You just used one of his soothsayed products to post and deliver your msg to a few thousand nerds who read /. everyday :)
:) But who knows.. He's one of the first to sign up to freeze his brain (Along with Mel Gibson ??? um? )
Enjoy!
Maybe the one about his 100 bday visit to Hilton Orbital is kinda far feathed
--
Aging and death aren't "problems." They are part of natural existence. People are supposed to die. Overpopulation is a much more pressing problem.
computer intelligence wouldn't be subject to the same constraints as human intelligence, which is stuck in a single 'container'. even today's computers, if hooked together in quantities of a few million, might add up to one human-level intelligence. imagine an AI that monitored the net for 'sploits so that it could 'spread' to more machines. if each machine is like a (very powerful) neuron in a neural network, then the loss of a single machine is no big deal. i could easily imagine a rogue AI holding on to significant fractions of the Internet in this way.
Perhaps the basic idea is, indeed, clustering. However, to be affective of AI, clustering at the CPUs' chip level. Multiple chips microcoded to sort, assess, separately process and reassemble words or syntactical mensurates of code. Efficacious glass might yield bandwidth and intra-affectivity within groups and groups of groups of such CPU'ed chips. Hypothetically, then, this sort of device might! (thermodynamics) yield a independent problem selection microprocessing aggregate that might also admit solutions' in variety.
Well, I like the fact that he put concepts like nano-replicators, superhuman AI, generators powered by virtual particles/antiparticles, SpaceGuard, the end of Work, etc., linked to from CNN's front page for the public to look at (and, horrors, maybe even think about). Still, if he postulates human-level AI which would be "evolving far more rapidly than biology would ever permit", it is clear that a technological Singularity would follow within years, maybe even days. After the Singularity we'd be living in a post-Human era, and what happens next is virtually impossible to predict, or even imagine.
I refuse to believe that Sir Arthur C. Clarke means this list of predictions seriously. It reads like a "Wouldn't it be nice if.." more than any kind of at least semi-serious prediction about the future. Most of the stuff he "predicts" will never happen - or at least not nearly as soon as he says.
I think Clarke is getting rather cynical at us here... We all know the world 50 years down the road will be a nasty mess with 30+ nuclear weapons nations and China, a country which does not have any respect for human rights whatsoever, becoming the world's most powerful industrialized nation. We haven't even started to solve issued like pollution, the hole in the ozone layer, the destuction of the rain forests, and whaling. We play with nuclear power and obviously can't handle it. Not to mention the recent moves by certain governments to trying to catch up to 1984, finally. So what if they're 30 years late?
No, What Clarke proposes is not a prediciton, at all. The only thing that he does - and it's a good thing he does - is showing the mainstream public some things that COULD be - if we only worked hard enough.
Maybe he'll inspire a few readers to achieve something for the improvement of human life.
And just maybe, reading his "predictions", a couple of youngsters will not become as cynical as I am. And that, in itself, would be a noble thing to achieve.
Yes... Maybe that's what we would like to think will happen to the world, but all nuclear weapons destroyed in 10 years time? Nooooo, I don't think so!
"The Dalai Lama returns to Tibet."
Yes, that would be nice, thank you.
"Last words are for fools who haven't said enough." - Karl Marx
Freezing Keanu Reeves? Yeah, I'm all for it.
Interesting article, and I'd definitely subscribe to the already-expressed opinion that Sir Clarke has a somewhat optimistic timeline there.
However, my point (such as it is), is that I have a friend who's central tenet of Geek Society is that geeks exist to make the cyberpunk predictions of William Gibson come true.
Think about it:
I disagree with his hypothesis on the grounds of esthetics (geeks can't be this shallow, can they?), however as time goes on I find my position wavering: See developments since Gibson's novels in mobile communications, the web, e-commerce, encryption technology, and the comprehensive failure of society's control mechanisms (i.e. the legal system, business models, political reality) to keep up with all this technology.
Which raises the question here: since we're so obviously running out of things of Gibson's wish list, isn't it about time the geek community got behind another "visionary" and worked on THEIR wish-list instead?
And if so, why not Clarke? I'm all in favour of cheap power, space exploration, an and to war, poverty and famine.
(I just don't think it's doable, that's all. Certainly not in only 1 century)
henley
--
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
My question is: where does the Matrix come in?
Do we have to freeze Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss now and save them up for when the Matrix is made? The invention of AI and those braincap's seems to suggest that this might happen.
-rob
Broadcast message from root Sun Oct 10 08:28:27 1999...
The world is coming to an end, please logout.
--
Man, this Arthur Clarke guy is pretty naive - root (god) and that naustrdamnus guy has been telling us that on Jan 1, 2000 all the computers are gonna blow up, nuclear bombs are going to whistle all over the world, and the apocolipse is gonna hit us.
--
Uuuh,I thought that the High tech companies investing in GM crops were making single use seeds. In that you take the GM Seed, you plant the seed, Nature grows the seed, you harvest the crop and there are no more *fertile* seeds...!
You have to buy another "one-use" seed!
Oriental Hero "I want to live in a city where the Police don't shoot you" Jean Charles de Menezes
It really does, and now is a great time to be alive. I think one of mankind's strongest inner drives is to build the future. I think it's cool that many of the changes are occurring in the computer field, where so many of us choose to concentrate. I really appriciate Clarke's positive portrayal because in real life we are surrounded by nay-sayers. Oh well, i suppose the nay-saying does serve to keep us on our toes and protect the future our decendants will live in.
Oh brave new world we live in, to have people such as these
Perhaps Mr Clarke figured that a marginal UK sci-f((i)|(act)) zine simply wasn't making enough cash for him? Perhaps CNN hasn't checked up on the contract he must have signed with Frontiers? Perhaps this is a new era in Open-source journalism? Perhaps I'm just jealously screaming "I saw it first!!!"? Who knows...
Even if only half of what he writes comes true (I'd love to see nukes go and cold fusion arrive), then we've got an interesting century ahead of us. Even "better", I have the chance of seeing up until about 2060 if my health doesn't fail me early. This is one to archive somewhere and compare against every 10 years.
-- Sapere aude.
The problem with the article is perhaps that Clarke is happy to make the assumption that the various the problems mentioned in the original post (misery, starvation, all the usual suspects) will be eliminated by the technological advances. This certainly hasn't been the case this century and I don't think it is justifiable to claim the next century will be any different.
:o)
OTOH it is great that the ideas he mentioned are even conceivable in the time scale given - They might not a panacea, but that doesn't stop them being pretty cool...
"Sleep Well. And Dream of Large Women".
Think for a moment about the circumstances likely to surround the birth of AI. I see two scenarios, neither of which is frightening:
a) The people who design the AI do so in such a way that it has no personality, no goals, no motivations except to do as it is told. In other words, it is a tool. This could be a threat, but only in the way that a gun is; you need a human to pull the trigger.
b) The people who design the AI do so by modelling the human mind. This time, the AI is a real person, with goals and motivations intrinsic to itself. Not only that, but the AI probably considers itself human (as would I). As long as the rest of humanity doesn't reject him out of hand, the AI will be on our side, not against us. And if that leads to computers eventually replacing biologicals, that's still the same humanity as it was before; it's just the next generation.
Ive been reading a lot of horrible predictions lately about an AI that we create that in turn ends up getting very mean and killing all of mankind (the matrix, various other 21st c predictions on /.) Now maybe Im being naive here, but it seems to me that as long as we are careful in programming this AI that there is no way that it would become evil and blood thirsty. If we do not give them the capacity to become angry, or to possess any of the more "negative" emotions that we have, then I can't see them ever becmoing evil.
But I suppose that that whole statement is based on the assumption that these AIs would have emotions, which are what always drive all human conflicts. So what about a life form that had no emotion? Could it be violent and try to kill us all?? The reference I will use is from star trek: the next generation. If we look at Data, we see a AI life form who (initially) had no emotions, and who had failsafe programming to make him fall back on ethics. Then if we look at Data's brother Lore, we see an AI that had emotions and a worse ethics backup, and we see what bad things he did.
But if we are creating something which is really a new life form, do we have the right to decide which if any emotions it has? a lot of these questions were addressed in star trek. mr. roddenbury was certainly a visionary, its a shame he's no longer with us to give us his view of the 21st centruy as we're getting to be 14 months away.
I have recently revised by beliefs about cold fusion from the standard explanation:
"it's probably somewhere between gross measurement errors and downright hoax"
to the milder version of:
"there might actually be something there after all, but it's hard to tell with the current atmosphere"
Apparently, there are many scientists all over the world and even in U.S. national labs still quietly researching cold fusion, often under less controversial titles such as "New Hydrogen Energy". They hold conferences, show bubbling electrolysis cells and claim the thermal energy output significantly exceeds the electric input for weeks.
Are these people all completely incompetent in operating a calorimeter? Are they all charlatans spiking their samples with helium and other fusion byproducts? I'm finding it harder and harder to believe.
These scientists are attacked by their colleagues, publicly ridiculed and their careers are often in danger. I can easily find parallels to the case of Barbara McClintock who discovered in the 1930s that some genes actually "jump around" and switch places in the chromosomes. The idea was so at odds with the prevailing paradigm that she was ridiculed for decades until she finally received a Nobel prize in 1983.
I'm not claiming that the fact that someone is ridiculed by his peers is proof that he is correct, just that there are certain well-documented cases that the scientific community can be severely biased against theories which contradict common beliefs, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Sir Clarke may have the last laugh after all...
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
The Dalai Lama in Tibet? Nope. China as a superpower with a regional sphere of influence is more likely.
Hilton Orbiter? Sure. And it will host Comdex. But we will get there with chemical fuels. Geeks puking in zero Gs. Eeeeewwwww.
Braincaps? Hmmmmm. Nah. Unless all the firmware is open source, I would not trust it.
Trip to Halley's Comet? Way cool. But no critters. Just a way cool dirty snowball.
Resume burning fossile fuels to forestall an ice age? Nah. It's comuppance for Canadians being pain-in-the-neck scolds about global warming in the first place.
I wrote parts of this stuff
Bright my ass. Those port scanners (gene fools, gene kiddies or as Linus would say scientists masturbating) will deduce that the Human Genome Project isn't enough. People have to keep their jobs some way. Next they will control every atom in your body. They already have genes what's left. and they call me a naysayer? :P
I mean look at the sorry state of Physics, more elemental particles than atomic elements. Something very wrong with that.
Hint: If there's a qualifiable difference between two items, then those items are not elemental. Therefore qualifiable variance results from combination not division. Think red yellow and blue. Combine those to produce more colors. And we all know why digital rgb monitors went analog. So you wouldn't have to have 24 wires per pixel to produce 24-bit color.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
The drug war is far from solved.
The drug war only exists because the powers that be (i.e., government) is trying to "solve" what is a medical problem by using police and soldiers. If you give the doctors and scientists a chance to work on the problem MAYBE it can be solved.
I am an atheist but I don't understand why the majority of sheep, I mean people that believe in God, are so dead set against drugs. Let's see... God created the world in seven days, including the opium poppy, the coca plant and the hemp plant. God created receptors for those drugs in our brains. Did God make a mistake or something?
And since when is it the government's role to tell me what I can and cannot put in my body? As long as I am not hurting anyone else, it should be no one's business but my own...
--
A man who wants nothing is invincible
and try not to think of the arrogant (and stupid) manipulativeness of the AIs in Gibson books.
I think that Clarke is describing the beginning to a society very much like Ian M. Bank's 'The Culture' where decisions about resource management, politics, science and pretty much anything else of any importance are made by AIs who are benevolent - although impossible to fathom due to their superiority to meat brains.
We will be relegated (as it were) to enjoying ourselves, allowing as much privacy as we require but the society will be so open-ended that things like blackmail will be nearly impossible (due, perhaps, to the fact that almost nothing will be prohibited and almost any image or movie can be created completely artificially.)
Eventually, we will be pretty much obsolete, but as long as we make the AIs our protectors rather than our competitors, then there shouldn't be any problems...
at least...
not until they (the AIs) start building more complex AIs.
But then, what is the point of destroying us? Is there anything to gain apart from the precious few resources that we consume?
Hmmmmmn.
--Nick
Third-World contries are third-world countries for a reason. There's nothing there worth taking. If there was, one of the European countries would've colonized it a long time ago, and who knows, it might have become a superpower.
So if a country did not have the "privilege" of being colonized by a European country its their tough luck, huh? BZZZT - wrong! A lot of the world's problems we have today are the due to the after effects of European colonization...
Maybe I'm cruel, but if a person doesn't contribute to society in some productive way, I think they should be removed from society. The only thing that the panhandler on my street corner contributes to society is fear and disgust.
Define "productive". Define "removed from society". That panhandler you fear is a person too. Maybe they are mentally ill. Or a Viet Nam vet suffering from PTSD. Or maybe they just did not get all the breaks you obviously had when you were growing up.
You say you work 60+ hrs/wk and yet you cannot spare some change for someone who is less well off than you? You assume that they are lazy, instead of talking to them and finding out what their story is? Maybe that person just needs a break or two to make something of their life...
Coward indeed. If you had any bollocks you would put your name to your rants instead of hiding behind anonymnity. As it is we can only draw two conclusions: 1) you are a tightwad, and 2) while everyone is issued a brain, not everyone is taught how to use it!
--
A man who wants nothing is invincible
Well, considering the huge collection of cars which, by that time, will be highly-prized antiques..
And don't forget the huge collection of supermodel sex slaves which, by that time...
I have the feeling the world envision by Ellis in the comic 'Transmetropolital' is much closer to what the future will be like.
After all, in spite of what technological wonders we may create, humans are still humans.
He isnt? wee, by deduction that means there are other people who actually CAN predict the future?
Or, does Clarks article mean, that whatever wee bit of thruth could lie in such predictions (the article isnt SF really), probably would have been written by someone like Clarke? A well educated SF writer. Hell, Not that I liked Reagen, but he hired them (SF writers, or at least one of em Heinlein If I recall) to actually work on the future.
If you need a hint that Clarke really isnt the messiah, like you suggest people need, I think that person would need a doctor. Even Clarke does not think that.
Greets SlashDread
Why should we continue to use more area to live? We should be using VOLUME.
We have the technology today to create large livable spaces that are aesthetically pleasant, while at the same time being practical.
We could free up enough land for agriculture/farming to support the increased population.
I am not talking about a large apartment complex, more like a volumized city. Certain problems would have to be overcome (like not using internal combustion engines on the "inside" for transportation, as well as the issue that people, for some reason, have a need for a "custom" home). But it is possible - today!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Karma is the turning of slashdot into a game.
I have fairly high Karma, I guess. I do not typically post relevant or insightful posts. I guess I'm not really smart enough. But I do tend to post a lot of stuff that gets bumped up for being funny.
There's a trick to it to. You've got to find an article with between 15-30 posts (enough so you're not conspicuous, and others have contributed enough material for a typical smartass comment, but not so much that the moderators won't have time or points to moderate you - also, stay away from the really controversial articles. If it's about columbine or GNOME v. KDE, the server will bog down too much for anyone to moderate, there will be 350 posts before you can blink an eye).
That said, I still think that this new moderation system is the cat's fucking pyjamas. It has done wonders for most articles, keeping the garbage out, and properly highlighting the good stuff. I meta moderate too, and I see very few abuses, unlike the situation prior to meta moderation.
Also, when you get over 25, always remember to click your "No Score +1 Bonus" box, otherwise people won't give you their moderation points if you start out at a 2, and you won't accumulate Karma as quickly.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
if all of these people are out of work, who the hell are going to buy all the 100% automatically produced cars?
This is how the economy regulates itself. There will be hard times, but it will even out eventually.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Okay, I'm not a typical Christian, but I am a Christian. The Bible even says that God created all of these plants, FOR us, and they are ours to do with as we please.
Now, there's obviously a catch there, because by that logic, we should just cut down all the rainforests and use the wood for paneling inside our new Lincoln Town Cars. Obviously, we've got to use our brains, and use these things wisely.
So it goes for drugs, and yes, there is a strong tendancy in some drugs, to lead people to abuse - the kind of abuse that DOES hurt people, their families, the economy, the concept of "values", etc.
One of the big arguements that brought about prohibition was these newly empowered women's groups griping about how evil alchohol was driving their husbands out of the homes and causing them to spend all their time hanging out in bars with their buddies, getting drunk and renting hookers, etc. I think this would still be a problem today if we didn't have television.
So, personally, I don't have a problem with a puff on a joint now and then. But drugs can be harmful, and they're very dangerous. Now, that doesn't give anybody the right to pry into someone else's personal business and test their pee. But most of us just aren't able to responsibly handle recreational cocaine and heroin use.
Okay, so now that I've solved the drug problem, can we go to work on the flying cars? I mean come on, it's 3 months to go until the year 2000, and we still don't have flying cars! What's the matter with you people?
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
*please* tell me 'develope' wasn't a typo...
....grin
I predict that within 20 years, advances in the fields of robotics and AI will make obsolete all assembly line level jobs. The work can be reduced to simple enough steps that someone is going to realize its just cheaper to mechanize the whole nine yards. The resulting reductions in cost will be so great that no business will be able to remain competitive without upgrading.
When this happens, there's going to be a whole lot of people without jobs, and a whole lot of heavy industry based economies that are going to hit the fan.
What the hell are these largely unskilled people gonna do? How are they going to support themselves? I can forsee two possible end results, neither of them pretty.
First, in wealthier, economically diverse countries, the non-working class will either be retrained by the government to do useful work (which I would imagine would be hard to find), or more likely supported on government welfare. In poorer countries, everything is just gonna go to hell.
The other possibility would be to reduce the population; simply remove the industrial working class by randomly sterilizing a large number of people.
Both of these possibilities scare the crap out of me.
"Violence never settled anything." -Ghengis Khan
I think Sir Arthur Clarke has an overly optimistic view of our future. Here's what I think will happen
2001 : Saddam Hussein gets the nucleur bomb and holds the world hostage
2002 : An assain kills Saddam Hussein, his successor is (fortunately) a spineless idiot and gives in to US demands
2004 : There is some noise of an alternate fuel source based on fusion. But electric cars seem to becoming more and more popular. Thus moving the use of fossile fuel from the vehicles to the Power generators.
2010 : More unrest in the middle east causes the UN to post a standing army there. Better means of producing electricity have made the demand for Oil much lower than before, plunging the Oill producing middle eastern countries into economic disaster, causing much unrest there.
2011 : A nuclear explosion caused by Muslim fanatics in the middle east causes wide spread nuclear contamination, and makes most of Iraq uninhabitable.
2020 : The global warming effect seems to becoming more prominent. Geologists realise that the opening of the ozone layer is not the only cause. The natural cycling of the ice age is coming to a peck in the warm part. There is a lot of debate, but no resolution is found. A conference similar to Rio-de-generio is held in Rekjavick Iceland. Lots of ideas fly around but nothing comes of it.
2025 : Scientists finally find conclusive proof that the speed of light is not the limiting velocity in the Universe. But this has no economic use like a space drive yet. Scientists suggest that it will take atleast 100-200 years till a commercially viable use of this information is found
2026-2050 : This is considered the darkest age of human history. Many earthquakes hit the far east, the US and India causing a lot of destruction and loss of life. During all this, there is much unrest in the middle east as the economic crises worsens. Civil war rages on there. Civil war rages in Northers Ireland, and the balkan republics.
2051 : An Indian scientist finds a way to tap gravitational energy to produce power. Funded by General Electric, he makes a battery which will provide 3V and 5 miliamps of current indefinitely. This cell costs over 500 million dollars.
2059 : More earthquakes strike the Indian sub-continent. Scientists realise that the Himalayas are actually rising. Advances in seismic prediction shows scientists that the earths is still mighty active under the crust, and identifies a lot of problem areas. Fortunately most of the worst ones lie in the Pacific Ocean.
2075 : The first car using gravitational energy is produced. It costs 5 times as much as electric cars, but sells like hot cakes. These cars can hover over the ground.
2080 : Advances in neurology have made prosthetic limbs that can interface with the human mind possible. These are still prohibitively expensive. Bill gates second son (Willian H Gates II)gets the first prosthetic limb -- a thumb. (His was cut off in a car accident.)
2090 : The first space ship using gravitational energy is produced. This can theoretically reach faster than the speed of light, but proximity to the sun causes the craft to travel at half the speed of light.
2101 : The first colony on the moon setup of scientists and researchers.
-- Anant
As far as I know, he turned down his knighthood, as he was under investigation in Sri Lanka for alleged child molesting... whether this is true or not isn't the point, but he's AFAIK not a knight of the realm... if I'm wrong then I apologise Andy lewis frankielewis@nospam-hotmail.com
I wrote the "the drug war is far from solved" rather than the "the drug problem is far from solved" intentionally. Obviously, the problem is not that there exists drugs from which the people gain pleasure, but that society thought that denial and draconian law was a solution.
/. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
I'm an anarchist at heart, but in our current society I can buy people telling me not to something for others sake ("Don't drink and drive cause you might kill someone"), but not for my own ("Don't drink and drive cause you might kill yourself", "Don't do drugs cause they are bad for you").
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After about 2 generations of any living conditions, people forget how lucky they are and the focus on the real problem is lost. for example, we americans eat too unhealthy, but we loose sight that eating unhealthy is much better than starving, so its not really a problem.
Even if everyone is living the lifestyle that people enjoy in highly industrialized contries, very few people will realize what they have. We might be living in a utopia, but we will never know it. Its easy for someone in the past to think "wow no world hunger, it must be a perfect world". But the people living it won't think that way, they didn't live a life of starvation. There will be other 'major issues' like extending peoples lifespan and solving population problems to occupy the collective mind.
Yes, and these kids will wear coke-bottle glasses, and have acne. The new overlords of the human race. The ubermensch.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Okay, but I was thinking in terms on influence on the SF film industry -- there are a lot of movies that tried to emulate or pull elements from Blade Runner but none of them did very well. I expect we'll see a lot of Matrix / Dark City ripoffs within the next few years.
Ok, so we have AI in 2020. An AI running how many times faster than a biological brain? Say a million times. Anyone care to guess what evolution looks like at 1,000,000 times the speed of human development after only one year? I can't think of anything that *wouldn't* be invented or solved after the first year. If 2020 is correct then I think he's missing the entry for 2021.."In the beginning..."
Gattaca was an interesting movie, but it missed the point in its all-American "You can do it if you only try" message. I wrote a review of it for a Swedish film site, where I compared the DNA prejudice in the movie to the Frenology (finding personal traits from the size of the brain) of the 1800s. I concluded however that the movie misses the point. The really frightening thing about DNA analysis is not that it makes prejudice based on DNA possible, prejudice is already deeply rooted in our society, but that that (unlike frenology which was just bullshit) prejudice based on genes would be right.
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> 2002 Microsoft's stock collapses and hundreds of > programmers leave the company to join other
> companies to develope for Linux.
It will occur in 2000. That's why it is not on the list of 21st Century.
Wow, I do believe we have the first evidence of Karma-jealousy. I guess it was bound to happen.
I think that Rob should put a board with the top ten Karma's. Then these issues would really heat up.
PS, I jealous of signal and root too...
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2000-2020 A massive earth quake destroys Tokyo resulting in worldwide economical problems when the Japanese people pull their money back to rebuild the city.
I think you mean:
2000-2020 A massive mutated sea monster destroys Tokyo resulting in worldwide economical problems when the Japanese people pull their money back to rebuild the city.
...It's only a matter of time.
SUCKERS!!
:)
Hehe I couldnt help myself!
SUCKERS!!!
I like girls like that!
One thing he seems to have forgotten is the frequency of war in human history. At some point in the next century, some ferocious leader will begin the killing spree. With the rising popularity of entertainer/politicians in the US, I suspect that it won't be an American leader.
I tend to agree with his predictions on the fall of currency, not because of energy production changes but because the internet coupled with major discrepencies in currency valuations will necessitate a stabilizing force. Metals will drive this partly, another will be derivatives. We will have one currency before no currency. Theoretically basing it on the one kilowatt hour is good, but that sound like an act of cooperation. The one currency will be a power play.
China's GNP growth surpassing the US's sound about right, but that does not mean China will be richer than the US. The US will be the home of the elite. The growth of China's GNP won't happen without advice from experienced US financiers. Innovation and progress will firmly be rooted here for the next century.
Aside from that, I want to go ice fishing on Europa. And I will have some pretty mean mini-velociraptors wired with remote control, visual cortex recording and emergency brain bombs in case junior strays off into the dino-pen.
Let me see if I get this straight. I walk up to some homeless guy on the street. I ask him his story. He tells me he used to be a banker, had a perfect life and then *BANG*. One day he had nothing and was cast out on the streets. Now, i'm supposed to give this guy money because he can't look past his own pity-party to get his ass in gear and deal with life? Please.
I don't see how the excuse that being "hit by something outside their control" gives anyone the right to just give up on life and demand sympathy and support from other people.
Tell me that you have never taken a fall in life. Did you just quit?
He writes as Arthur C. Clarke, but NASA and Slashdot miss out the C. Yes, it's off-topic and trivial, but I'm curious about this. In the UK he is always refered to as Arthur C. Clarke.
What's next? H. Lovecraft? M. James? J. Tolkien? CNN got it right, though.
The initial AI doesn't scare me at all. What scares me is more of a 2001 scenario: when the AI determines that humans are an obsticle to its mission. Or what if the AIs learn how to reprogram themselves. They obviously have to have the ability to learn or else they would be pretty useless. I just worry about our ability to design an AI that we can retain total controll of.
Then there is the even more frightening issue. What if AIs become weapons. Think about it, what happens when the KKK designs an AI that has an uncontrollable need to elliminate all blacks? Or truely "smart" bombs.
IMHO AI is a double edged sword. Sure it can do a lot of great things for humanity, but at what cost?
-matt
Yes, how typical...Clarke has VISION...Nanotech will be the end of the world as we know it...THANK THE GODS!!!!!
No more worrying about hot to feed people, no one will have to work if they don't want to. The Producer class will disappear, and those who are of the Creator class, those who Discover, or out of the Chaos pull new Ideas will be those most revered....Creativity will rein supreme, and mediocraty will become an endangered species.
Those with wealth will no longer be able to control the world. Those with VISION will. I would much rather have people like Arthur C. Clarke running the world than people like Clinton or Bush jr.!
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
If I was gonna post flamebait like that, I would log out too...
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I don't agree. That prejudice is bad has been said a thousand times over. If you want an example of a society where individuals are unfairly treated because of prejudice (and it doesn't really matter whether it is based on dna, frenology, race, or sex), you don't need sci-fi, you can just look around you in the world we live today.
However, down the road of technology the really frightening thing is that there will be prejudice will be justified and correct (and it doesn't really matter whether DNA analysis, some day there will be a technology that will). From a sci-fi point of view, such a society is a much more interesting discussion.
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Clark's vision assumes that efforts will be made to develop and use these techonologys. While his predictions may well be possible, its naive to believe that first world capitalist countries will allow many of these events to take place. National and Corporate self-interest will control the 21st Century, not Clark's imagined world of utopian technocracy.
Yes, im about to made a nanomachine that replicates itselft to the infinitum.. you wanna something of that initially in your bed?
You can't moderate in a discusion you've posted on, or post in a discusion you've moderated in.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
Most of the third world countries got poor because they were colonized by the European "superpowers" during the colonial era. Many of those countries didn't get independence until the 1970's. Vietnam is an example that Americans should remember.... It only got it's independence after 50 years of war, first with the French, and then with USA, that completely devastated the country.
Many third world countries have enormeous resources. Sierra Leone, for instance, has both huge copper resources, as well as oil reserves, and fishing. However, as a result of the colonial era, much of those resources are controlled by multinationals, and is of little gain to the people in Sierra Leone.
The same is true for lots of third world countries. To make matters worse, the colonial powers, when they were forced to give up their colonies (usually after long wars), they left them in complete chaos, giving plenty of opportunity to local dictators to gain control and continue the oppression where the colonial powers gave up. Often with the support of the colonial powers (as was the case with South Vietnam, and the French, and later US-, supported regime of Diem).
And most of the ones who die of hunger die of hunger because there are no food in their countries, and it rarely help them any if they work, because they still wouldn't be able to buy food. Why?
Because large parts of the worlds food production are rotting in surplus storage in the US and Europe, to prevent price drops, and because the IMF and World Bank keep insisting that third world countries prioritize crops that can earn them money to pay back loans rather than crops that help them feed their population.
As for the people who die of hunger in the US, have you ever tried talking to someone poor? Have you talked to some of the many people who has been productive members of society for their whole life, until some personal disaster crushed their world? People who has gone broke after downsizings, or after having to care for sick family members, and end up loosing their homes?
There's plenty of them. Maybe if you cared, you'd see that poor people in the US aren't just crackheads and criminals, but that many of them were just like you, but were hit by something outside of their control, and didn't have anyone that cared enough to help them through it.
I hope you're just a troll, and not stupid enough to believe that the third world countries caused their own problems, and likewise that you're not stupid enough to believe that what you see on your street is anywhere near the poverty found in third world countries.
Um dude,
AC's dont have Karma,
Thefore they would not be Karma-jealous.
I read that AC's posting and I must agree (after seeing yours as well) that slashdot "suckups" do exist.
Thank you!
PS: Taco, what happens if i press back?
What about Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"? Sure there might be a some rogues that design their AI's with no ethical constraints but any AI should have a firm grounding in ethics. I can only hope by that time we have a mathematical proof for ethical issues.
Any AI so designed could _not_ be a danger to any life, including human. In fact, without emotional imperitives, such an AI might have _better_ judgement than most humans. Could you see a Justice system run by AI's, or a political system where the politicians are incorruptable and always logical. Done right it could be a wonderful thing.
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
I love how naive and optimistic Clarke seems to be in a world controlled by big business whose goal is never for the public good. Think of all the tech we have readily available now that will never be offered as a consumer good because the profit margin on X is greater than the margin on Y. Sure X is old and unsafe but who's going to stop us? The government? Heh, guess again.
Clarke makes this very sweet effort to assume everyone is just like he is, and not people so wrapped up in consumerism to really care about future advances not brought to their attention by some marketing team. If we, and by we I mean the public, wanted it we could make a very smart shift towards solar/wind power in a matter of months with only a slight loss in convienance. Some futurist could have easily predicted that a while ago, but market forces and apathy rule the earth.
There is probably 100 catastrophic lists for every utopian list produced, but that wouldn't be CNNewsworthy. As fantastic as this list is I don't blame Clarke, he is a writer, he writes fiction.
That's very true. These so called "suckeups" post postings that add virtually nothing to the topic being discussed. Their postings are usually filled with catchwords and geek worship (eg: "Wow wow wow, this is so amazing ... etc.. (include example of some cool sci-fi movie rip)... And so on.
:)).
This is similar to resume scanners. (Oh I'm sure anyone moderating today would beg my pardon
I think it's high time we killed all these "Suckup" postings. It's gone totatlly out of sync.
5.5.4 should be unstable kernel...
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
"if that leads to computers eventually replacing biologicals, that's still the same humanity as it was before; it's just the next generation." How in the world is the 'AI' [contradiction in terms IMHO] going to comprise 'the same humanity' as a genotype/phenotype existant today.... this is utterly bogus stuff with Kurzweil b.s. at its center.
If everyone had something else (for example, an antimatter beam), then why would you want something not as powerful as you could have? Most of greed is driven by 2 things: wanting and not having.
Also, nukes are delivered by a slow process of missile, aircraft, ground transport delivery (for all but the smallest). If you had something more powerful OR almost equal and deliverable instantly(ex: orbiting lazer), it would make an ICBM a joke. It would be destroyed before it fully left the silo.
- Sig
Yeah man,
If i was so unlazy.. i would login in make that as "offtopic" i'm pretty sure most ppl would agree.
AC's rule! we run the world!!
I hate to break it to you but the United States does not have such a great history of respect for human rights. (Look back about 150 years ago.)
Plus there is the fact that less than 100 years ago the average American worker was making roughly what the average Chinese worker is making today.
Lastly the drug war is not a problem. It his one heck a of a good excuse for us (Americans) to put our less desirables in prison and away from the people would get scared by them if they were on the streets.
Rob
In reality....
You flaimbaited all the AC's by claiming that they were karma-jealious. And the AC's came forward and showed to you that your reasoning was volly invalid! Funny
moderate this one up please.
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So, hunger wiped out? We will MASSIVELY overpopulate (6 Billion by tuesday by the way). Humans NEED to be kept in check, just like any other organism. Sounds insensitive, but starvation and disease are NECESSARY in any ecology. Unless we find habitable planets to colonize, which does not seem likely.... *sigh*
Utopia cannot exist on this planet, or any other, it is a pipe dream.
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atheists suck and are arrogant dickheads
are we really? i respect EVERYONE'S choice of religion. from your post, i would say YOU are the arrogant one....
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...something he always forgets when he makes these high-flown pronouncements on The Shape Of Things To Come. All right, so some of the points are valid and some of them are not. That's acceptable from science fiction, that's the way it's always been. It's when Asiaweek (and the clueless media in general) starts handing this stuff out as the Authorized Version of the future that it bothers me. And Clarke does have a bit of a bee in his bonnet about his predictions... recently "predicted" that the President of Sri Lanka (where he lives) would win the Nobel Peace prize in 2006 (or thereabouts). In a word, bollocks. I still like that qualifier, though - "optimism about the future is always desirable; it may help to create a self-fulfilling prophecy". Sly one, old Clarke is. :)
Man landing on Mars. Now when I see that I will know that we are getting farther along in space. I was watching who's line is it anyway the other day and they were doing a skit with alternate things that Armstrong could have said on the Moon. one of my favorites was " I HOPE I GET HOME FROM HERE"? I can't wait for all the things that will happen in the 21st century
Good is never enough, when you dream of being great!
He's a bit biref on the AIs. Since they evolve so much faster, what do they do? Do we just get a new neighbour in cyberspace or do we end up with something like the Borg, or worse yet the AI cores in Simmon's 'Hyperion' series?
I thought that idea was dead.
Also, going from a research topic to a new engine in all car models in just 5 years seems more than optimistic. And a total worldwide replacement for coal in only four years even more so.
I hate to put down this great man, but I think that he is feeling the natural urge to speed things up, the hope that more and more things will happen while he still has a chance to see them.
His predictions are beginning to seem childishly naive, and at odds with the world as I see it completely. Granted, I'm cynical as hell, but look around you, do you see a world heading for a utopia in 50 years? Man kind has some major issues to face, and trying to rely on the belief that working cold fusion will be developed in three years is just sad. We won't have working warm fusion in three years people.
Who predicted HIV? Who predicted the ozone layer and greenhouse effect (anyone notice how these two problems are talked about so much less today then ten years ago - it isn't because the situation is any better today)? Who predicted that man kinds exploration of space would stop after reaching the moon, and almost die completely as soon as there were no longer two superpowers playing the largest-penis game?
The drug war is far from solved. Nor are the enviromental problems. Nor is world starvation. Nor is the emergence of new viruses. Nor is the fact that the economy is completly at odds with itself (the freedom of information, vs the appropriation of information). Nor is the fact that the China that Clarke predicts will soon be the worlds largest economy doesn't respect any human rights what so ever. Nor is the fact that the western nations are turning away refugees who earn less in a year then we do in a week from our borders because "we can't afford them". Nor is the fact that weapons of mass destruction will soon be trivial for a country, or even an organisation (and soon an individual) to develope.
Come to think of it, I don't give a fuck when we land on Mars or find life on Europa...
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I'm not sure about others, but Clarke seems overly optimistic about clean fuel solutions and its fast paced replacement of anything to do with fossil fuels. I believe it'll happen, but slowly over many years, not in 6 years. There's simply too much at stake (financially) for governments to want to push through with it as fast as possible.
Overall, an interesting read.
I have to admit: I'd like to be so optimistic at his age. Extrapolating what happened to me during my 26 years on Earth, I don't think I will ever be. Sir Arthur Clarke is obviously both optimistic, though I think also a little self-ironic (e.g. cold fusion, AI, abolishion of all currencies, destroying nuclear weapons, life on Europa :-))) ). :-) ), I have no doubt that starving nations will have no ethical or medical problems with accepting genetically modified crops and animals. Of course, a lot of bad things will happen, those countries will be the laboratory white mouse for biotech companies, but finally either the modified crops will arrive in Europe and America, or those two continents will lose their economical advantages - genetically modified food, in a long time scale, means cheap and efficient production of food, complex organical molecules and so on.
I'd like to comment some of his biological predictions. First, I think that direct-input devices will arrive sooner, than he predicted, but their primary aim will be people who can't hear or see, and those devices will also be quite useful for constructing intelligent protheses. I don't believe in non-invasive devices, though, because they are improbable from physical and biological point of view (I don't want to get into neurological details).
Human cloning is, in my humble opinion, not an issue. As I mentioned in an earlier comment in the Bruce-Sterling discussion, this would be a large and expensive project, requiring the intellectual power of best specialists in this field. I don't think this could be realised in the next two or three decades. To repeat myself, you can't start a corporation called Transgeneta and start quietly cloning people without communication to the scientific society and huge financial reserves. Besides, although there might be some people interested in having a clone, they by far have not enough money to pay a decade of a ver expensive field of research. Practical uses of cloning humans are none.
There are two research fields in biology, which seem to be a little overseen by many authors: first is in vitro growing cultures of human tissue, and possibly human organs, the second gene therapy - which is nothing but modifying the genome of a grown-up person through viral particles, which can invade a cell and combine the cell genetic material with the tiny bit of DNA they carry.
I think that in twenty years in vitro cultivating of human organs will be possible, especially because of the large knowledge basis provided by the Human Genome Project or the alternative project from TIGR (whichever comes first). The other thing however can make you quite scared, when you think what could be done with the technology of gene-therapy. Imagine a biological weapon, that selectively damages the genome of people carrying a certain gene - you know, that means a chinese weapon that selectively kills americans or vice versa, because a mean genotype differs in many genetical loci. This could, of course, mean that atomical warefare will become obsolate.
Another thing that could happen to us carries the name of GATTACA (if you haven't seen that movie, you missed the most important sf movie since SO 2001). Quick genomical analysis will be possible in a few years: the first prototypes able to make a polymerase chain reaction in a few minutes are on the way. At the beginning, this will not allow to analyse completly your genome - but will be quite enough to provite a unique ID for every person, or even a good identification even if only samples of genomic material from the persons family are in the database.
Genetically modified food. Although it will be probably banned in high-tech countries (or even Poland
There is one more thing I want to mention, and that is this AI thing. So-called artificial life, in fact - programs evolving in a computer - already, as you know, exist (there was a paper by Richard Lenski in Nature Aug, 12th, fascinating stuff) - though I don't think anything like AI will arrive in the next ten years, sooner or later it is bound to happen.
Regards,
January
Arthur C Clarke refuses to make a firm commitment on the shape of the next few decades. It is a rather common patern to find throughout history that individual 'revolutions' would be spurred by advancing technology. (I think that everyone knows what I mean here, we had the socio-political revolution, the industrial revolution, the information revolution...) Mr. Clarke doesn't want to pin down a specific field of human endeavour or specific technological area which will define the next half century. He hints at several tantalising possibilities: A nanotech revolution or a zero-point engergy revolution would be giant advancements and are even quite feasable. However, given the immensity of History it seems unlikely that they will all happen at once the way he seems to imply. This century shows us that the behaviour pattern for society is one big development at a time. This 21st century he presents would be like having the rennaisance, the industrial revolution, the information age, and the decent of man from the trees all at the same time.
"But in the end it's sad to watch these predictions. A space hotel is more important than helping developing countries and getting food for everyone. Also first world people get to live on the moon while tens of thousands of children die of hunger and wars"
This is not even, nor right. In Clarke's article, developing countries help themselves (there are references to India, Singapore and China), and the "food for everyone" issue is covered by the cheap energy devices. No reference is made to war, even indirectly. I you want to blame him, do it on account on the wild foundations of the happy century he, well, extrapolates (commercial cold fusion in 2002 and quantum generators in 2010, indeed!).
And the space hotel project is private. If you deem other things more important, don't invest in it.
You seem to suppose that, once arrived to a certain point (_which_ point exactly?), progress must be stopped until everybody has reached it. And then, perhaps, resume it again.
This is ludicrous. Technological progress cannot be switched off and on at will; it is inextricably woven in the fabric of our civillization. New technologies are at first scarce and expensive luxuries. Some of them will succeed and become more common and cheap, until everyday life will be unconceivable without them; say inhouse plumbing (yes, I am aware that a large part of humankind hasn't got inhouse plumbing, or even outhouse plumbing; that part included the home village of some relatives of mine when I was a child). I can hear you 150 years ago: "Let's stop spending effort and resources in such arcane and useless things as electricity until everybody has a water pump at home".
AFAIK, it was F.A. von Hayek who made the argument (here crudely paraphrased) that the rich are the vanguard of the poor in the progress of society, and that in an equalitarian society an equivalent would have to be established, i.e., a selected group of persons who would test new goods before they could be produced in large quantities.
And he wasn't being cynical.
Enuf said.
No, that's not what's happening.
:) No such worries. And who was that guy who said AC's are jealous of Karama? (man you need a brain surgery!)
See, they posted something good a while back or got lucky. Then, they got high karma and chance of moderating. What they do is.. They put a +1 on each of their posts from then on wards, thus their karma goes up and they get another chance to moderate (where they up their posting once again).
Personally I like being an AC
Hey he's not a regular user. AC's dont have karma. Are you sucking up too! LOL! This is fun (see the part about rob :))
Offical AC Moderation Process.
Offical AC Moderation Process.X
He was way off topic. Maybe he's abusing karma/self moderation.
Hm. You know, I thought first about writing "Blade Runner" :-) But no. Both 2001 and GATTACA are quite different from Blade Runner / Matrix / some other movies. First, they are much more close to "our" reality; and they directly deal with an idea concerning us in the first place. I think that both movies are very significant for the times in which they were made. :)
Besides, I thought that mentioning 2001 in a thread about Clarke would be nice
Regards,
January
Let you give 1 extra point to your own posting (if you have any moderation points left)..
and one more point if your posting is really long, regardless of you being an AC or not.
...2+2 does NOT =4.. have you ever heard of "leveling drift"? If two parents who are genius's have a child, that child will be more close (intellectually) to the average of human intellect. statistically, but there are exceptions.
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Actually, the ozone layer hole is not shrinking. It appears smaller at the moment due to seasonal conditions, but will enlarge again.
Also, there's discussion now that the hyrdrocarbon propellants used in favour of chloroflourocarbons are actually damaging the ozone layer, too.
Nothing is as difficult as predicting. Especially predicting the future.
It just seems like Arthur is in a bit of hurry here. Human clones in less than 5 years? Oh, and cold fusion is just around the corner. It will be here before Windows 2003 :-)
Then there's the nuclear bomb going off in North Korea in 2009. Why North Korea? I mean, isn't the probablility bigger that some terrorist group or crazy dictator gets/makes one and smuggles it into US?
Oh, and life on both Europa and the Halley's Comet. Maybe they'll also be able to find that spacecraft behind the comet too? The one where you get by making a suicide. Elvis pilots it BTW.
As Arthur didn't want to mention all-too-possible disasters, let me try:
2002 Microsoft's stock collapses and hundreds of programmers leave the company to join other companies to develope for Linux.
2000-2020 A massive earth quake destroys Tokyo resulting in worldwide economical problems when the Japanese people pull their money back to rebuild the city.
But in the end it's sad to watch these predictions. A space hotel is more important than helping developing countries and getting food for everyone. Also first world people get to live on the moon while tens of thousands of children die of hunger and wars.
> Who predicted the ozone layer and greenhouse
> effect (anyone notice how these two problems
> are talked about so much less today then ten
> years ago - it isn't because the situation is
> any better today)?
The hole in the ozone layer isn't as much of a topic as it used to be, because we have already done what needed to be done. That is, developed and started using replacement for the chemichals that harmed the ozone layer. It is an environmental succes story.
The use of fossil fuels contribution to the greehouse effect is still a hot topic, at least here in Denmark. Mostly because it is used as an excuse for putting new taxes on the use of fossil fuel.
I think he also neglects possible progress in medicine. In order to delay ageing, people have to relocate to the moon of all places? It's more likely that before any space hotels arrive, the rich can afford to double their life expectancy, while maintaining physical health, right here on earth. Ageing and death is one of the most pressing problems to the developed societies, so it will be the field where most money will pour into.
Alien visitors - if you lived here, you'd be home by now!
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while all of this is very interesting, i think most /.'ers realize the futility of "predicting the future"... if they put down their mountain dew and think about it. things will happen in the next month that we have no idea of and will change the way we see things. scientists double their knowledge base every 4 years... alot of it is useless data, but i bet it will become significant eventually. we are on a road that has no end... we just have to see where it goes... it might suck, but i'm on for the ride.
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The current climate models, which predict past temperature changes accurately (the ones ten years ago did not) do show the greenhouse effect to be a smaller problem than we thought. And even the worst projections give us 50 years to do nothing and still avoid any damaging consequences from the greenhouse effect, before accounting for European and Japanese Kyoto compliance.
In short, things will be better than we thought ten years ago, and we can do nothing for another thirty years without doing any damage. At the same time, we are taking steps -- the development of zero-emission vehicles, Europe and Japan committing to lowering emissions, etc.
Heck, if the Chinese decide use nuclear power relative to coal more than expected, the increasing levels of CO2 emissions that the models assume won't happen, either, which will push off warming even further into the future.
It's something to watch, it's a potential problem, but it is not currently a crisis.
I grew up on Clarke and always loved his stuff, but his main weakness (still) is that he doesn't understand the human factor. If you want a SF writer to make some prediction for you, I'd go with Kim Stanley Robinson. He understands poltics, sociology, and how humans tick.
Clarke completely factors out the innate human tendency to resist totalizing social experiments put together by their governments (or corporations. For example, how would Clarke factor in the major defeat last week of Monsanto's genetically-modifed foods program? That was defeated by the direct action of Indian farmers who burned GM crops and English activist who destroyed fields with games of football.
What about social revolutions?
Clarke's predictions are alot of fun, but I'd like to see the other half of the picture!
Chuck0
Mid-Atlantic Infoshop
http://www.infoshop.org
With the end of Moore's Law in sight and physical limits like the speed of light and such, computers surely will be incredibly intelligent someday, but I doubt they'll be smart enough to start a technological feedback loop. All the better, I'm sick of having to upgrade every other year. =) _duck_
I can't believ how optimistic this guy is about the future....
Nuclear weapons banned? Dalai lama returning to Tibet? A cheap, clean energy source by 2002? Elections in China? Truth in advertising?
Not in my lifetime.
I think there will also be a huge debate about turning computers off (since they are like alive). Also, we alredy have Viagra, and some sientist are restoring brain cells and decoding brain waves, and cloning stuff, so there will be a debate about when a person has to die. Maybe a suicide-o-matic or something.. (call now)
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Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Yes, he writes greats books and some decade ago he predicted the communications satelite, and is even foolishly called its inventor. But now, he is way way way off, think about this:
2002 The first commercial device producing clean, safe power by low-temperature nuclear reactions goes on the market, heralding the end of the Fossil-Fuel Age. Economic and geopolitical earthquakes follow, and, for their discovery of so-called "Cold Fusion" in 1989, Pons and Fleischmann receive the Nobel Prize for Physics.
Thats the way most 'next century' predictions go. They tell us what we want to hear. The world will continue to develop, but besides IT and advance science, it will be the same in a decade. Cloning, yes, it is posible, but that will not entirely change our way of live, as a cheap, portable and safe source of energy. The goverment wont put an end to fossil fuel car enginces, they are to common, to easy to use, to cheap and have a gigantic pressure group behind them. In 2010, we will still be driving cars, flying 747's, and dreaming about someday going cheaply to space. We wont have 'quantum energy generators' nor nuclear weapons be banished after a brief discussion. Megawatt hour? Worldwide currency? Nah! Say dollar, say Euro, which will be then the closest to a global currency for trading, but locally? Hmmmm. Ai in 2020? Oh, how much I would LOVE to see AI develop in my lifetime. This one, at least, IMHO, I see as possible.
As always, Mr. Clarke looking for a spotlight, telling us what we want to hear. Pseudoscience? Oh yes! Try to read this book. It is GREAT.
Why People Believe Weird Things : Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time
How about this:
2040 The "Universal Replicator," based on nano-technology, is perfected: any object, however complex, can be created - given the necessary raw material and the appropriate information matrix. Diamonds or gourmet meals can, literally, be made from dirt. As a result, agriculture and industry are phased out, ending that recent invention in human history - work! There is an explosion in arts, entertainment and education. Hunter-gathering societies are deliberately recreated; huge areas of the planet, no longer needed for food production, are allowed to revert to their original state. Young people can now discharge their aggressive instincts by using cross-bows to stalk big game, which is robotic and frequently dangerous.
Wishful thinking!! Gaia! (not to mention something like this would spell the end for economy, the need to work, it would be 'heaven on earth' and ultimately, the end of humanity)
Now, what I DO believe is that the human race will 'evolve' thanks to technology. Nut we will be bastards, humans, all the way. There will still be dumb-asses, politicians, lawyers, criminals, thirdworldcountries, etc etc for a very long time.
2010 Lord Torvalds is voted in control of the DOJ mandated Microsoft Open Source tree.
2011 Mrs. Gates confirms the rumors that her husband Bill has always been insane, and is finaly getting profesional help.
2012 Linux kernel 5.5.4 is simultanoisly distoed to the worlds computers over 10Gps optical lines.
2013Dennis Richie recieves a nobel prize for his life long work in technology.
2014 CEO Steve Balmer gets pissed drunk at a frat party and blathers "Hi-Tech? fuuuuck,the OS is simple, a kid could write it!" (MS stock slides below $10 for the 5th time that year)
2015 CEO of WorldcomOL, Steve Chase, turns down a sell offer from Microsoft
2016 Microsoft is purchased by RedHatWorldcomOL ($4 a share). The source is used to training new programers how *not* to write code.
2017 Bill Gates (while serving his 20 years) is forced to actually try to use his products. He spends his later years sucking his thumb waiting for his micros~1 computer to reboot.
You are right about the drugwar and HIV. Once VR comes up to speed and we all know I'm not talking about the way it is now but more Matrix like. I think we will hit a point when the machines do most of the hard labor and then what is left. Then you have all these 3rd world countries that we can't just forget about. The 21st century is going to be a scary place. It is very uncertain which way we are going. I'm not worried so much for myself but for everyone else. Where are all the massive jobs going to come from. Think about it, the more we innovate the more workers we are replacing. That's what it's all about. When do we hit the point of no one working anymore and what happens there. Are we supported by what we have created and please ourselves all day or do the few in power not care and push the rest of us into some sort of 3rd world state. Well, this comment is going nowhere fast but I'm not so sure I'm looking forward to the future.