What's a sci-fi thing you feel is achievable with our current level of technology that you'd love to see become a thing?
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There is plenty of profit to be made in cheap housing, just like there is plenty of profit to be made in cheap food. You can go to the grocery store right now and buy a tomato for not very much money, and the store that sold it, and trucker who transported it, and the farmer that grew it will all make money - despite food's famously slim margins.
The situation with housing is more like this: the government has dictated that only 5 acres of land in the country can be used to grow tomatos. And each tomato plant can only grow a maximum of 10 tomatos. If you are a tomato farmer, what do you do? Well, since you can't grow as many tomatos as you want, you start looking for ways to increase your margin on each tomato you sell - selling the most appealing, perfect, organic tomatos you can.
So it is with housing. When the government finally approves the development of some denser housing in a desireable part of town, the developer wants to build the highest margin housing that they can, since they won't be able to build 50 more apartment buildings. So they build luxury apartments. However, if the government said "you can build as much and as densly as you like on any plot of land here", then developers would probably start with more luxury housing, but would likely run out of luxury renters quite quickly. But then they would simply seek out more profit with the slimmer margins available in affordable housing development.
You can go to the grocery store right now and buy a tomato for not very much money,
Food is subsidized and highly regulated by the government.
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As long as shareholder value is the number one thing it just cant happen.
so kill the shareholders, then they won't care about their value.
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Just because something is easier to implement doesn't mean it will work better.
Honestly, that's the biggest hurdle our current economic systems are facing. People go for the easy option that seems like it should work instead of the longer term plan that has more flexibility and chance for success.
The problem with your suggestion is that it still hinges on the capitalist system to provide for people. And thus is far easier to exploit.
Yeah sure, but you have got to be realistic, you're talking about a 20/50 year plan even if you get everyone to agree with it. Yes, Capitalism is bad, yes there are problems with UBI, but the thing you're proposing is impossible, whereas UBI is something that could be implemented tomorrow, and would set a good foundation to move things in the right direction. Don't let perfection be the enemy of good.
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Whether big or small. We all have that one thing from Scifi we wished were real. I'd love to see a cool underground city with like a SkyDome or a space hotel for instance.
A moonbase.
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While you're admiring a building which was there in 1925, you get run over by a car which is there in 2025.
Or "blink twice to unlock a 2 hour view of this building for
59,9958,99! Limit time offer only." -
As long as shareholder value is the number one thing it just cant happen.
OP says, "with our current current level of technology."
We have the technology to overcome any logistics issue pertaining to eliminating scarcity (and by extension, poverty). What we lack is the societal structure.
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wrote last edited by [email protected]
Wow this hits the feels so hard… Like it’s impressive how hard we have worked against this goal…
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which are all capitalist, thank you for agreeing with me.
I think you might be mistaken if you think that corruption and greed are exclusive to capatalist societies. Yeah, it's rampant in captialism, but it can be present in any type of economic system. Greed and corruption are a human trait, not an economic one.
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If their profit motive aligns with my own interests
Their profit motive does not align with your interests - not by choice. Their hand was forced by labor and consumer protection laws. Take off the legal constraints, and suddenly their business model includes things like slavery, child labor, unsafe work conditions, insane hours, monopolies... these aren't crazy-extreme hypotheticals, they're things we've had to actively step in and say "no!" before because they were actually happening.
Companies are not your friend. They're not even a symbiotic parasite: they're a barely contained cancer.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Plenty of other people's interests don't align with mine either - these days, it seems like most people's interests don't. What makes a corporation less reliable than my fellow Americans?
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You can go to the grocery store right now and buy a tomato for not very much money,
Food is subsidized and highly regulated by the government.
You can go to the hardware store and buy a screwdriver. Or go to walmart and buy a frying pan. Etc.
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Whether big or small. We all have that one thing from Scifi we wished were real. I'd love to see a cool underground city with like a SkyDome or a space hotel for instance.
I never stopped dreaming about flying cars, I just think it's not gonna happen because a crash would easily kill people just sitting in their homes.
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We're so close. My dryer turns all my stuff inside out. I feel like if it can do that, it can fold the stuff too...
Damn, never heard that machines could do that already.
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Mech suits.
We have them IRL... Kinda. They're just hydraulic powered limb-augmentation things but there's absolutely no reason they couldn't be like an Alice from Aliens. Shit; we could probably do MechWarrior mechs just not the same scale right now, or even an Iron Man like suit if time was spent trying.
The most fictional thing about a lot of these is mostly the power source. How do you power it? But a tank with legs could just be powered by a normal engine.
It's why in the Robotics;Notes visual novel, they have to invent some meteorite that gives a lot of power and is small, just so their story about realistic mechas being everywhere work.
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Finding a way to use organic matter in 3d printing so I can say "Computer...one strawberry milkshake", similar to Picard.
I've seen someone convert a 3d printer to use chocolate. Not quite the same thing, but custom chocolate bunnies are possible at least.
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Wikipedia says they closed down in 2021, but I'm also seeing this with updates as recent as this year: [link removed]
Edit: I removed the link. There are a bunch of really legit looking Foldimate websites and they are all scams.
such a bummer. this would have been a huge win for those with dexterity/mobility issues. i bet some laundromats would have purchased some also, which could have potentially decreased the price of wash & fold service (or they may have even made some available to be rented by customers to use themselves inside the laundromat)
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Here is something we don't have that I think we could: Automated vegetable farming.
I've seen these watering gantries that are fixed at the center of a circular field and then rotate radially around that point to water the field. Could you use that as a rail with an effector arm on it that can plant, weed, tend, fertilize and harvest the field, such that in goes seeds and out comes vegetables? Without the liability of free roaming robotic tractors and combine harvesters. Surely the issue here would be software.
Those are called pivots, and what you are saying seems plausible: there are vision algorithms to recognize and selectively spray weeds (see Bilberry ), recent prototypes with light-pressure grabbers to gather fruits and soft vegetables.
Even for harvesters, there are projects to automate harvesting and swapping the grain trucks (see Outrun ). GPS-guided (or assisted) tractors are already a thing.
Agriculture has some interesting innovations, but it often gets bogged down in corporate acquisitions and monetization.
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Plenty of other people's interests don't align with mine either - these days, it seems like most people's interests don't. What makes a corporation less reliable than my fellow Americans?
Divisions of power. Notice how shit things are getting under the Trump administration due to his (successful) attacks on our checks and balances.
Handing the reigns over to a corporation would be a similar situation, except that a corporation doesn't waste half its time playing golf or shitposting on twitter.
Imagine a Trump that doesn't eat, doesn't sleep, isn't stupid, and doesn't have any legal framework to tell him 'no' ...and can't just be assassinated by a fed up civilian. Literally no checks and balances, including vigilante justice.
...also did you see the bit about slavery and monopolies and such? Kinda seems like we're glossing over that to address relative alignment of interests, which is moot as fuck when things like slavery and monopolies are on the table.
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Universal healthcare and living wages for everyone.
They said scifi, not fantasy
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I'm on board with ethical and opt-in telemetry. Knowing how your users interact with your app is very useful, but not many companies can show restraint when money is involved.
If my data was used to refine and improve the products and services I interact with I'd be fine with it but as it stands it's just used to help make my life hell and exploit my existence for cash.
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I never stopped dreaming about flying cars, I just think it's not gonna happen because a crash would easily kill people just sitting in their homes.
Compared to aviation, road vehicles have virtually no structured regulations.
Even road rules are considered optional by many drivers. Lots of people drive without a licence.
