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Where is technology headed?


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Nanotechnology. We're very close already. I think it will be exploding in about 20 years.

 

Biotechnology. Like it or not, it's here now, and will only become more pervasive.

 

Cloning. Already here. Used with biotech, we can create beings that can be "programmed" to perform tasks in environments that are impossible for humans to live and work in. Perhaps super tolerant to certain gasses, or temperature extremes. I think Asimov and others got into this ages ago.

Scary. Again... like it or not.

 

And eventually, the Thought Interface Device. Hook up to... whatever. A car, a computer, a musical intrument... whatever.

Think it, and it happens.

 

Ricky

Click on some ads once in a while!! :) -------------->
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Can't recall the name but there's a book by that techno-scientist (hope that's not too redundant :rolleyes: ) fellow Ray Kurzweil that explores many of the possibilities at a level most of us can barely touch.

I'll be back with the title soon.

Many of the actual things we deal with now were first envisioned as sci-fi plot devices & I suspect that will be true then (future then), too.

 

As I recall, on of RK's themes was/is the blending of human & machine intelligence, a trend we may think of as the computerization of the world, humans becoming "Godlike" via interlocked intelligence (Jung's universal mind?), whatever; this is illustrated by the things like increased documentation & recording of events (surveillence, etc., even when not used for "security").

It also ties in with the idea of nano-tech medicine & self-repairing mechines---especially if we become part machine.

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If only a tenth of the advancements Man has made in technology could've been made instead as advancements in understanding Man himself, we'd be a lot better off.

A small rocket-propelled explosive that can take down a large multi-engine jet is great technology, but if its being aimed by a zealot that still believes some god is on his side, what have we really accomplished? Sorry I'm on a bit of a downer today...

 

To lighten things up a bit, we still can't buy a decent fresh tomato 10 months out of the year... ;)

Botch

"Eccentric language often is symptomatic of peculiar thinking" - George Will

www.puddlestone.net

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One of the advancements Botch desires might be the realization that that tomato can't be had & the selection of something else as the goal (a different but similar fruit).

 

Apply that approach to other dilimmas (dilemmae? :rolleyes: ) & we might get somewhere.

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Much mentioned here is what we as musicians or media techs want or foresee...what about other fields?

 

The Societal Effects of High-Tech Medicine

 

[1] The first effects will likely be extensions of situations we already encounter.

Notice how medicines are increasingly marketed directly to consumers rather than through doctors?

TV & magazine ads tout the benefits of medicines with the pretended caveat to consult our physisian.

Actually they're urging us to petition our doctors to prescribe us the drugs.

 

There's also a trend toward site-removed diagnosis, that is, examination by remote data collection, video, etc.

These will combine with the increase of information dissemination on ailments (as on the Net).

 

Eventually, except for traumatic injuries, we'll dispense with consulting doctors to diagnose ailments & treatments. Instead they'll function as "prescribers", giving us license to acquire medicines we select rather than determining our treatment.

 

Exactly how this will be enacted I can't say. Will they be like travel agents getting commisions? Will they be free agents or tied to particular manufacturers?

Hard to say but despite an increasing self-diagnostic approach I doubt doctors will willingly give up their powerful, priest-like guild organization.

 

[2] Later, as the actual technology involved advances, the tiny machines inserted within us will perhaps even monitor & diagnose our condition constantly.

A simple step beyond that would be the anticipation & prevention of ailments that would seem to be developing.

 

[3] Traumatic injuries, being less predictable, may always occur but what if science finds ways to alter our physical make-up?

Might we find ways to incorporate stronger minerals (even metals) into our bones so that they're less breakable? Reinforced skin that's less easily wounded? Accelerated clotting factors in our blood to seal wounds faster?

Not to mention the repair/replacement possibilities that will result from developments in stem cell & cloning research.

 

"Moving to Montana soon

Gonna be a tissue farm tycoon..."

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Have you ever noticed that when you peer into the future things start looking ugly? Nothing is real, everything is exploited and synthetic.

 

Maybe there will be a sort of renaissance, where we will abandon many forms of technology.

 

I dunno. I love technology, but the more I look into it, the more everything starts looking like the Matrix.

 

I think the Amish might have the right idea. Live simply.

Super 8

 

Hear my stuff here

 

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Within the next couple of hundred years men will have destroyed themselves and most life of the planet.

 

In 120.000 to 150.000 years, a certain insect will have evoluated into an intelligent species and will invent nuclear energy.

 

It will start all over again.

 

The once so beautiful blue planet will turn around it's sun for the next 5 billion years, no matter what or which assholes are trying to destroy it every once in a while.

The alchemy of the masters moving molecules of air, we capture by moving particles of iron, so that the poetry of the ancients will echo into the future.
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