How far are we behind?

[-Brett-]

I'll go with "never".

Technologically, some things depicted in Star Trek just aren't possible. All the evidence suggests that faster than light travel is among them.

Ditto for the social angle. Crappy jobs will still need to be done and, by and large, people aren't going to do them unless they have to. That means money isn't going anywhere.

I don't mean to sound overly pessimistic. Sure these things could improve. They just won't improve in the direction Star Trek depicts.

 

[Deks]

you do realize we know painfully little about the universe overall and that science is barely in it's conception?
Keeping that in mind, you have no idea just what exactly we will accomplish over the next 50 years, let alone 300 ... and saying something is impossible when our current knowledge is practically 0 on a universal scale, I think your pessimism is a bit premature.

As for low end jobs and money ...
In order for the situation to improve, people would first have to be willing to get off their collective rear ends and actually decide that money based economy is not cutting it in order to make some changes.
I could definitely see people who would decide cleaning toilets if they'd get appropriate compensation in return ... like having all of their basic needs met in a month with some other benefits, such as acquiring certain material goods like computers, furniture or something else.

Improve the situation, motivate the people with proper stimulation, and the job will get done by someone.
That can be easily done at least long enough until technology is invented that would do the work for us (automated system), and the only thing you would need is an engineer or a technically minded individual to conduct regular maintenance on the thing.

New technologies actually are available, and today we have reliable alternatives that would be able to replace cars that run on fossil fuels for example, but because of money grabbing corporations and people generally having a difficult time accepting change, rarely any of them get to see the light of day.
When money was eliminated in Trek and a new world economy took place, oh look, even the general technology began to develop at an exponential pace because new things that proved to work were mostly immediately incorporated without a second thought.

 

[BigC]

In the late spring of 1908 if you told someone that you would sit in your "parlor" in New York and see events in London as they happen on a box. You would have been put away for your own saftey. If in 1966 while walking down a street in DC you were wittinesed pulling out a small device and speaking in to it, communicating with a friend in Mexico City. You would to this day be in a cell under the pentagon answering questions.

Nothing is "impossible" as long as there is a way around it.

 

[Bill Morris]

Okay then, in what ways are we already ahead of TOS?

 

[erastus25]

Okay then, in what ways are we already ahead of TOS?

Our "communicators" (cell phones) already have video chat.

 

[PhoenixIreland]

I'll go with "never".

Technologically, some things depicted in Star Trek just aren't possible. All the evidence suggests that faster than light travel is among them.

Ditto for the social angle. Crappy jobs will still need to be done and, by and large, people aren't going to do them unless they have to. That means money isn't going anywhere.

I don't mean to sound overly pessimistic. Sure these things could improve. They just won't improve in the direction Star Trek depicts.

#

Crappy, menial work can be automated.

eg, Car Manufacturing, Supermarket checkouts

As for cynical attitudes about social advances.

"I don't think there will be a woman Prime Minister in my lifetime"-1973 (Thatcher)
Thatcher became Prime Minister on 4 May 1979

 

[Timo]

Our "communicators" (cell phones) already have video chat.

Then again, they require huge antenna masts, rooms full of computers, and the output of a small power plant to operate. Kirk's communicator appears to be a self-contained unit.

This might be a good example of Trek technology simply being different rather than "more" or "less advanced". But it's probably just a matter of the audience misunderstanding what they are seeing. Kirk doesn't have a cell phone. He has one of these in his belt, just with at least ten times the range: http://www.combatradio.org.uk/prc344.htm

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sci]

Okay then, in what ways are we already ahead of TOS?

Our "communicators" (cell phones) already have video chat.

Our cell phones also require an extensive network of ground-based transmitters and satellite relays to function, and are limited to lightspeed in their transmissions. Captain Kirk's communicator, on the other hand, is capable of transmitting through subspace (and thus of transmitting faster-than-light) by itself to both orbiting starships, to any location on a planetary surface, and to any ship within a solar system. Oh, and his communicator will work in an elevator.

I'll take Captain Kirk's communicator over a cellular telephone any day.

 

[Timo]

Captain Kirk's communicator, on the other hand, is capable of transmitting through subspace (and thus of transmitting faster-than-light) by itself to both orbiting starships, to any location on a planetary surface, and to any ship within a solar system.

Do we know this?

That is, is there a TOS instance where Kirk's handset would have worked without delay across interplanetary or otherwise significant distances, to establish speed in addition to range? Or an instance where two parties widely separated on a planetary surface were able to communicate without the help of a relay satellite/ship?

(In "A Private Little War", Scotty in orbit is able to inform Kirk on the surface that the Klingons who supposedly are visiting a location near Kirk's are on the other side of the planet as seen from the Enterprise. So either Kirk's communicator or the Klingon transporters would seem to be capable of working through an entire planet. Or then the contact there is only momentary, and neither Scotty nor the Klingons remain positioned above Kirk's beamdown site.)

Oh, and his communicator will work in an elevator.

Hell, his communicator will work as an elevator! And sky high at that.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

Well at least we know the comm-badges of the 24th century permeate subspace.
Voyager was talking with Janeway and Chakotay (who were stuck on 'New Earth' after being bitten by a mosquito) even after being how far away exactly?
Weeks?

 

[maryh]

I found the following quote interesting:

The greatest challenge faced when they first decided to take on the movie?

J.J. Abrams: This may not be a fair answer, but there were two greatest challenges: the first was getting a handle on the vision of the future. The fact that most of the tech that we use in our everyday lives seems modeled after — and actually more advanced than — TOS, made it tricky to find a way to make our movie's world far more advanced than where we currently are, and yet also consistent with the original show.

This is quite true in some respects. Some of what STTOS envisioned seems technologically behind by today's standards, and that show was supposed to be hundreds of years in the future. Makes me wonder if the most recent ST technology will seem dated in a decade or so already. If that be the case I'd say we are doing pretty good.

 

[Timo]

Well at least we know the comm-badges of the 24th century permeate subspace. Voyager was talking with Janeway and Chakotay (who were stuck on 'New Earth' after being bitten by a mosquito) even after being how far away exactly?
Weeks?

Then again, who knows what they had stashed in their cabin? Probably the badges just contacted the interstellar transceiver in the hut, which then contacted the starship.

Similarly, when Picard contacts Starbase 74 across interstellar ranges in "11001001" by slapping his commbadge, he's probably just contacting the ship's transceiver which then contacts the starbase. He might not entirely trust his ship's computer and especially its more humanlike interface functions at that plot point...

OTOH, the away team does stay in contact with the ship for a rather long time in "The Schitzoid Man". Or then it doesn't, as the communications could well be one-way at that point...

Lots of ways to interpret the evidence. And lots of ways to downplay future technology, or then to adorn it with futuristic functionalities that the original writers never thought of.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[erastus25]

I found the following quote interesting:

The greatest challenge faced when they first decided to take on the movie?

J.J. Abrams: This may not be a fair answer, but there were two greatest challenges: the first was getting a handle on the vision of the future. The fact that most of the tech that we use in our everyday lives seems modeled after — and actually more advanced than — TOS, made it tricky to find a way to make our movie's world far more advanced than where we currently are, and yet also consistent with the original show.

This is quite true in some respects. Some of what STTOS envisioned seems technologically behind by today's standards, and that show was supposed to be hundreds of years in the future. Makes me wonder if the most recent ST technology will seem dated in a decade or so already. If that be the case I'd say we are doing pretty good.

After seeing my cell phone example got shot down so easily, and then not being able to come up with any other examples, I think JJ is wrong. The Enterprise terminals and interfaces don't seem to be as sleek as ours and they didn't use DNA to identify people, but beyond that we don't seem to have caught up yet. Even the voice recognition technology used to interact with the computer seems to be superior in TOS.

 

[maryh]

After seeing my cell phone example got shot down so easily, and then not being able to come up with any other examples, I think JJ is wrong. The Enterprise terminals and interfaces don't seem to be as sleek as ours and they didn't use DNA to identify people, but beyond that we don't seem to have caught up yet. Even the voice recognition technology used to interact with the computer seems to be superior in TOS.

In "A Piece of the Action" they had to beam back up to the Enterprise to consult the sociological computers - with a cell phone you'd get access to all the info on the internet from you phone. If we use Jack Bauer as an example, he gets all kinds of useful info from downloads onto his cell phone - like how many people are in this building. The idea of cell phones & tricorders interacting with computers on the ship wasn't thought of in TOS's time.

They still haven't found way of producing a good blood substitute and need donated blood - I think we are closer than they are now. And we find our cats and dogs sooner than they find eachother with imbedded microchips.

 

[Jadzia]

I personally feel rather disillusioned. The future I was promised when I was a little girl is far from what we have today. The 21st century has so far been quite an anticlimax. I don't think we'll ever have a star-trek-esque existence.

 

[Michael]

^ Oh come on, we're only eight years into the 21st century.

 

[maryh]

We have almost already contacted the Vulcans even though that wasn't supposed to happen for a century yet:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070511081331.htm

 

[Joshua Howard]

Star Trek isn't a prophecy, it's a fantasy; there may not be Romulans and Vulcans floating around out there, but as far as the technology goes - we're right on schedule. As for social change, that's the beauty; it affects technology more than anything you might imagine.

I think we're on the brink of a social revolution that might well shake world economies; people are starting to think more about the environment and each other than themselves... and all we need is a catalyst in the corporate world to end world poverty, improving the universal quality of life. When that happens, education will be more easily obtained, the human spirit will be stronger... and Star Trek will become a reality.

Different? Yes, things will be different... but the spirit of Star Trek and many of the things that make Star Trek the phenomena that it is are already well on their way to becoming a reality.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Star Trek isn't a prophecy, it's a fantasy; there may not be Romulans and Vulcans floating around out there, but as far as the technology goes - we're right on schedule. As for social change, that's the beauty; it affects technology more than anything you might imagine.

I think we're on the brink of a social revolution that might well shake world economies; people are starting to think more about the environment and each other than themselves... and all we need is a catalyst in the corporate world to end world poverty, improving the universal quality of life. When that happens, education will be more easily obtained, the human spirit will be stronger... and Star Trek will become a reality.

Different? Yes, things will be different... but the spirit of Star Trek and many of the things that make Star Trek the phenomena that it is are already well on their way to becoming a reality.

I certainly like your spirit. But I fear we are more far off than you think. I have been around this world several times and I can see that some customs, some belief systems included, will be massive speed bumps.

Until all women are free (and that is going to be the hardest wall to breech I dare say) then we are going to have issues that will stretch far past the 23rd century. When half a world's population is opressed like that, there can be no social revolution. And since we are against imposing our wills on these violaters of women's rights, we will have to allow these nation/people to solve this issue themselves. And I have to say, based on what I have seen? It isn't going to happen for centuries...

Rob
Scorpio

 

[Deks]

The biggest obstacle would be people who grew way too accustomed to contemporary ideas, and close-minded individuals as a whole.

We are closer to Trek technology indeed and in some areas we are ahead in comparison to TOS, but generally speaking we are still not quite there yet to their ability with computers, medical technology, interstellar travel and whatnot.
We are getting closer though.
So I think all of Trek technology has potential to be realized.
The explanation and principles on how it operates will most likely be different, as the techno-babble was for a good portion made up (although it wouldn't surprise me if some of the terms and principles accidentally DO end up being the same), but we'll get there eventually ... provided of course the rest of the world doesn't decide we should blow ourselves to pieces.