From: Bob Seidensticker (bob@future-hype.com)
Date: Mon May 01 2006 - 10:45:53 MDT
Michael: it sounds like you think technologies like nanotech and AGI are not
only inevitable but close. Why do you say that, given the poor record of
the futurist community in predicting the future? You know the long list of
failed predictions as well as I do -- moon bases, videophones, and so on.
Perhaps you don't look to the futurist community but are making these
predictions yourself, but still the difficulty of seeing the future
correctly must apply -- no?
IMO, most predictions are wrong (the bolder, the wronger!). And any
entrepreneur will tell you that it's a brutal road from invention to
product, with most new products failing somewhere along the way. Why are
you certain that these will succeed?
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sl4@sl4.org [mailto:owner-sl4@sl4.org] On Behalf Of M T
--- Bob Seidensticker <bob@future-hype.com> wrote:
> Thomas: you talk about the folly (or excessive
> expense) of moon bases, 3D
> TV, flying cars, and so on. I agree. And maybe you're able to see
> through the hype of whatever today's equivalent is (I dunno
> -- manned mission to
> Mars? hydrogen cars?).
>
> What concerns me is the majority of the population that greets these
> new predictions with, "Wow -- that *does* sound pretty cool. What an
> amazing time we live in!" Their mental bin labeled "Today's
> Technology" contains the PC, GPS, and Internet as well as
> nanotechnology, biotech, and most of our energy coming from renewable
> sources since the press talks about all of these. As a result, they
> see the progress today as being much greater than that in the past --
> but only because "Today's Technology" has an unfair advantage.
>
> Bob
Bob,
The majority of the population sees nanotechnology, renewable energy, AGI
even AI and biotech as sci-fi.
If only the general populace understood how close we were and the potential
of these technologies. If only Bob. And you can define "close" as anything
you like.
Even a couple of centuries is close, though I see it as a couple of decades
until the full bloom of the aforementioned technologies. My point is that if
"the majority of the population" understood, they would make it a top
priority and strive to make these technologies bloom as fast as possible.
PC, internet, cellular phones. That's about it for the average Joe.
The "things to come" haven't had an impact on every day life yet and so are
in the realm of fantasy (like the PC, internet and cellular phones, when
they were in their first stages of development).
Michael
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