Why hasn't society evolved enough yet?

[Woulfe]

Re: Our present is better than Star Trek's 'future'.

Tech's problem comes from itself outpaceing the people who buy it, the tech curve is moving so fast that unless you have a sizable disposable income to keep up with the rate it's going you'll end up with a 5 year old computer and so forth.

Like it or not the tech curve is showing no signs of slowing down or stopping, however we do see a brick wall looming as far as to just how far will the tech curve go, as they make the chips tinier and tinier they generate more and more heat, soon tech will hit a point where there's no way to cool down the chips as the heat they generate just can't be cooled down fast enough.

I see that wall looming closer and closer every time they announce that they've found a way to increase tech's current limits, however the long term limits are there, looming ever closer as the make things better, faster, cheaper.

I think the sooner we run into that brick wall limitation for tech folks will start to think about what kind of future they'd really like to have, seeing that tech is not the end all be all of the future, there are other things we need to take care of as well.

I should say 'Current Tech' will hit the limitation brick wall, unless something new comes along that replaces 'Current Tech' but I don't see it happening anytime soon and that wall isn't going away anytime soon as well.

Heck last time someone mentioned 2012 to me I thought what if the Myans just saw that as the date when the current tech curve will hit the brick wall and not go any further then that, thus in a way would seem like the end of that age, the end of the Digital age namely.

I could see it being seen as that, seeing as it fits with what's happening tech-wise nowadays, that the tech curve is reaching some kind of peeking out sooner then I would of thought, as I was one the many who thought it'd just keep going on and on forever and ever not to long ago.

Once tech hits that peek, what kind of world will we end up with tho' ? I have no idea. The future is uncertain.

- W -
* People will only evolve if there is a need to do so, there isn't a need to do so, yet, ask me again in 6 years tho' *

 

[The_Emperor]

As civilized as we want to make ourselves and others believe, we are not but a child race.

In comparison to what? How do you know that, if there are aliens out there, that they aren't worse than us? And who're we trying to convince that we're civilized? Not like there're a whole lot of aliens about to try to impress.

Star Trek said that in the FUTURE everything would be wonderful. BUT IT"S NOT!

And you're measuring civilization against Star Trek... why? It's a tv show. And if we're gonna measure ourselves against a work of fiction, why that one in particular? Why not, say, Terminator? According to Terminator, Judgment Day should've occured by now, and humanity should be near extinct as Skynet tries to wipe us off the face of the Earth. In comparison to THAT, I'd say we're doing pretty good.

 

[Brolan]

CaptainSpock said:
...
I seem to recall an area of this board called the Neutral Zone to deal with political/touchy subjects, but it seems to have gone away in the years since I last frequented these parts. I suppose any question about our present state of affairs and moving towards our own future and how we can make it more Trek-like is appropriate to have here.

I think it still exists, you just need to apply to a moderator for access...

 

[FordSVT]

Actually, according to Star Trek, we just finished up with a Eugenics war against superhuman tyrants that decimated most of Asia, and we're just about to enter WW3.

So I'd say we've still got some time to meet up with aliens, build a perfect economy and end global poverty and disease.

 

[Brent]

Simple, we don't have food protein synthesizers yet

 

[VonHelton]

VulcanJedi said:
Why aren't we all using hover cars? Where is my jet-pack? How come we haven't ended poverty yet? Or sickness? Why are people still illiterate? Why is there still so much violence?

Star Trek said that in the FUTURE everything would be wonderful. BUT IT"S NOT!

Tesla showed us the way, but there was little if any, money in it, so our govts rejected it. Take Cold Fusion, for example. MIT has put barriers in the way, so that anyone wanting to build a cold fusion powerplant gets nowhere.

Cold Fusion is 10 times more productive than nuclear, and that's exactly why you'll never see it used.

......There's no money to be made.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

VonHelton said:

VulcanJedi said:Why aren't we all using hover cars? Where is my jet-pack? How come we haven't ended poverty yet? Or sickness? Why are people still illiterate? Why is there still so much violence?

Star Trek said that in the FUTURE everything would be wonderful. BUT IT"S NOT!

Tesla showed us the way, but there was little if any, money in it, so our govts rejected it. Take Cold Fusion, for example. MIT has put barriers in the way, so that anyone wanting to build a cold fusion powerplant gets nowhere.

Cold Fusion is 10 times more productive than nuclear, and that's exactly why you'll never see it used.

......There's no money to be made.

That all sounds wonderful and conspiracy-y... but (1) "cold fusion" does not EXIST as far as anyone has ever demonstrated... PERIOD, (2) MIT cannot restrict research on this in any way, nor can any governmental agency, without actively describing the very thing that is supposed to be prohibited (and thus pointing the way to a solution!)

"Cold Fusion" may be possible, but it has never been demonstrated and there is no real theory behind how it would work, so it falls in the same general category as "phasers" and "warp drive"... ie, science fiction.

 

[voss749]

If cold fusion was practical but not allowed you would hear stories about people getting arrested for selling the things, and people getting in trouble for having put the thing on on their house.

MIT cant control outside the US, if MIT was stopping cold fusion in the US you would hear stories about cold fusion reactors in Europe or asia. Then you would have people selling grey market fusion reactors on ebay, then some american company would come out with a cold fusion reactor and charge three times the price.

 

[Squiggy]

VulcanJedi said:
Star Trek said that in the FUTURE everything would be wonderful. BUT IT"S NOT!

1. Um, because it's science-fiction...and

2. Actually, Trek predicted we'd be engaged in a third world war by now, waged with supermen, and sometime in the next 55 years, alot of the world's population would be subject to kangaroo courts and nuked cities.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Well, the latter could still happen. But yeah, this just continues to illustrate why the actual stories being told are ultimately more important in describing "what is Star Trek?" than all the nitpicky details, like fantasy tech and made-up future history.

 

[Squiggy]

Well, so far, Trek has been 0-3 in their predictions about the future...what makes you think they're going to be right about anything?

 

[VonHelton]

Cary L. Brown said:"Cold Fusion" may be possible, but it has never been demonstrated and there is no real theory behind how it would work, so it falls in the same general category as "phasers" and "warp drive"... ie, science fiction.

COLD FUSION:

http://www.padrak.com/ine/NEN_6_8_9.html

http://www.padrak.com/ine/CFARNOSIX.html

http://www.newstarget.com/006171.html

This ego-fueled suppression of cold fusion was quite successful, to the point where, today, if you mention cold fusion to anyone who is steeped in conventional medicine or science, they will laugh at you and say, "Cold fusion is a joke, just like medical quackery." But of course, the big joke is on them, because cold fusion does indeed exist, and it has been proven time and time again.

ELECTRIC FUSION:

http://pesn.com/2007/05/09/9500470_Electric_Fusion/

Wow, that's gotta hurt. I not only exposed you as misinformed, I crushed you totally.



Now then, let's get back to the MIT thing, shall we?

 

[Cary L. Brown]

VonHelton said:

Cary L. Brown said:"Cold Fusion" may be possible, but it has never been demonstrated and there is no real theory behind how it would work, so it falls in the same general category as "phasers" and "warp drive"... ie, science fiction.

COLD FUSION:

http://www.padrak.com/ine/NEN_6_8_9.html

http://www.padrak.com/ine/CFARNOSIX.html

http://www.newstarget.com/006171.html

This ego-fueled suppression of cold fusion was quite successful, to the point where, today, if you mention cold fusion to anyone who is steeped in conventional medicine or science, they will laugh at you and say, "Cold fusion is a joke, just like medical quackery." But of course, the big joke is on them, because cold fusion does indeed exist, and it has been proven time and time again.

ELECTRIC FUSION:

http://pesn.com/2007/05/09/9500470_Electric_Fusion/

Wow, that's gotta hurt. I not only exposed you as misinformed, I crushed you totally.



Now then, let's get back to the MIT thing, shall we?

I can find articles on the net for ANYTHING... so merely posting articles of dubious origin proves nothing. There's more than enough information on the internet, claiming to be "authoritative," to "prove" in this same way that Janis Joplin is living on an island with John Belushi...

Your supposed "sources" are no more sound than the pages claiming what I said above.

You didn't expose me as "uninformed." You exposed yourself as GULLIBLE.

Here's the thing...and someone exposed this flaw in your argument above. If this was real, and practical, and as "easy" as it's being presented in the loony-propaganda articles, someone somewhere would have build it, tested it, recorded their test data, and published it in some open forum where other "free-minded" types (anywhere in the world) could replicate the experiment.

If it's DIFFICULT, then you could argue that somehow, the only places where it could be done would be sites with massive infrastructure and huge amounts of money behind them. Of course, that sort of negates the whole point of it being "cheap and essentially free" doesn't it?

The only supposed "proof" of the viability of so-called "Cold Fusion" was demonstrated to have been a fraud (or at the very least, EXCEPTIONALLY sloppy science... the apparent creation of energy was eventually attributed by the experimenter as having been due to measurement error, after all!).

Bottom line... I'm not saying that it's IMPOSSIBLE (that's not how REAL scientist work). I'm saying that it's UTTERLY UNSUPPORTED. Someone may come along next week and publish a book, or an article, or a paper, or a freakin' CARTOON, which demonstrates just how this works... and the scientific community may well follow up and find that the author is right. But to date, there is ZERO.. NONE... NOT ONE IOTA... of evidence that any such thing is possible.

Reality check... do you know how fusion occurs? Do you know what is happening when fusion occurs? Do you understand how much energy is required to generate a single hydrogen-to-hydrogen fusion event? Granted, more energy is released than is consumed, but there's a REASON that our only effective REAL examples of fusion have been created through the use of extreme heat and pressure (in most cases, through the use of a fission bomb as a "detonator" for an unconstrained fusion reaction).

You have to increase the likelihood of nuclei-to-nuclei impact... meaning tremendous pressure. The material must exist in a plasma state (all electrons totally dissociated from the nuclei). And you need tremendous heat to cause the nuclei-to-nuclei impact to "stick" and result in fusion.

So... since you think you've "totally crushed me," I'm curious to hear the mechanism YOU think is happening when "cold fusion" occurs... and why you think that the above requirements for fusion aren't "really" requirements?

Otherwise, just go back to the corner and put your tinfoil hat back on, K?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

T J said:

Temis the Vorta said:
People don't have hover-cars because they'd forget to put oil in it, it would break down and they'd die. At least with a ground-based car, you wouldn't die froma break down.

I'll be damned... I think this is one of the smartest things I've ever read... Bravo! :thumbsup:

Thanks. But you should check out TNZ for some really brilliant conversation.

People underestimate the human factor in technology. Take e-books for instance: are they really an improvement over paperback novels or newspapers, which are cheap, easily transported, hard to "break" and if you leave them behind on the subway, it's no big deal? That doesn't sound like an improvement to me. And it's the same problem as the hover cars: pricey e-books don't forgive human stupidity as readily as paperbacks and newspapers do, by being cheap and disposable.

we just finished up with a Eugenics war against superhuman tyrants that decimated most of Asia

Hah, another thing to blame Bush for! Happened on HIS watch.

 

[Squiggy]

Actually, we could blame Clinton for that one.

 

[VonHelton]

Cary L. Brown said:You didn't expose me as "uninformed." You exposed yourself as GULLIBLE.

Ok first of all, I could be extremely cruel and post links to the patent office, where they adamently REFUSE to allow even a disscussion on the matter, but I won't. Instead, what I will do, is ask you why you refuse to acknowledge cold fusion as viable.

Second, you insist that if it *WAS* viable, why no one is using it. You obviously cannot read my posts. I spelled this out from the beginning. MIT blocks anything to do with it, and works with the patent office to do so.

Third, your own post tells me you have no idea how cold fusion operates, and you further humiliate yourself by totally ignoring Farnsworth's writings.

.....But this doesn't surprize me. As the article I quoted said, you just want to be part of a school of fish, blithly going about your merry way.

Yet another link to crush you totally & completely. Note the lack of hazmat suits & geiger counters in the room.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,510054502,00.html

 

[VonHelton]

Oh why not.....One more for the road:

http://www.futuremusic.com/blog/?p=1366

 

[VonHelton]

Here's a new one to ponder:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/po...ctor/html/1.stm

 

[Lord Garth]

VonHelton, one warning for spamming.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

VonHelton said:

Cary L. Brown said:You didn't expose me as "uninformed." You exposed yourself as GULLIBLE.

Ok first of all, I could be extremely cruel and post links to the patent office, where they adamently REFUSE to allow even a disscussion on the matter, but I won't. Instead, what I will do, is ask you why you refuse to acknowledge cold fusion as viable.

Second, you insist that if it *WAS* viable, why no one is using it. You obviously cannot read my posts. I spelled this out from the beginning. MIT blocks anything to do with it, and works with the patent office to do so.

Third, your own post tells me you have no idea how cold fusion operates, and you further humiliate yourself by totally ignoring Farnsworth's writings.

.....But this doesn't surprize me. As the article I quoted said, you just want to be part of a school of fish, blithly going about your merry way.

Yet another link to crush you totally & completely. Note the lack of hazmat suits & geiger counters in the room.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,510054502,00.html

Tell you what... let's put all our cards on the table here. You know what I do for a living (it's right there in my profile). So, what are your personal qualifications re: discussing these matters? Other than seeming to believe that there's a huge conspiracy between MIT and the Patent Office to suppress a technology that is supposely "cheap and clean," and an annoying tendency to try to "strengthen your arguments" through the use of silly personal snipes, you've failed to demonstrate that you have any actual knowledge of science. That's not to say that you don't have any... but if you do... I'd say it's time to put up or shut up.

Also... how many patents do you have your name on? Just out of curiousity?

Oh, and let's be completely clear. You say this:

Instead, what I will do, is ask you why you refuse to acknowledge cold fusion as viable.

However, anyone with basic reading comprehension skills will note that I said no such thing. I said what any REAL scientist actually says when faced with something like this. That there is no evidence to support it and no sound theory behind it. I'll also say the same about faster-than-light travel... but that doesn't mean that FTL is necessarily impossible.

Scientists... REAL scientists... are skeptics. You do not accept ANYTHING as "fact" unless it's been proven. You do not accept anything that is unsupported as even a theory. At the moment, "cold fusion" fails to meet the basic requirements of theory. It remains, at best, a hypothesis. Yet it has not been conclusivly DISPROVEN, either. So, it remains a valid hypothesis, and may SOMEDAY become an actual theory... and perhaps may even become acknowledged as FACT if sufficient repeatable experimental confirmation can be provided.

NONE of that has happened yet. And claims that it's "safe, clean, effective, and PROVEN" are simply lies. It may EVENTUALLY meet those qualifications... but not today. Today, it better fits the definition of "pipe dream."

You seem to want to "reinterpret" my statement of skepticism as though I'm "really saying" that it's FALSE. I'm simply refuting your statements that it's A FACT. No one who understands even the barest minimum of true scientific methodology would ever suggest such a thing at this point.

Anyone who's more willing to accept a "vast conspiracy" (which would, in reality, be pretty much IMPOSSIBLE to enforce, especially for a technology so "cheap, clean, and easy" as "cold fusion" is supposed to be) as the "most likely explanation for why we don't see it today, as opposed to "nobody has managed to actually DO it yet"... really does seem to be more suited to the "tin foil hat club" than for the ranks of Mensa.