Biggest sci-fi tech disappointment
- Thread starter AlboOfBorg
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G
Garrovick
Guest
Keep that thought in mind when corporations live on the Moon.
Where's a vacation at Delos at only $1000 per day?
So, you're saying there is something there we need after all?
G
Garrovick
Guest
There is nothing there we need, in the future could the Moon be useful? Maybe, but not now.
There is a lot of really cool technology out there and in the future they will be available at a reasonable expense. But not now. We can't even get a Bus ride if we are more than a few miles for a city center. We have no trains, we have no alternative fuel vehicles etc.
Yet it seems some sort of magical NASA cargo run to the Moon and back is a priority.
That's why In the Future, but not now.
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Good points here.
The space program has to been seen in context with other demands on government funding.
Live, real-time, without delay, video communication in the house.
We've seen it in every SCIFI movie pretty much, one of the standards of showing that the movie is "in the future" is to show people calling people up on a video screen of some sort. They are able to both see and hear the other person, and the other person isn't just looking UP at a camera, but instead they are looking STRAIGHT into the screen and it looks like their eyes are looking directly at you, PLUS there is no delay, the picture quality is great, and it just works.
Beyond that would be mobile video communication, like on cell phones, but again, in the future, THERE IS NO DELAY like we have with cell phones now.
The video phone was tried and failed a decade or two ago, but that implementation did suck. I'm sure the technology is there now to make it a reality, especially with fiber being offered in more homes now.
We've seen it in every SCIFI movie pretty much, one of the standards of showing that the movie is "in the future" is to show people calling people up on a video screen of some sort. They are able to both see and hear the other person, and the other person isn't just looking UP at a camera, but instead they are looking STRAIGHT into the screen and it looks like their eyes are looking directly at you, PLUS there is no delay, the picture quality is great, and it just works.
Beyond that would be mobile video communication, like on cell phones, but again, in the future, THERE IS NO DELAY like we have with cell phones now.
The video phone was tried and failed a decade or two ago, but that implementation did suck. I'm sure the technology is there now to make it a reality, especially with fiber being offered in more homes now.
Sentient Robotic Slaves.
It’s no longer cool for the rich and powerful to have human slaves, at least not openly....so we have needed a replacement for years now.
There are so many uses for them:
*Love slaves aka step ford wives.
*A more easily manipulated labor force/population for said powerful.
*Better explorers for “deep space” (moon or any ware not in immediate low Earth orbit)
*Something you can “download” to for those who want to die feeling like they did not really die.
...possibilities are endless.
It’s no longer cool for the rich and powerful to have human slaves, at least not openly....so we have needed a replacement for years now.
There are so many uses for them:
*Love slaves aka step ford wives.
*A more easily manipulated labor force/population for said powerful.
*Better explorers for “deep space” (moon or any ware not in immediate low Earth orbit)
*Something you can “download” to for those who want to die feeling like they did not really die.
...possibilities are endless.
With the gas crisis, transporter technology would definitely be helpful.. though it does arise a number of metaphysical questions such as "How do you convert one's soul to a data stream and recreate it exactly?".
Since transporter technology isn't exactly something that I feel is plausible, a new, more affordable form of fuel would be nice.
Since transporter technology isn't exactly something that I feel is plausible, a new, more affordable form of fuel would be nice.
We should immediately cease all these foolish and wasteful endeavors into ridiculously speculative research and pointless exploration of space which amounts to nothing more than grandstanding and posturing. We should invest no more in alternative energy resources nor should we bother with expensive and risky medical research and experimentation.
No, effective immidiately we should pool the entire world's resouces into one venture and one venture only; Time Travel. For, ya see, once we have a perfected, working time machine, EVERYTHING is is easy as pie . . . With a time machine, just fast forward a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand years and select the technology of your chosing! PIECE of CAKE!
No, effective immidiately we should pool the entire world's resouces into one venture and one venture only; Time Travel. For, ya see, once we have a perfected, working time machine, EVERYTHING is is easy as pie . . . With a time machine, just fast forward a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand years and select the technology of your chosing! PIECE of CAKE!
It might not be possible Zach.
But even if it is, there's that old question of who invents the technology. It's like the pocket watch in Time's Arrow. Who invents it? I suggest we all watch this episode again
Also think about the weird implications of moving matter around in time. Like the accumulation of mass in one time and its disappearance in another.
Suppose I want a kilogram of gold.
I go to the future 100 years and find the piece I buried in the yard 100 years previous. I take it home. Now I have 1kg of gold. Now I bury it in the yard so that the causal loop is initiated.
Now I go 99 years into the future and find the gold buried there before I went a year later the get it. I take this home and bury that in the yard. Now two gold bars are buried in the yard.
Now I go 98 years into the future and find the two bars I buried and take them home. Now I have 4 bars.
Now I go 97 years into the future and find the four bars I buried and take them home. Now I have 8 bars.
You get the idea.
If I took this all the way to conclusion I'd have so much gold, the earth would be a solid gold ball.
But even if it is, there's that old question of who invents the technology. It's like the pocket watch in Time's Arrow. Who invents it? I suggest we all watch this episode again
Also think about the weird implications of moving matter around in time. Like the accumulation of mass in one time and its disappearance in another.
Suppose I want a kilogram of gold.
I go to the future 100 years and find the piece I buried in the yard 100 years previous. I take it home. Now I have 1kg of gold. Now I bury it in the yard so that the causal loop is initiated.
Now I go 99 years into the future and find the gold buried there before I went a year later the get it. I take this home and bury that in the yard. Now two gold bars are buried in the yard.
Now I go 98 years into the future and find the two bars I buried and take them home. Now I have 4 bars.
Now I go 97 years into the future and find the four bars I buried and take them home. Now I have 8 bars.
You get the idea.
If I took this all the way to conclusion I'd have so much gold, the earth would be a solid gold ball.
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It might not be possible Zach.
But even if it is, there's that old question of who invents the technology. It's like the pocket watch in Time's Arrow. Who invents it? I suggest we all watch this episode again
Also think about the weird implications of moving matter around in time. Like the accumulation of mass in one time and its disappearance in another.
Suppose I want a kilogram of gold.
I go to the future 100 years and find the piece I buried in the yard 100 years previous. I take it home. Now I have 1kg of gold. Now I bury it in the yard so that the causal loop is initiated.
Now I go 99 years into the future and find the gold buried there before I went a year later the get it. I take this home and bury that in the yard. Now two gold bars are buried in the yard.
Now I go 98 years into the future and find the two bars I buried and take them home. Now I have 4 bars.
Now I go 97 years into the future and find the four bars I buried and take them home. Now I have 8 bars.
You get the idea.
If I took this all the way to conclusion I'd have so much gold, the earth would be a solid gold ball.
Much depends on the nature of "time" itself and whether one travels "forward" and "back" in "time" within the confines of THIS universe or whether one actually enters an alternate, parallel universe when a temporal "paradox" is created. You might be able to acquire an almost infinite number of gold bars if you are snatching them out of one "reality" and bringing them into another with time-travel.
Hi Zach
Yes the idea of multiple universes is used to sidestep paradoxes. But still, one reality is gaining mass while others are loosing it.
What I never understood about the alternative realities theory -- what's to stop other realities stealing mass from ours. If we can open a back in time gateway to dimension X, why can't dimension X open a back in time gateway here. Then the same paradoxes can occur as a cyclic path is created.
The idea of alternative realities is that many are very similar to our own. So in those realities there will be people building time machines too.
So the result is that many of these realities will be connected with xomplex webs of portals that we and our alternate selves open. It inevitably would set up a paradoxical feedback loop somewhere.
Yes the idea of multiple universes is used to sidestep paradoxes. But still, one reality is gaining mass while others are loosing it.
What I never understood about the alternative realities theory -- what's to stop other realities stealing mass from ours. If we can open a back in time gateway to dimension X, why can't dimension X open a back in time gateway here. Then the same paradoxes can occur as a cyclic path is created.
The idea of alternative realities is that many are very similar to our own. So in those realities there will be people building time machines too.
So the result is that many of these realities will be connected with xomplex webs of portals that we and our alternate selves open. It inevitably would set up a paradoxical feedback loop somewhere.
Well, here's the deal in my mind. I think the notion of WHICH reality is "original" and which is (are?) "alternate" is, to borrow a phrase from Einstein, relative.
Clearly it seems reasonable to presume that, if alternate realities to ours exist, then OUR reality is, in turn, an alternate to those others. I don't so much believe in a "prime" universe with an infinate series of variations as I think it more likely to be a "multiverse" (assuming the entire concept is not just a load of nonsense) of which our own represents merely one aspect.
You could fairly ask what I base my reasoning on and I can only say it is an intuiitve deduction based on nothing more than gut instinct of what "feels" right. Not much to go on, I'll admit and not the LEAST bit scientific. Still, you gotta start somewhere and "suppose if . . . " is as valid as anything.
Yes, when you start moving mass between realities you take from one universe and add to another. What ARE the implications? Do you take from a universe and then ADD to your ORIGINAL universe or is it yet another alternate universe you add to? Does it matter? Is zero-point energy "leaking" in from other "realities" as part of some not understood process of nature?
I think what we enter into when we begin trying to unravel the secrets of time-travel and such is that we go beyond the confines of the natural universe and we begin to consider the implications of events and reactions that do not OCCUR in nature. Time is NOT a constant--Einstein demonstrated that quite well. Its flow can be effected in the sense that it can be speed of or slowed down relative to the observer, of course. But can it be reversed? Can one UN-explode a bomb? I don't mean in a practical sense, of course, but in theory. I believe the numbers for the math of the processes work in both directions but in terms of practicality, it's much easier to build a bomb and explode it than it would be to somehow devise means of capturing all the energy released by an explosion and sending back to point of origin.
As I said in another post, I have a sneaking suspiscion that "Time" is related somehow to the expansion of space and, perhaps the expansion of ALL that is contained within that space--you and me included. I don't know if you read that post or if you just concluded I was totally looney. But time and space are interelated--not my discovery, of course; space is expanding and time moves forward. So far, so good. Something bugs at me though when I think about the nature of time and how BOTH time AND space are impacted by strong gravitational fields. I have read that "time" to an outside observer may be perceived to have "stopped" at the event horizon of a black hole. One wonders where, relative to that same event horizon SPACE is no longer either expanding OR contracting and if this might be that same margin wherein "time" is perceived to have "halted". What might be the impications for an astronaut passing beyond the event horizon (never mind the tidal forces ripping his atoms to atoms) of a black hole it, in that area space is CONTRACTING and time is "reversed"? To the OUTSIDE observer, time ceases and the astronaut seems poised eternally on the margin of the event horizon while, for the astronaut, in theory at least, he should perceive time to continue apace relative to his environment. Whether this is true or not, we'll probably never know. I wonder if it might be more a case of one step forward, one step back at the edge of that event horizon. Outside, time moves forward, astonaut enters. Astronaut enters, time reverses, he exits. Outside, time move forward, astronaut enters. And so on and so forth throughout "eternity" like two frames of a movie flickering back and forth forever. The astronaut would probably NEVER know because when time reversed, to his perceptions, the entrance to the event horizon would have never happened and when he's outside, he hasn't entered yet. He might live til the end of the universe flickering back and forth between those two "instances" in time; an unknowing damnation of eternal life, trapped in one moment "forever".
Anyhow, nowI'm off into weirdness . . . Best to stop here.
Stop right there.
Once you get the gold from 99 years in the future, you will not have been able to get it from 100 years hence like you originally did. The piece of gold from 100 years later will disappear, because you will already have retrieved it - a year early, so to speak. So upon returning to the present, you will find that the piece of gold you originally buried in the yard (which you got from 100 years later) will have disappeared.
Okay, if Jadzia were to acquire a bar of gold and bury it in her backyard tonight, she COULD in theory, go foward in time 100 years, or one day or one HOUR, collect the bar she buried, bring it back and bury it anew next to the original. Then she has TWO gold bars. So far so good. Her point is made and matter comes from SOMEWHERE--who knows where.
But you ARE right babaganoosh, it's a trick that can ONLY be done once. If she goes into the future one day to collect the gold bar she buried today, bring it back and put the two together, she can't then go into future 1/2 a day and collect the two gold bars she just buried and bing them back to put with the first two because when she returns from this expedition, she will find the "first" future bar of gold missing. It wasn't THERE one day in the future for her to collect so, while she remembers collecting it and bringing it back, she has ALTERED the time line so it is no longer present where she left it.
But WAIT. She STILL has THREE gold bars now. The original gold bar from today, PLUS the TWO she brings back from 1/2 day in the future. This assumes that a paradox doesn't cause a shift in the local "reality" as referenced by the time-traveler. If it did, the second "future gold bar would vanish and she'd still only have two. Her original and the first "future" gold bar.
Right?
Well, it's not a case of the matter 'coming from somewhere' - it is still exactly the same gold bar, just along a different point in its own history, as it were.
Exactly.
I don't think it would happen that way, no. Because collecting the bars from 1/2 day in the future would cause the one from *one* day in the future to vanish, as they would not be there to collect at that point.
I think it would cause such a shift, yes.
And if anything happened to the first gold bar, such as removing it from the ground and taking it to the bank and cashing it in, then all other future versions of it would vanish.
Bringing the alternative universes theory back onto the stage, it's clear that I'd be harvesting gold bars from these alternate universes, not from my own. So I may get as many as I please.
If we reject that idea, then Babaganoosh & Zach -- you see that in order to keep reality sensible, reality must change when we time travel. So events we cause in the past do cause changes in the future, and we may end up walking around in a reality that we don't recognise.
Then what are the implications for Zach's original idea for getting technology from the future by building a time machine?
Think again to the pocket watch in Time's Arrow. Where did it come from? At the end of the programme, the enterprise crew put it in the cave in the first place. At the beginning of the programme, it was the enterprise crew who found it in the future. Its existence follows a loop in time. Getting technology (or gold bars) from the future introduces a similar existential conundrum. If not of matter, then of information.
One interesting thing to think about is age. Following the loop of time backwards, the object is seen to have an infinite history, so is infinitely old. So at any time in the loop we try to harvest it, it would already have decomposed.
Information might also suffer similar degradation as it has an infinite number of trips through the time machine in its infinite history.
I will admit, I'm finding this all fascinating to think about.
Welcome all to the Manheim centre.
If we reject that idea, then Babaganoosh & Zach -- you see that in order to keep reality sensible, reality must change when we time travel. So events we cause in the past do cause changes in the future, and we may end up walking around in a reality that we don't recognise.
Then what are the implications for Zach's original idea for getting technology from the future by building a time machine?
Think again to the pocket watch in Time's Arrow. Where did it come from? At the end of the programme, the enterprise crew put it in the cave in the first place. At the beginning of the programme, it was the enterprise crew who found it in the future. Its existence follows a loop in time. Getting technology (or gold bars) from the future introduces a similar existential conundrum. If not of matter, then of information.
One interesting thing to think about is age. Following the loop of time backwards, the object is seen to have an infinite history, so is infinitely old. So at any time in the loop we try to harvest it, it would already have decomposed.
Information might also suffer similar degradation as it has an infinite number of trips through the time machine in its infinite history.
I will admit, I'm finding this all fascinating to think about.
Welcome all to the Manheim centre.
