I saw this science show about time travel on telly, and one of the propositions was that in the future technology would be so advanced as to create virtual reality worlds as realistic as the real world (right down to the blades of the grass) of an era of the past. They would use history, artifacts.etc as blueprints and input them into a superprocessor much like the matrix. Sort of like an artifically created parallel universe. I thought the idea somewhat silly; you couldn't exactly re-create the past unless you had an exact blueprint. I.e. it would just be an interpretation of the future. But nonetheless, it was a very cool idea. Perhaps we could have receivers that received light from distant galaxies which had left earth decades, centuries, millenia before and converted them into some sort of reality. Perhaps still the realm of fantasy (let alone sci-fi), but I was wondering what you thought about the whole idea?

It's both fascinating and scary.  The idea of visiting a Matrix sounds cool, and is likely only decades off.

Feh...remember, people in the 1960s seriously thought we would be living in spaceships with robot maids by 2000. I probably won't be alive to see this happen.

Feh...remember, people in the 1960s seriously thought we would be living in spaceships with robot maids by 2000. I probably won't be alive to see this happen.


Ever heard of Roomba?

Feh...remember, people in the 1960s seriously thought we would be living in spaceships with robot maids by 2000. I probably won't be alive to see this happen.


Seriously, though, you have a point.  People tend to overexpect tech :)

Yeah, I've actually asked people alive in the '50s and '60s if they thought we'd be living like that in 40 years, and I think they really did...expectations of tech tend to focus on whatever is culturally hot. Like the space program was hot in the '60s, entertainment tech is hot in the '00s. Also, I don't think life expectancies will go that much higher. One factor is obesity, another one is that there's always some new disease or cancer cropping up.

Yeah, I've actually asked people alive in the '50s and '60s if they thought we'd be living like that in 40 years, and I think they really did...expectations of tech tend to focus on whatever is culturally hot. Like the space program was hot in the '60s, entertainment tech is hot in the '00s. Also, I don't think life expectancies will go that much higher. One factor is obesity, another one is that there's always some new disease or cancer cropping up.


Could be. As I've said elsewhere, the future ain't what it used to be.  :) Several years ago, I saw a documentary about the 1939 World's Fair in New York City. In it, the version of the future they expected (which was circa 1969, IIRC) featured flying cars and all the stereotypical "Jetsons" stuff we've come to expect from that era. I suppose it may have been the optimism of the New Deal and the hope for a better post-Depression America that played a part in such grand visions. Of course, no one could have forseen the terrors of the Second World War and the paranoia of the subsequent Cold War putting a damper on all of those plans, but I digress...

I would agree that we usually can't see the forest for the trees when it comes to predicting the "look" and feel of the future. We can never see ahead of the curve, and that's the stumbling block we run into time and time again. It's difficult, maybe impossible, to totally remove ourselves from our past and present, because they do so much in defining our outlook on life. For example, I'll bet the folks from 1939 would have a hard time understanding why we've depicted our own ultra-modern, but detached future, as portrayed in movies like "Blade Runner". In that way, looking *back* at our "future" as defined in the past tense probably reveals more about the psychology of the present day.

That's my one overly-philisophical post for the year. Enjoy.  ::) 

Yeah, I've actually asked people alive in the '50s and '60s if they thought we'd be living like that in 40 years, and I think they really did...expectations of tech tend to focus on whatever is culturally hot. Like the space program was hot in the '60s, entertainment tech is hot in the '00s. Also, I don't think life expectancies will go that much higher. One factor is obesity, another one is that there's always some new disease or cancer cropping up.


That's true.  I think healthy people will live to incredible lifespans though, like 95 to 120.

Do you today is the "early future"?  Sure, we're not in space yet really, but our technology is really high.  We've even played God with cloning, for Pete's sake!

I'd still call today "postmodern" rather than "futurist" though.

I really doubt even healthy people will live to incredible lifespans...at some point the body just expires of "old age." Also, pharmaceuticals are extremely hard and risky to develop-very few actually get approved, and many have side effects just as bad as what they are treating. I'm pretty cynical about tech in general, and I think people have far greater hopes for it than actually would work...especially health tech. Like, cancer is probably not going to be cured in my lifetime, heart disease and digestive diseases are impossible. I think the highest it will go is roughly 90. We aren't eliminating most diseases, really, and once you get to a certain point people just die for dying.

That was just me...sorry!

That was just me...sorry!


It's all good :)

That's true.  I think healthy people will live to incredible lifespans though, like 95 to 120.



Pick the right grandparents, and you can get away with anything.  ;D


I'd still call today "postmodern" rather than "futurist" though.


Yeah. What you said.