What are your top 5 technologies of the next 15 years?

[Crazy Eddie]

RAMA wrote:

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This assumes everything will be exactly as it is now, and as we have seen, this is exactly how it will NOT be.

"As we have seen?" That paradigm has persisted for three thousand years now: the existing power structure goes out of its way to shape the social/political/legal landscape to its own advantage. The only thing that ever changes is the identities of the people in charge.

Linear thinking like this is no longer the model to go by. The economics will be very different a few decades, as Ive mentioned in just a few examples. The world is already being brought out of poverty, contrary to popular belief.

Actually "The world is being brought out of poverty" is the popular belief lately. Interestingly, it's a belief that is not shared by the inhabitants of poor countries.

What you're describing, actually, is the doctrine of "globalism," which is the belief that poverty -- at least on a national scale -- results from a lack of opportunity to compete in a global marketplace, and that increased technology and open-trade policies will make competitive markets available to those poor workers for the first time. The idea being that peasant farmers in China wouldn't still be peasants if Ford opened a car factory down the road and hired them to work in it.

In practice, globalism doesn't so much raise the standard of living for poor countries as much as dramatically lowers it for everyone else. When working-class families in New York are competing with Chinese peasants over a manufacturing job, the New Yorkers find themselves outclassed by the latters' willingness to work for next to nothing, plus China's suspicious lack of enforcement of child labor laws. IOW, it doesn't raise the entire world out of poverty, it just sets everyone on an equal playing field where poverty can be used as a competitive advantage.

With economic influence equal and info tech availability widespread

That's just it: "economic influence" really boils down to money. Specifically, the value of the commodities you control and the resources you consume, and what price you set for those commodities on the market. A country whose economy consists mainly of sweatshops making car parts for GM doesn't have a lot of economic influence, unless their workers unionize and go on strike for a better deal. In a globalist economy, that is economic suicide: the workers go on strike, GM has a billion potential scabs it can fly in from the slums of Indonesia to take those jobs.

Tech availability also boils down to money. 40% of the human race lives on an income of less than $700 a year, and another 20% live on about half of that. The only way that technology is going to become widely available is if people go out of their way to distribute it for the sake of the poor themselves (like the One Laptop Per Child program) and even that requires the direct cooperation of governments and NGOs to be economically viable. If and when those programs become TOO successful -- when the technology uplifts the population to the point of being able to overturn the existing power structure in their countries -- that cooperation turns into opposition. That much has ALREADY happened; witness the censorship and technology restrictions in some of the more autocratic regimes, notably Saudi Arabia and China.

The widespread distribution you're talking about will be a symptom of an economic/political revolution, but it will NOT be its cause; history shows that it virtually never is.

this type of class control will be virtually nil. At this point, there is already nothing they can do about it.

At this point, they're ALREADY doing quite a bit about it and they've been very successful so far, especially where "send in the army, shoot anyone who complains" is still a viable tactic of control. iPads, AFAIK, aren't bulletproof, and the ability of Sunni Iraqis to buy one isn't going to make much difference if the government decides to put them down hard.

[Crazy Eddie]

T'Girl wrote:

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How would that work with my motorcycle? Or will those be outlawed?

Same way it would work with a care that isn't self-driven. Like I said, it would probably be used for highway driving first before it's ever used in an urban environment; if anything changes at all it would be traffic laws, but in this case the self-driving cars would probably be considerably safer than the manually-driven ones they share the road with (unless, of course, the driver takes a nap on the highway and doesn't wake up before the car stops at the off-ramp, in which case we have a "snooze driver traffic jam.")

In an urban environment things MIGHT be a little different, but only because the developers have to figure out how to get the automatic drivers to interact with other vehicles that may or may not be automatic. With the kind of sensors and decision-making software those kinds of cars would have, motorcyclists -- and more importantly, bicyclists -- would probably find their lives considerably less hazardous.

And I was wondering, if a "self driving vehicle" is the cause of property damage or a fatality, who would be the legally responsible party? Surely not the vehicle owner, who is required by law to have one installed and to employ it.

What makes you think it would it be required by law?

Anyway, if the car crashes into something on autodrive, that would probably be treated as a mechanical failure (similar to, say, if your brakes suddenly fail before you get to a red light). If your lucky, your insurance would cover that; if not, you COULD try to sue the manufacturer and prove the auto-drive is defective, though you'd probably loose.

[RAMA]

Of course when viewing the world in human lifespans the march of technology will probably be seen as slower, but again this is accelerating, for myself in an industrialized country, I can see this change magnified already, in Africa this will obviously appear even slower, but regardless, according to UN data, the world is more prosperous than in the entire history of humankind, this is a fact, despite the current recession. I also pointed out already that the stock market is undervalued by a massive amount, and if this wealth was appraised correctly, it would add trillions to the world economy.

[sojourner]

Well, it's a good thing you know it's under valued. Better get those appraisers informed pronto.

[RAMA]

sojourner wrote:

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Well, it's a good thing you know it's under valued. Better get those appraisers informed pronto.

Yes, because the modern intuitive linear forecasting is based on linear models, the market is undervalued by about a third...an exponential model would conservatively increase the market value by 3 times..from roughly $40 trillion to $120 trillion. Eventually this model will have to replace the current outdated one.

As for the some of the other economic issues:

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_roslin...ever_seen.html

http://www.businessweek.com/articles...business-reads

http://pricesignals.blogspot.com/201...abundance.html

[Crazy Eddie]

RAMA wrote:

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according to UN data, the world is more prosperous than in the entire history of humankind

Good for "the world." But you're smart enough to realize that this could still be true even if two billion people were eating out of dumpsters. A massive growth of prosperity doesn't mean much if it isn't evenly distributed among the broader population.

And it hasn't been. The majority of it has been concentrated in a collection of highly industrialized nations and in a handful of regions in which they are heavily invested. Meanwhile, there are 600 million people in the world who are having a really good day if they get to eat anything at all.

I also pointed out already that the stock market is undervalued by a massive amount, and if this wealth was appraised correctly, it would add trillions to the world economy.

Which sort of underscores my point, doesn't it? How many people in the world actually participate in the stock market, let alone derive a significant portion of their wealth from it? Those trillions of dollars would end up in the hands of a handful of enormous multinational firms and a few thousand extremely well-connected politicians and investors. That leaves the rest of us S.O.L.

[RAMA]

newtype_alpha wrote:

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Good for "the world." But you're smart enough to realize that this could still be true even if two billion people were eating out of dumpsters. A massive growth of prosperity doesn't mean much if it isn't evenly distributed among the broader population.

And it hasn't been. The majority of it has been concentrated in a collection of highly industrialized nations and in a handful of regions in which they are heavily invested. Meanwhile, there are 600 million people in the world who are having a really good day if they get to eat anything at all.

Which sort of underscores my point, doesn't it? How many people in the world actually participate in the stock market, let alone derive a significant portion of their wealth from it? Those trillions of dollars would end up in the hands of a handful of enormous multinational firms and a few thousand extremely well-connected politicians and investors. That leaves the rest of us S.O.L.

No, as the data shows, there is a rising in the actual poor, and the poorest 1 billion for that matter...this is happening over the last 50 years, but increasing in the last decade. Technology has a lot to do with it, information has a lot to do with it...much as it has with overthrowing dictators in Arab states in recent years (also a good sign for technological acceptance in the near future). What people are failing to realize, or realizing very gradually is that the climate for real change is actually happening for the first time in human history. The old patterns of economics will not apply...despite the fact the wealth still resides with the richest few percent of the planet, this will change.

Actually no, more than ever large corporations as well as individual technological philanthropists (Google, Microsoft, execs for example) are investing in the very same technologies that lead to increasing wealth in developing worlds...clean water technologies, energy production, smartphones, etc.

http://pricesignals.blogspot.com/201...abundance.html

RAMA

[RAMA]

It occurred to me, another honorable mention for technology of the future would be wi-fi!! Ok, so wi-fi is proliferating right now, but the implications of the dematerilization affect of wi-fi shouldnt be ignored...its also useful in poorer countries that have inferior infrastructure. In fact don't be surprised if Africa and other "Third World" countries totally bypass several of the technological stages other industrialized nations passed through before them.

RAMA

[Crazy Eddie]

RAMA wrote:

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No, as the data shows, there is a rising in the actual poor, and the poorest 1 billion for that matter...

No, there's a rise in poor countries, which is a very different situation. It remains significant that the richest man in the world currently resides in a country where twelve million people thought they would be better off illegally moving into the United States. It is equally significant that some of the most dramatic economic gains have been made in India, a country whose ongoing caste system and income inequality are -- and apparently have always been -- of truly epic proportions. Meanwhile there are huge regions of the world that have actually gotten poorer in the past fifty years, gripped by post-colonial strife, civil wars and general anarchy that has taken its toll on what little infrastructure they had left; these areas record a loss of GDP only because the local millionaires fled the country for greener pasteurs rather than protect their private empires at home (I've heard it said that the GDP of Liberia dropped by 300% every time Charles Taylor stepped on an airplane).

Technology is making information more available to everyone, true, but information alone isn't equivalent to money, nor can information alone solve the kinds of social problems these regions experience or alleviate the poverty that stifles many of them from developing. The right kind of technology in the right hands could do a lot to turn things around, and PRESENTLY there is no particular barrier to sharing that technology, other than the general lack of willingness on the part of the industrial world to share that technology without getting anything in return. The thing you have to take into account is that ultimately that technology is still controlled -- directly or indirectly -- by a handful of wealthy elites at the top of the current power structure, and they are VERY good at preventing potential competitors from usurping their position.

What people are failing to realize, or realizing very gradually is that the climate for real change is actually happening for the first time in human history.

The climate for real change has ALWAYS been around. Just not everywhere at once, and not always for the better. Such is still the case today: the same technology that can be used to uplift the peasants can just as easily be used to enslave them.

Actually no, more than ever large corporations as well as individual technological philanthropists (Google, Microsoft, execs for example) are investing in the very same technologies that lead to increasing wealth in developing worlds...clean water technologies, energy production, smartphones, etc.

They're not the ones we need to be worried about.

[Crazy Eddie]

RAMA wrote:

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It occurred to me, another honorable mention for technology of the future would be wi-fi!! Ok, so wi-fi is proliferating right now, but the implications of the dematerilization affect of wi-fi shouldnt be ignored...

"Dematerliazation affect"? You DO realize that in any modern battlefield, the local WiFi infrastructure is ALREADY considered to be a primary target, and depending as it does on remote base stations it's considerably easier to disrupt than landlines or conventional wireless radio.

its also useful in poorer countries that have inferior infrastructure. In fact don't be surprised if Africa and other "Third World" countries totally bypass several of the technological stages other industrialized nations passed through before them.

If they do so, they do it at their own peril. Despite the media hype to the contrary, the telecommunications industry makes most of its money on robustness and reliability, not on the "newness" of its wares. That's one of the reasons why fiber-optics is still widely used despite the advent of satellite communications: not every solution is appropriate for every situation, and the newest/fanciest solution rarely is.

[RAMA]

newtype_alpha wrote:

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"Dematerliazation affect"? You DO realize that in any modern battlefield, the local WiFi infrastructure is ALREADY considered to be a primary target, and depending as it does on remote base stations it's considerably easier to disrupt than landlines or conventional wireless radio.

If they do so, they do it at their own peril. Despite the media hype to the contrary, the telecommunications industry makes most of its money on robustness and reliability, not on the "newness" of its wares. That's one of the reasons why fiber-optics is still widely used despite the advent of satellite communications: not every solution is appropriate for every situation, and the newest/fanciest solution rarely is.

Happily war is also becoming extinct...we are living in the most peaceful time (relatively) in human history.

Wifi and its dematerialization affect still make LESS to target than the previous more local hardware based communication in war.

With newness in the 21st century comes more rapid maturity...

RAMA

[RAMA]

newtype_alpha wrote:

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No, there's a rise in poor countries, which is a very different situation. It remains significant that the richest man in the world currently resides in a country where twelve million people thought they would be better off illegally moving into the United States. It is equally significant that some of the most dramatic economic gains have been made in India, a country whose ongoing caste system and income inequality are -- and apparently have always been -- of truly epic proportions. Meanwhile there are huge regions of the world that have actually gotten poorer in the past fifty years, gripped by post-colonial strife, civil wars and general anarchy that has taken its toll on what little infrastructure they had left; these areas record a loss of GDP only because the local millionaires fled the country for greener pasteurs rather than protect their private empires at home (I've heard it said that the GDP of Liberia dropped by 300% every time Charles Taylor stepped on an airplane).

Technology is making information more available to everyone, true, but information alone isn't equivalent to money, nor can information alone solve the kinds of social problems these regions experience or alleviate the poverty that stifles many of them from developing. The right kind of technology in the right hands could do a lot to turn things around, and PRESENTLY there is no particular barrier to sharing that technology, other than the general lack of willingness on the part of the industrial world to share that technology without getting anything in return. The thing you have to take into account is that ultimately that technology is still controlled -- directly or indirectly -- by a handful of wealthy elites at the top of the current power structure, and they are VERY good at preventing potential competitors from usurping their position.

The climate for real change has ALWAYS been around. Just not everywhere at once, and not always for the better. Such is still the case today: the same technology that can be used to uplift the peasants can just as easily be used to enslave them.

They're not the ones we need to be worried about.

Agreed, the stats show the greatest wealth amongst the smallest percentage in the world, but as I said, there are more people over the poverty line than ever (as measured by the UN), and as the video I posted also demonstrates, the level of material wealth within poverty is also much higher in industrialized nations, even the "poor" in the USA live lives that would have been considered impossible 50-100 yrs ago. As information becomes widespread (and the coming of microloans which allow poor people access to such info and communication, as well as increasing the local economy) people won't stand for being left behind anymore. We are seeing this already happen in the world. Millions will be brought out of poverty and BILLIONS more will have access to the internet in the coming decades. Eventually I see a blurring of the distinction between the haves and have nots, while some may not have the economic influence they will have other measures of influence and possessions that will bring the bar closer and then disappear if there is a singularity.

RAMA

[RAMA]

newtype_alpha wrote:

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"As we have seen?" That paradigm has persisted for three thousand years now: the existing power structure goes out of its way to shape the social/political/legal landscape to its own advantage. The only thing that ever changes is the identities of the people in charge.

Actually "The world is being brought out of poverty" is the popular belief lately. Interestingly, it's a belief that is not shared by the inhabitants of poor countries.

What you're describing, actually, is the doctrine of "globalism," which is the belief that poverty -- at least on a national scale -- results from a lack of opportunity to compete in a global marketplace, and that increased technology and open-trade policies will make competitive markets available to those poor workers for the first time. The idea being that peasant farmers in China wouldn't still be peasants if Ford opened a car factory down the road and hired them to work in it.

In practice, globalism doesn't so much raise the standard of living for poor countries as much as dramatically lowers it for everyone else. When working-class families in New York are competing with Chinese peasants over a manufacturing job, the New Yorkers find themselves outclassed by the latters' willingness to work for next to nothing, plus China's suspicious lack of enforcement of child labor laws. IOW, it doesn't raise the entire world out of poverty, it just sets everyone on an equal playing field where poverty can be used as a competitive advantage.

That's just it: "economic influence" really boils down to money. Specifically, the value of the commodities you control and the resources you consume, and what price you set for those commodities on the market. A country whose economy consists mainly of sweatshops making car parts for GM doesn't have a lot of economic influence, unless their workers unionize and go on strike for a better deal. In a globalist economy, that is economic suicide: the workers go on strike, GM has a billion potential scabs it can fly in from the slums of Indonesia to take those jobs.

Tech availability also boils down to money. 40% of the human race lives on an income of less than $700 a year, and another 20% live on about half of that. The only way that technology is going to become widely available is if people go out of their way to distribute it for the sake of the poor themselves (like the One Laptop Per Child program) and even that requires the direct cooperation of governments and NGOs to be economically viable. If and when those programs become TOO successful -- when the technology uplifts the population to the point of being able to overturn the existing power structure in their countries -- that cooperation turns into opposition. That much has ALREADY happened; witness the censorship and technology restrictions in some of the more autocratic regimes, notably Saudi Arabia and China.

The widespread distribution you're talking about will be a symptom of an economic/political revolution, but it will NOT be its cause; history shows that it virtually never is.

At this point, they're ALREADY doing quite a bit about it and they've been very successful so far, especially where "send in the army, shoot anyone who complains" is still a viable tactic of control. iPads, AFAIK, aren't bulletproof, and the ability of Sunni Iraqis to buy one isn't going to make much difference if the government decides to put them down hard.

As seen in the Abundance video I posted, there is a great possibility that gov'ts will not be able to regulate the exponential advances already happening, they won't be able to handle the overflow of developments or the implications that will be wide ranging and global. In many cases, the gov'ts (even the US) are too backwards to realize what is happening. In fact most observers agree it's already too late to stop exponential growth.

Microloans are making those people who make under the poverty level able to buy cell phone or buy $35 e-pads. Technophilanthropists are bringing MILLIONS of technological items into poor countries, changing the local economies. Clean water tech allows people to not travel for their water, often taking half a day of work time. It allows them to not call out of work due to illness brought on by dirty water, or allows them to get a job in the first place. There's a huge economic impact with clean water technology.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...4lgU8JANTaLEvQ

As far as the the Chinese family willing to work for less in the global marketplace, again, technology comes into play. One example: Using electricity costs the same in most countries, automating more makes the US competitive again as robots replace workers. This equalizes the income advantage. Workers of course will have to be re-educated and "upgraded" out of less technological jobs of course.

Finally, because a paradigm has been happening for a long time does not mean there won't be a new paradigm. We are only now just becoming wise and aware enough to see the new paradigm.

http://www.freakonomics.com/2012/04/...our-questions/

RAMA

[sojourner]

As long as we are stuck on this rapidly overcrowding mudball I don't think things will turn out as rosey as you think.

[RAMA]

sojourner wrote:

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As long as we are stuck on this rapidly overcrowding mudball I don't think things will turn out as rosey as you think.

Here come the techno-philanthropists...Google execs and James Cameron are already planning on mining asteroids...one small step. Space has resources and...space! All doom and gloom predictions of Earth's dwindling resources and over-population do not account for exponential technologies, or space tech. Virgin Galactic (originating from the X-Prize)can also make space more commonplace, giving people on Earth the sense that it's less dangerous. It could lead to more projects in the future. Looking further ahead, I've posted about smart matter...eventually if there is a singularity AI on Earth spreads into space.

Overpopulation...statistically, countries and regions that are poor tend to have higher birth rates. It's a fact as industrialized nations become more advanced the reach a population equilibrium, and the birth rates go way down. This is already happening in third world countries in the last few decades...the bottom billion are slowly making it up the ladder. China basically had a 3rd world economy till recently, the statistics are staggering! China now has tens of millions of people who have come out of poverty in the last decade.

Energy: There's a reason why energy was such a big part of my top 5 future technologies. I've been researching nuclear power. Needless to say the world is down on nuclear energy, and I'm not a fan of 3rd generation reactors myself, but there are some newer alternatives, and 4th generation reactors may be activated by 2030. The ITER and DEMO project for nuclear power could eventually make a working fusion reactor by 2030-2040. These can supply the world with brute force power in those years, and they are relatively clean. Solar energy and clean energy ARE able to meet our energy needs if we take advantage of them. Japan seems to be slowly eliminating its nuclear energy program for wind power. Fukushima will have offshore windmills where the nuclear plant used to be. The world is not going to run out of power as fossil-fuel resources run out(and they will). This is a fantasy made up by activists.

http://www.iter.org/

http://archive.org/details/jresv114n4p229

Well rosey is a strong word, there are different ways this exponential future can go, and I cant say with all certainty humans will be on the better side of it, but the potential is there. While most people today look forward and see negativity, I see possibilities. Now we have the means to make those possibilities happen, we just need to move forward with it...and in some cases, as with the techno-philanthropists, innovative companies/start-ups, and organizations like the Singularity University, they are making it a self-fulfilling prophecy by doing the work it takes to get there.