What do you think of futuretimeline.net?

[Randoman01]

I have found this site called futuretimeline.net and I was fascinated by it. But I also think that they are being way too optimistic on their tech predictions. What do you think of them?

http://www.futuretimeline.net/

 

[Zontar]

Pie in the sky futurism if you ask me. Sure it can be interesting to look at, but if human history has shown us anything, it's that we are collectively shit at predicting that which will happen next month, let alone in a lifetime from now. Which isn't a big surprise when our minds evolved around day-to-day planing.

 

[Vault101]

Pie in the sky futurism if you ask me. Sure it can be interesting to look at, but if human history has shown us anything, it's that we are collectively shit at predicting that which will happen next month, let alone in a lifetime from now. Which isn't a big surprise when our minds evolved around day-to-day planing.

I think were "ok" at predicting the future...it just doesn't happen the way we think it will

like for example in one space opera I read I think there was a thing called the "news faxes" where I assume the news paper goi faxed to you

now the idea of an article being sent out electronically directly to the reader without need for physical distribution isn't far off from the webpages we read today.....they just didn't get passed the hilariously archaic "fax" aspect

 

[NightmareWarden]

I think that they are overly optimistic on the global rise in health, poverty etc. I'll strongly support anything that acknowledges and supports transhumanism as a significant part of our future.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I heard an interesting quote on the radio. It was probably from someone famous, but I missed the attribution.

Essentially it was about how poor we are at predicting our future with accuracy. If you took any point in time and presented it to a point in time 50 or 100 years prior, it would largely be unimaginable in one way or another. It would seem like nonsense and wouldn't be anywhere near their reasonable predictions. The meaning of all this is that if you ever hear a "reasonable" prediction of the future, it's almost definitely wrong. The only predictions that have any chance of being true are those that seem like lunacy.

Now granted, we are becoming slightly better at predictions. At the same time, however, most predictions are still useless thanks to the incredible leaps and stagnation both technology and society can experience without warning.

 

[mizushinzui]

I heard an interesting quote on the radio. It was probably from someone famous, but I missed the attribution.

Essentially it was about how poor we are at predicting our future with accuracy. If you took any point in time and presented it to a point in time 50 or 100 years prior, it would largely be unimaginable in one way or another. It would seem like nonsense and wouldn't be anywhere near their reasonable predictions. The meaning of all this is that if you ever hear a "reasonable" prediction of the future, it's almost definitely wrong. The only predictions that have any chance of being true are those that seem like lunacy.

Now granted, we are becoming slightly better at predictions. At the same time, however, most predictions are still useless thanks to the incredible leaps and stagnation both technology and society can experience without warning.

Gotta agree right here.

Think about the early 2000s, no one could have predicted the sudden explosion in popularity of smart phones and tablet devices, it would seem insane if you told a gamer back then that most people in the future did play games but it was mainly on their phones for about 2 minutes at a time while they were in the bathroom dropping a deuce.

Hell I remember hearing about the iPad a few years ago and laughing about how pointless and stupid the idea was, now I use my tablet all the bloody time, admittedly mainly for netflix and youtube but still it's pretty odd how something so silly seeming become such a popular thing.

It's likely that our next massive jump in technology will be something that no one could predict, let alone the massive jumps in technology of our far flung futures.

on a totally unrelated note it somewhat reminds me of how red dwarf used video tapes on it's futuristic space ship. Although at the time they had no way of knowing that it was going to be completely unused within a few years it still seems so silly to me to assume that a show set in the 2500s odd should use video tapes.

 

[mizushinzui]

I think that they are overly optimistic on the global rise in health, poverty etc. I'll strongly support anything that acknowledges and supports transhumanism as a significant part of our future.

Transhumanism is an odd term. I can't for the life of me work out what is trans about it. The humanism I get, but where is the trans?

I always assumed it was short for transcendence, like it's supposed to be the exploration of emerging technologies that will help to become something more than human, therefore transcending humanity.

 

[briankoontz]

Transhumanism is an odd term. I can't for the life of me work out what is trans about it. The humanism I get, but where is the trans?

The better word might be techhuman - the idea is a fusing of technology and biological humanity. The reason why trans was chosen is that there's a risk (or hope, depending on perspective) of humanity "losing itself" or becoming something "beyond humanity", fundamentally separate from nontech humans or "muggles".

The old word for this was cyborg, but technological advances have rendered that term obsolete. A techhuman might wear google glasses for example, which is not part of the definition of cyborg, which focused on the physical rather than the virtual.

A techhuman is a form of artificial intelligence. We consider that the underlying human will always "control" the technology he's fused with, but he could willingly (or not willingly) cede control of himself to the tech. Technology could be made to control human muscle function and produce movement without human control. Perhaps a person wants to browse the internet while walking to his car so engages the WalkMe routine, and can then give his full attention to his "mental" webbrowser or google glasses assisted browser.

Transhumanism is yet another Brave New World. I'm not sure what to make of people brimming with excitement about it, other than to think "this isn't going to end well".

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I just can't wait until the first Cyborg Olympics.

People with mechanical arms and legs performing insane acrobatics impossible for the regular human body to withstand!
It's going to be amazing