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Old 05-18-2014, 03:57 PM
 
3,910 posts, read 9,441,036 times
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Most of the predictions from back in the 50's-80's HAVE come true, except for flying cars. In fact, there are flying cars, but they are too expensive for anyone to use and we do not have the infrastructure for them. But many of the other inventions commonly seen on sci fi movies have come true.

Cell phones for instance are similar in function to what Star Trek used in the 60's for their officers to communicate back and forth from anywhere. GPS and navigation devices are now in most cars and on cell phones. These were pipe dreams only seen on Star Trek 40 years ago. TV's where you could see and talk with someone was virtually inconceivable before the 1990's, yet now it is commonplace. Most couldn't have envisioned the internet though. I suppose because its not shaped like a robot. Many movies from the 70's-80's envisioned us having personal robots that do chores for us and act as servants so we can laze out on couches. They didn't think about how impracticle having a large robot in your house was. They also didn't see video games coming before the late 70's.
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Old 05-18-2014, 04:37 PM
 
Location: Old Bellevue, WA
18,782 posts, read 17,302,815 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John-UK View Post
No. The 1800s. The steam engine catapulted the world forwards. Electricity added to that. Intellectual economic analysis in Karl Marx, Henry George, etc.

This technology did lead to mass barbarism around the world for sure. But economic greed was the prime motivation.

The single biggest case of mass barbarism was 100 million plus killed under communism, Mostly in Russia and China, but others as well. The motivation was not economic greed, but ostensibly the quashing thereof.

The Black Book of Communism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Old 05-18-2014, 04:47 PM
 
31,387 posts, read 36,950,999 times
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Originally Posted by wutitiz View Post
The single biggest case of mass barbarism was 100 million plus killed under communism, Mostly in Russia and China, but others as well. The motivation was not economic greed, but ostensibly the quashing thereof.
While the legitimate numbers are far too high in an civilized world the numbers reported are questionable and inflated as your link points out.
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Old 05-18-2014, 06:51 PM
 
Location: moved
13,587 posts, read 9,620,420 times
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Originally Posted by John-UK View Post
But we urgently need to have an economic system that does not bring down the world every 80 years or so and fairly distributes wealth. That is not physical technology advances, but intellectual/knowledge advances, of which we have not effectively put into practice.
One could argue that intellectually – from the viewpoint of ethics, epistemology, group/tribe vs. individual, statecraft and so forth – we've not much advanced over the past several centuries. In the West, we've made great strides in abolishing slavery and acknowledging at least nominally equality of gender and race. These are huge achievements, and I don't mean to dismiss them as some trivial or elementary things. But in terms of material goods vs. esoteric/abstract goods, theory of justice and punishment, the compact between generations, economic dynamism vs. redistribution, and the basic relation between society and the individual – well, our progress has definitely been much slower, than that of science and technology. Arguably the "big questions" were posed and at least preliminarily answered by Plato, 2400 years ago. Everything subsequent has been mere commentary.

Much of modern angst and dissatisfaction stems from our having so much more "stuff", so much more power over nature, and yet not really any more power over human emotions and of their interplay with society. We're really no wiser than the ancients, even if we're less barbarous in treatment of war-captives, no longer selling slaves, and if we extend the vote to more than just aristocratic males. We ought to be doing better from the philosophical viewpoint, but we're not. Technology hasn't yet changed human nature – nor perhaps should it. Technology has revolutionized how we communicate, how we learn and interact. But it has not substantially affected our brains. To misquote Nietzsche, we remain inveterately human, all too human.
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Old 05-18-2014, 07:00 PM
 
Location: Live in NY, work in CT
11,257 posts, read 18,775,701 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John-UK View Post
They did go back. About 12 men have been on the Moon. Many vehicles have been on eh Moon since. The most recent by the Chinese.
Yes, but the last humans on the moon were in December of 1972 (unless you think that Apollo 18 movie was real..... )
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Old 05-18-2014, 07:06 PM
 
3,910 posts, read 9,441,036 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ohio_peasant View Post
One could argue that intellectually – from the viewpoint of ethics, epistemology, group/tribe vs. individual, statecraft and so forth – we've not much advanced over the past several centuries. In the West, we've made great strides in abolishing slavery and acknowledging at least nominally equality of gender and race. These are huge achievements, and I don't mean to dismiss them as some trivial or elementary things. But in terms of material goods vs. esoteric/abstract goods, theory of justice and punishment, the compact between generations, economic dynamism vs. redistribution, and the basic relation between society and the individual – well, our progress has definitely been much slower, than that of science and technology. Arguably the "big questions" were posed and at least preliminarily answered by Plato, 2400 years ago. Everything subsequent has been mere commentary.

Much of modern angst and dissatisfaction stems from our having so much more "stuff", so much more power over nature, and yet not really any more power over human emotions and of their interplay with society. We're really no wiser than the ancients, even if we're less barbarous in treatment of war-captives, no longer selling slaves, and if we extend the vote to more than just aristocratic males. We ought to be doing better from the philosophical viewpoint, but we're not. Technology hasn't yet changed human nature – nor perhaps should it. Technology has revolutionized how we communicate, how we learn and interact. But it has not substantially affected our brains. To misquote Nietzsche, we remain inveterately human, all too human.
I agree with everything you wrote. World War 2, Nazism, and Stalinism are extreme examples because they were acute periods in time where human rights reached low points. So compared to the 1930's and 40's, the world has improved leaps and bounds for the industrialized civilization today. But comparing over a longer time span of 100+ years, humans are just as barbaric today as at any point in time.
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Old 05-18-2014, 07:17 PM
 
Location: Philaburbia
41,790 posts, read 74,837,182 times
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Originally Posted by ChuteTheMall View Post
I still want my flying car.

I'm ready to skip over that in favor of teleportation - although I'd probably go all Dr. McCoy and freak out about my molecules being scattered all over space.
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Old 05-18-2014, 09:08 PM
 
32,516 posts, read 37,058,163 times
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Originally Posted by ChuteTheMall View Post
I still want my flying car.

I can remember seeing the jet pack demonstrated. Twice. Once at Disneyland. On the same visit my brother decided to try out the toilet of the future in the House of the Future.

That didn't end well. The "This Attraction is Temporarily Closed" sign stayed up for a while and my parents denied knowing who he was until we got to Adventureland.
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Old 05-18-2014, 09:38 PM
 
8,276 posts, read 11,864,759 times
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Originally Posted by Ohiogirl81 View Post
I'm ready to skip over that in favor of teleportation - although I'd probably go all Dr. McCoy and freak out about my molecules being scattered all over space.
I think that watching the Jetsons in the 60s spoiled it for me...
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Old 05-18-2014, 11:01 PM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,579 posts, read 86,702,293 times
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Absurd predictions of a tech future is not a transient phenomenon that came and went in the mid 20th century. Read joseppie's thousands of posts about the singularity and his promises that it will occur 16 years from now, in which every human being on the planet will be digitally connected to an artificial intelligence from which there is no escape, and survival will be impossible without the connection.
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