Tell Us Dammit: The Future

32 responses to “Tell Us Dammit: The Future”

1. 

   Trjn

   September 6, 2012 at 11:02 am

   If we don’t have hoverboards in less than 3 years, there will be hell to pay.

   Reply
   1. 

      Saturday

      September 6, 2012 at 11:10 am

      along with self-lacing shoes, of course.

      Reply
      1. 

         DogMan

         September 6, 2012 at 11:29 am

         Nike already made those.

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         1. 

            Saturday

            September 6, 2012 at 11:32 am

            yeah but they’re not self-lacing.

            Reply
            1. 

               James Mac

               September 6, 2012 at 11:47 am

               There’s a self lacing version on you tube.

   2. 

      Rowan

      September 6, 2012 at 11:11 am

      i can make you a hoverboard today if you so wish, wont be anything like the one in bttf but it will work

      Reply
2. 

   Meteors

   September 6, 2012 at 11:33 am

   Alien is a 70s version of the future.

   Reply
3. 

   DanMazkin

   September 6, 2012 at 11:36 am

   Holographic 3D displays with VR devices. The controller will survive, but physical retail games will be gone thanks to cheap superfast interwebs. All games will being purchased through a system (or systems) simillar to Steam or iTunes, with the console developers resort to only making the hardware to access the unified system and play the games, kind of like how DVD players of any make can play any DVD. You choose which version you want to download according to what system you have (like choosing Mac or PC on steam) and the version will be adjusted accordingly.

   Reply
   1. 

      DanMazkin

      September 6, 2012 at 11:37 am

      or something.

      Reply
4. 

   bob

   September 6, 2012 at 11:39 am

   I think computers controlled with the brain wont be too far off.

   Reply
   1. 

      GerminalConsequence

      September 6, 2012 at 12:36 pm

      They’re already here. Or at least, input device control via the mind. (eg. Braingate)

      Reply
5. 

   NegativeZero

   September 6, 2012 at 11:40 am

   Head-mounted displays and Augmented / Virtual Reality tech is going to come back in a big way. Apple and Google are already going there with their glasses stuff, and that Oculus Rift thing is making a splash too, but it’s only the precursor.

   This is the endgame.

   Reply
6. 

   Matthew K

   September 6, 2012 at 12:03 pm

   I think it’s amusing that in both the 1970s and the 1990s, there was a considerable difference in technology portrayed by the 100-year gap between Star Trek the Original Series and TNG/DS9/Voyager, but our actual technological advancements in the 20 year gap between those series were actually much more impressive – and again in the 20 years since!

   For some reason helm controls on a star ship are made up of an oscilloscope and some toggle switches like some WW2-era submarine, but they’ve finally figured out touch screen technology a century later? We have touch-screen tablets now that are way more impressive than Padds.

   You have to think about the kind of post-apocalyptic future Star Trek really is when you consider that a short range communicator in the year 2273 has less functionality than an iPhone.

   In short, anything I say that is a remotely plausible projection for what life will be like in, say, the year 2050, will be laughable dated by 2020. Anything that’s implausble will probably be more accurate but probably divergent from where we end up.

   So I’m going to go with the most ridiculous thing I can think of:

   Once we discover that faster than light travel, planetary terraforming and colonization is not actually possible and we can never live on Mars or leave our own solar system, we will respond to overpopulation by shrinking every person and man-made structure on the planet so as to make more efficient use of our dwindling natural resources.

   Reply
   1. 

      Saturday

      September 6, 2012 at 12:18 pm

      A valid prediction, but I would think that if we have gained the resources needed to have a shrink ray capable of reducing one’s size, we would have some significant progress toward space travel and the likes.

      Reply
   2. 

      spanner

      September 6, 2012 at 12:31 pm

      The TNG style was at least partly the result of the lower available budgets for TV. There simply wasn’t the money to make the set look like a straight-line evolution from contemporary bomber cockpits a la the Millenium Falcon or the Nostromo, with physical switches and buttons everywhere.

      Reply
      1. 

         James Mac

         September 6, 2012 at 3:58 pm

         I can’t believe they decided with manouvers across so many axis there was no need for a joystick style device.

         Reply
7. 

   doubleDizz

   September 6, 2012 at 12:12 pm

   I, like many, still think there is a wealth of prediction in science fiction. But there is also a lot of sh.t.

   I think Minority Report (minus the clairvoyance and utopian road infrastructure) was pretty spot on.

   Reply
   1. 

      doubleDizz

      September 6, 2012 at 12:13 pm

      oh and the jetpacks. cr.p. haha

      Freeing our hands from our smart phones seems the next big leap.

      Reply
      1. 

         Ponton

         September 6, 2012 at 1:01 pm

         eyePhone!

         Reply
8. 

   Dire Wolf

   September 6, 2012 at 12:15 pm

   In the distant future two worlds will exist, reality and virtual. Both of these will be considered equally valid places to live, with people going years without stepping foot outside of their virtual world or reality. Physical bodies will be throw away things, machines made from organic and synthetic parts on automated assembly lines to look like anything imaginable. A person, an animal, a 60 foot tall demon. People will load their minds into these bodies and use them as avatars to interact with the real world. Most people will have multiple bodies stationed around the galaxy that they can load into. Want to go from Earth to Mars? You won’t catch a spaceship, you’ll simply beam your consciousness from a body located on Earth to one located on Mars.

   Death will essential be eliminated. Everyone will have multiple back ups of their mind. If you’re physical body is threatened, your mind will automatically be uploaded to the virtual world where it will be safe.

   The definition of life as we know it will change. Artificial minds will be just as prominent in society as people who’s minds come from an organic brain. There will be people who are born entirely in the virtual world.

   Between the virtual world and the technological advances in the real world, every single need will be met. In the virtual world people will be able to have whatever they want with the snap of a finger. In the real world, people would be able to almost anything they need from automated factories turning out free products of anything you can imagine. Because people can now get what ever they want, whenever they want it, without having to work for it, and because things like death have been eliminated, people will become bored with life. This will lead to them inventing games, scenarios they build up where they impose unbreakable rules upon themselves. A virtual world that has a set of rules that can’t be changed. If you enter one of those worlds, you cannot leave it until you die in that world, and if you die in that world, you can never go back. Worlds where you can’t just conjure anything you want with the snap of your fingers but instead have to work towards things. Worlds where, as I mentioned above, death is a reality. You won’t actually die, your consciousness will simply be kicked out of the world, but you will be unable to re-enter it, unable to see the people from that world you’ve grown to love until they to die. It will be the closest thing to simulating what life was like before all this new technology came along. Of course the worlds wouldn’t just be emulating what real life was like before technology, you’d get worlds where the laws of science are completely different to reality, worlds with magic and super heroes, but the whole working towards goals and the threat of death would be the same as real life.

   These simulations would also be present in the physical world. People would inhabit bodies and impose limitations upon those bodies so life doesn’t become too easy. They’d go to certain parts of space that have been set up not to include those automated factories I mentioned above so people would have to work for and build their own things.

   Our civilization will constantly be expanding. We’ll have auto piloted ships traveling in every single direction in the universe, constantly depositing computers/servers/nodes/whatever that will increase the range of our virtual world and allow people to transport their consciousness to new unexplored regions of space. They’ll also be depositing automated machines that will harvest minerals from planets and build factories from which new bodies can be built for people to inhabit in these new reaches of space and new products for them to use. These automated spaceships will also of course be depositing inhabitable bodies themselves so some people can jump straight onto a new world right away without having to wait for a factory to build them a body.

   In the end it will be like our galaxy is its own living entity, with quadrillions or more human minds flying around the galaxy and quadrillions or more people located in physical bodies conversing the galaxy. And we’ll keep expanding into other galaxies, like a great wave ever racing outwards. It is the final evolution of the human race.

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   1. 

      tom

      September 6, 2012 at 12:28 pm

      tl;dr. maybe later if i can be f**ked

      Reply
      1. 

         Jiff

         September 6, 2012 at 12:34 pm

         It’s a good thing you told everyone!
         Otherwise..

         Reply
   2. 

      Jiff

      September 6, 2012 at 12:41 pm

      Nice!
      I like the general theme that struggle and death are never eliminated from humanity, even if we have the means to do so.

      Reply
9. 

   Michael

   September 6, 2012 at 12:24 pm

   I want to know why we don’t have flying cars yet dammit.

   And teleporters. Where are out teleporters?

   Reply
   1. 

      AuraWolfe

      September 6, 2012 at 12:29 pm

      Flying cars are planes, flying busses are jumbo jet.

      Reply
   2. 

      GerminalConsequence

      September 6, 2012 at 12:33 pm

      You can teleport now. If you are a quantum particle.

      Reply
10. 

    Bish

    September 6, 2012 at 12:25 pm

    I expect to be older in the future.
    I think that’s how time works, not quite sure anymore.

    Reply
    1. 

       Tigerion

       September 6, 2012 at 10:10 pm

       It hasn’t happened in the last 60 years, I think hope is lost for you on that one Bish

       Reply
11. 

    GerminalConsequence

    September 6, 2012 at 12:32 pm

    My prognostication is that if it isn’t a post-apocalyptic wasteland style future, then it will be something akin to the Matrix crossed with Inception (The scene with the people living their lives in the dreamworld) in that everyone will be hooked up to a device and living in a virtual reality of their own choosing without ever wanting to return to the real world.

    Reply
12. 

    Jiff

    September 6, 2012 at 12:46 pm

    I envision a future where everything is like today, but faster and shinier. Face it, hoverboards aren’t happening. I’m a cynical old bastard.

    Reply
13. 

    Jickle

    September 6, 2012 at 1:42 pm

    Ape uprising.

    Reply
14. 

    Azza

    September 6, 2012 at 1:42 pm

    In the future man and woman will evolve into the same gender – the oman. Procreation will be achieved via an extremely versatile phallus, entering the anus and offspring will be spewed forth from the parents mouth. Omen will not wear clothes as shame has its roots based in sexual competition. Media will no longer use sex as an advertising tool – instead it will be replaced by detailed factual information weighing both cost and benefit. Society will begin showing cracks as omens motivation for success plummets – no longer needing to impress a potential companion they cease showing the innovation, creativity or drive that pushes their civilisation forward. Omen will not know who to go to when the jar is too hard to open.

    Reply