Will our technology boom slow down?

[Soviet Heavy]

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, the human race has accelerated technologically at an incredible speed, with little signs of slowing down. I've been thinking about science fiction showcasing the future, and how we often see the future through the eyes of the present. In the 60s, the future was all analogues and flashing big buttons, while modern science fiction has voice commands and touch screens similar to iPods or other handhelds.

I'm wondering where it will end though. What happens if our technology boom slows down once we reach interplanetary travel? Suppose that we launched a colony ship to Mars tomorrow, and all our technological skills were pressed into making the ship as reliable as possible, to the point where we enter another age of technological stasis, like the one that lasted for thousands of years before the IR. Technological development slowing to a crawl as we reach the apex of what we can achieve before the next big leap in human innovation.

What would it be like? It's an interesting concept, and I wonder how each of you would assume we would continue.

 

[lechat]

the reason for technological booms is usually due to distribution of information i would say with the interwebs we have reached the peak of information distribution and the only thing holding us back now is things like proprietary use of tech, patents and product secrecy due to profiteering

if you can imagine a world where the second someone discovers a new technology, potential cure for a disease or scientific theory it is instantly distributed to the world to be researched and improved upon then that there is the highest form of advancement humanity will ever have short of having self improving computers do our research for us

 

[Epic Bear Man]

I think it could slow down, but it probably wouldn't go into a period of stasis. Just looks at GPUs for instance. They tend to have a new one every few months that isn't a drastic improvement (but it still is an improvement) over the last model.

I doubt that humanity will ever reach that point, or at least for the next several hundred years. Technology (computers, in this case) are a very recent invention, and we've only just started realizing what we can do with this technology. Much like the wonders of the universe, there's still a lot we have to learn before we could even get close to a period of technological stasis.

And even if we do reach that point, new and new technologies are being made and discovered by the passing days, so it would only be a matter of time til we find a new avenue of computer sciences to travel down.

 

[DarkArk]

to the point where we enter another age of technological stasis

We didn't have a technological stasis before the Industrial Revolution. How do you think we got the IR in the first place? Technology is constantly adapting and evolving, just at varying rates. Problems still need to be solved, and backwards thinking doesn't really stop it that much. It's the ability to disseminate information that has sped this whole process up.

Also it depends on what technology you're talking about. Computer and biotech is likely going to increase dramatically in the next 50 years. Space technology has comparatively stagnated in the last 40 years.

Technological development slowing to a crawl as we reach the apex of what we can achieve before the next big leap in human innovation.

We're nowhere close to that at the moment. The IR was a huge turning point; the invention of the transistor was the other. I'd say the technology we'd need to really advance would be FTL travel. The Solar System is going to be colonized and economically exploited in the next century or two. We might very well stagnate if the ability to exploit more resources dries up.

Also the possibility of stagnation might come from VR, where we no longer care about the physical world because we can all live our fantasy.

 

[Ryotknife]

Until I get my flying cars, hoverboards, and other items promised in Back to the Future then I say our technology is falling behind.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

to the point where we enter another age of technological stasis

We didn't have a technological stasis before the Industrial Revolution. How do you think we got the IR in the first place? Technology is constantly adapting and evolving, just at varying rates. Problems still need to be solved, and backwards thinking doesn't really stop it that much. It's the ability to disseminate information that has sped this whole process up.

Also it depends on what technology you're talking about. Computer and biotech is likely going to increase dramatically in the next 50 years. Space technology has comparatively stagnated in the last 40 years.

Technological development slowing to a crawl as we reach the apex of what we can achieve before the next big leap in human innovation.

We're nowhere close to that at the moment. The IR was a huge turning point; the invention of the transistor was the other. I'd say the technology we'd need to really advance would be FTL travel. The Solar System is going to be colonized and economically exploited in the next century or two. We might very well stagnate if the ability to exploit more resources dries up.

Also the possibility of stagnation might come from VR, where we no longer care about the physical world because we can all live our fantasy.

I know we weren't technically in a stasis, but there was a point in human development where we spent thousands of years making just basic tools. Likewise, until the rise of agriculture, it just wasn't feasible to build large scale societies because we lacked the technology to support the food demand. The IR just kicked things up at an exponential rate, but there's no way of knowing if it will continue on like this, going ever faster. It may dry up until we reach the next big leap, and we might have another thousand year or so period where our rate of advancement is slow.

 

[Basement Cat]

According to the Law of Accelerating Returns [http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns] not only is our technology boom continuing but it's accelerating and will continue to do so at such a rate that we'll be closer to the ancient pyramid building Egyptians who lived thousands of years ago than we will be to our descendants who will live just TWO CENTURIES from now.

Deep, huh?

P.S. Got the link from this Cracked.com article [http://www.cracked.com/article_20216_5-insane-theories-about-why-we-havent-discovered-alien-life.html].

 

[Arakasi]

I don't think it'll slow down, it just tends to boom in the places where you don't expect it.

For example, we still don't have flying cars and robot maids.

 

[Candidus]

I think there are things that must soon be achieved technologically that are so monumental in scope (and cost) that we will find ourselves saying something like: "We've gone as far as we can as a planet full of individual nations with their own private, finite resources. Either we start behaving like a planet of one race, or we're probably stuck here 'till something wipes us out."

So rather than saying we will slow down, I think that our advancements in certain areas will threaten to slow down unless we change the way we divide our world.

 

[Albino Boo]

the reason for technological booms is usually due to distribution of information i would say with the interwebs we have reached the peak of information distribution and the only thing holding us back now is things like proprietary use of tech, patents and product secrecy due to profiteering

if you can imagine a world where the second someone discovers a new technology, potential cure for a disease or scientific theory it is instantly distributed to the world to be researched and improved upon then that there is the highest form of advancement humanity will ever have short of having self improving computers do our research for us

Why is anyone going to spend the $200 odd million that it takes develop things like the Ipad, new medications or a new processor if someone can come along and copy it without paying the development costs? Without protection where is the money going to come from? The 70 years of government controlled research under communism hardly produced spectacular results or do you think the scanning electron microscopes or nmr machines come free?

 

[lechat]

the reason for technological booms is usually due to distribution of information i would say with the interwebs we have reached the peak of information distribution and the only thing holding us back now is things like proprietary use of tech, patents and product secrecy due to profiteering

if you can imagine a world where the second someone discovers a new technology, potential cure for a disease or scientific theory it is instantly distributed to the world to be researched and improved upon then that there is the highest form of advancement humanity will ever have short of having self improving computers do our research for us

Why is anyone going to spend the $200 odd million that it takes develop things like the Ipad, new medications or a new processor if someone can come along and copy it without paying the development costs? Without protection where is the money going to come from? The 70 years of government controlled research under communism hardly produced spectacular results or do you think the scanning electron microscopes or nmr machines come free?

you would more than likely have to move to a cash free society one where all needs are met and the only purpose of the human race is helping the human race
never gonna happen under capitalism obviously

 

[Albino Boo]

the reason for technological booms is usually due to distribution of information i would say with the interwebs we have reached the peak of information distribution and the only thing holding us back now is things like proprietary use of tech, patents and product secrecy due to profiteering

if you can imagine a world where the second someone discovers a new technology, potential cure for a disease or scientific theory it is instantly distributed to the world to be researched and improved upon then that there is the highest form of advancement humanity will ever have short of having self improving computers do our research for us

Why is anyone going to spend the $200 odd million that it takes develop things like the Ipad, new medications or a new processor if someone can come along and copy it without paying the development costs? Without protection where is the money going to come from? The 70 years of government controlled research under communism hardly produced spectacular results or do you think the scanning electron microscopes or nmr machines come free?

you would more than likely have to move to a cash free society one where all needs are met and the only purpose of the human race is helping the human race
never gonna happen under capitalism obviously

Well its the taxes generated by capitalism that pays for education, roads, health and pensions. It also creates enough wealth for people to be able to spend money on games. How many people working in the foxcon factory can afford the product they make? The worst legal conditions in the west are the better than the average legal conditions in China. Why do think people are throwing themselves off the roof, nothing to do with the unaccountable power of the state of coarse backing employers. Who has a higher standard of living the average Chinese person or the average western person? Do you purpose that personal freedoms and the higher standard of living be sacrificed on the alter of the greater good? Every time that has been done its always resulted in mass murder.

 

[MintberryCrunch]

you would more than likely have to move to a cash free society one where all needs are met and the only purpose of the human race is helping the human race
never gonna happen under capitalism obviously

While that would be lovely, a basic premise of the human condition is the reason communism or a cash-free society wouldn't work; people like to feel like they are being rewarded for their efforts right now, and want to see some tangible improvement to their lives before others (obviously there are exceptions but I'm speaking generally).
Also, switching from capitalism to communism in the state of affairs the world is in now (or indeed at any time I suppose) would cause mass rioting. Nobody who earns a decent wage is going to take being thrown out of their home because 'they don't need it'.

OT: As has been said before, technology was never stagnant, there was just a period in which scientific pursuits were persecuted, slowing progress down rather than halting it. It will likely be that technology does not slow down, at least not for a long time yet (Interstellar travel, FTL, etc).

 

[Thaluikhain]

Our society's technology boom will last as long as our society does. Kind of a meaningless statement, as it's such a big part of our society, though.

But, should WW3 dial back the clock a few centuries, yeah, no new high-tech gear for a while, just new ways of doing things we could have done 200 years ago.

 

[DasDestroyer]

The better our tech, the easier it is to make better tech, so unless something drastic happens, our technological boom will only continue accelerating.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

Moore's Law - the theory that the number of transistors we can fit on a given area halves every 18-24 months - is still more or less in play.
There is a "wall" to that law where we will hit the barrier of silicon density (around 10nm-14nm process, we're currently on 28nm), at which point it will be impossible to cram any more transistors on a silicon die and that's about as small as we'll be able to make microchips.
BUT that's assuming that we don't find a successor to silicon, which at the moment is looking like graphene.

Sorry if the above paragraph makes no sense. To put it bluntly, the rough progression of technology falls in line with how small we can make transistors and how many we can cram onto a chip. The smaller things get, the more powerful we can make technology without bloating it in size. This applies to everything that is based on microchips - phones, computers, watches, etc.

 

[unindexedsearchengine]

I'm divided on this issue.
Firstly, at the rate of technological advancement, we are bound to hit our limits soon, and will have to wait a long-long time till the next big thing, and I believe that that's a good thing on one hand, since technological advancement slows evolution. For evolution to progress, we need things to adapt to, obstacles to overcome. If technology solves all our problems for us, then evolution will slow down drastically, even halt.

On the other hand, technological advancement is a consecutive process, if advanced enough, we will have the ability to advance further. As it advances, the time required to advance decreases. If we are lucky, we may live to see Science-fiction becoming science-reality.

Seeing those two sides, I'll roll with no. In fact the rate of advancement will increase for all we know, and I welcome it.

 

[ImperialSunlight]

to the point where we enter another age of technological stasis

We didn't have a technological stasis before the Industrial Revolution. How do you think we got the IR in the first place? Technology is constantly adapting and evolving, just at varying rates. Problems still need to be solved, and backwards thinking doesn't really stop it that much. It's the ability to disseminate information that has sped this whole process up.

Also it depends on what technology you're talking about. Computer and biotech is likely going to increase dramatically in the next 50 years. Space technology has comparatively stagnated in the last 40 years.

Technological development slowing to a crawl as we reach the apex of what we can achieve before the next big leap in human innovation.

We're nowhere close to that at the moment. The IR was a huge turning point; the invention of the transistor was the other. I'd say the technology we'd need to really advance would be FTL travel. The Solar System is going to be colonized and economically exploited in the next century or two. We might very well stagnate if the ability to exploit more resources dries up.

Also the possibility of stagnation might come from VR, where we no longer care about the physical world because we can all live our fantasy.

I know we weren't technically in a stasis, but there was a point in human development where we spent thousands of years making just basic tools. Likewise, until the rise of agriculture, it just wasn't feasible to build large scale societies because we lacked the technology to support the food demand. The IR just kicked things up at an exponential rate, but there's no way of knowing if it will continue on like this, going ever faster. It may dry up until we reach the next big leap, and we might have another thousand year or so period where our rate of advancement is slow.

Though the most recent 1000 or so year stall in development was largely due to the fall of the Roman Empire and resulting loss of progress. If that hadn't happened, civilization in 2013 would likely be far more advanced than it currently is. It wasn't because we only could make basic tools, or that technology couldn't meet the food demand, it was that everyone but the elite were completely illiterate and all scientific progress was hindered by a draconian ruling class of religious zealots. The stall in progress you seem to refer to occurred in ancient times when we did not have the luxury of having a class of people who's job is scientific advancement rather than gathering food. I don't really see any reason that such a thing could recur any time soon.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Firstly, at the rate of technological advancement, we are bound to hit our limits soon, and will have to wait a long-long time till the next big thing,

Why? And what limits?

since technological advancement slows evolution. For evolution to progress, we need things to adapt to, obstacles to overcome. If technology solves all our problems for us, then evolution will slow down drastically, even halt.

That's not true. Firstly, if technological advancement slowed or stopped evolution, it'd still take hundreds of millenia to make a difference. Technological advancement isn't going to take a pause for a century, let alone a single millenia.

Secondly, technological advancement doesn't slow evolution. It doesn't matter if the environment is naturally or artificially created, creatures best adapted to it will do best. Now, it's true that survival pressures can be lessened by technology, but that's not a matter of continuous advancement doing that.

OTOH, I will accept that technological advancement could possibly keep changing society too rapidly for there to be a consistent environment for creatures to evolve in.

 

[unindexedsearchengine]

Firstly, at the rate of technological advancement, we are bound to hit our limits soon, and will have to wait a long-long time till the next big thing,

Why? And what limits?

since technological advancement slows evolution. For evolution to progress, we need things to adapt to, obstacles to overcome. If technology solves all our problems for us, then evolution will slow down drastically, even halt.

That's not true. Firstly, if technological advancement slowed or stopped evolution, it'd still take hundreds of millenia to make a difference. Technological advancement isn't going to take a pause for a century, let alone a single millenia.

Secondly, technological advancement doesn't slow evolution. It doesn't matter if the environment is naturally or artificially created, creatures best adapted to it will do best. Now, it's true that survival pressures can be lessened by technology, but that's not a matter of continuous advancement doing that.

OTOH, I will accept that technological advancement could possibly keep changing society too rapidly for there to be a consistent environment for creatures to evolve in.

Regarding our limits, raping our planet for resources to a point of making it uninhabitable prior to us finding a solution is a pretty big one, among others.


As for evolution, it is constant because we constantly adapt to out environment. Now, if through technology, we adapt our environment to us, evolution is unnecessary, it will eventually stop facilitating. If the rate of technological advancement increases, then this becomes and even more likely scenario. However I did word that incorrectly, as the organic part of evolution will end, and we will simply have to redefine it. Through technology we will take evolution into our own hands, and the natural process will be eliminated due to inefficiency.