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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Socialized healthcare. A living minimum wage. UBI.
A permanent base on the moon. We should have had that 40 years ago, minimum.
THAT'S COMMUNISM
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I'm going to go against the trend here and say that libertarian corporate city-states actually sound pretty cool. They're generally not portrayed positively in fiction but I think they might work well in practice. I'm a lot less optimistic about cooperating with all my fellow Americans in order to govern the whole country democratically than I used to be. Choosing to move to an independent city-state with a government that I agree with (albeit one I don't elect) might work better.
Look at the companies that are really successful. Telecoms, Amazon, Nestle... the big ones. Note the trend of every single one of them doing the absolute most unethical shit they possibly can to make a quick buck. Do you really want to hand them things like a military/police force, or authority over your civil liberties?
Not to say that existing governments aren't also abusing those powers, but do you seriously think your life would improve if you gave that power over to fucking Comcast or something??
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Terraforming.
The formerly-water deserts can be terraformed by just digging holes at specific angles so the shadow protects plants from drying up.
It's sci-fi not like a "future robot" thing but more of a "hey we know the math we can do this reliably well" type of thing.
Also those expensive EEG headbands that track your brain during sleep and give you stats can be modified to change TV channel at specific brainwave values.
I don't know why I haven't thought about terraforming earth until I read it in a sci Fi book and it seemed like the simplest and best thing to do, over terraforming mars or Venus. We have the tech for bioengineering, cloud seeding (I think), chemicals to help stimulate growth of natural plants (at least for the ocean).
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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.
::: spoiler Rosey!
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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.
Arcologies.
Dense housing with good soundproofing, atop commercial space, in a walkable neighborhood.
Wouldn't need rent control if there was more houses.
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I'm confident that we could set up permanent human habitation on the Moon or on Mars with our current level of technology, and that's featured pretty prominently in sci-fi.
I don't know if it would actually provide a cost-effective return, but I do think that it'd be interesting to see happen in my lifetime.
Vegas can make money from tourusm in a desert, a hotel on the moon (with a casino) will do just fine.
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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.
Alarm clock that reads my brain activity and only wakes me up at the point in my REM cycle, where i'll feel refreshed waking up.
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You don't need currency for that. You just need a request system. And ideally some form of moral rejection mechanism that refuses to distribute sentient beings as resources. I didn't say it had to be distributed equally just because there's no money.
Oh, is that all
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Alarm clock that reads my brain activity and only wakes me up at the point in my REM cycle, where i'll feel refreshed waking up.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I believe this does actually exist but the most reliable one is from a company that went out of business, so you have to buy second hand
Edit: Its the Zeo Sleep Manager
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Look at the companies that are really successful. Telecoms, Amazon, Nestle... the big ones. Note the trend of every single one of them doing the absolute most unethical shit they possibly can to make a quick buck. Do you really want to hand them things like a military/police force, or authority over your civil liberties?
Not to say that existing governments aren't also abusing those powers, but do you seriously think your life would improve if you gave that power over to fucking Comcast or something??
Corporations are predictable - they try to make money. If their profit motive aligns with my own interests, then what they do will be good for me. Amazon, for example, sells me all sorts of things for low prices and with great customer support. My interests and corporate interests won't necessarily align and that's why exit rights are so important, but at least I will still be dealing with an entity acting more-or-less rationally.
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THAT'S COMMUNISM
Socialism technically, but I get your sarcasm. I hope it is sarcasm.
Well they did say Sci-Fi and we all know how likely that stuff is. So I think we're "safe" with Late Stage Capitalism.
The technology has never been what is holding us back.
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The limit is skill and discipline.
Most people can’t even drive a car that is held on the ground by gravity. You want them to…fly?
Its kinda harder to crash when you add an extra dimention (more space to freely maneuver around)
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the end of scarcity. that's a totally bogus concept that capitalism uses to keep the rich in power. we produce far more than the whole of humanity would need to feed and cloth themselves, and we have more houses empty than there are families. we could end poverty right now, we just choose not to.
Not just capitalism, but all forms of corrupt, greedy governments.
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THAT'S COMMUNISM
we're commies on the moon, we carry a....
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I find it funny who ubi proponents say we need UBI because capitalism failed to have wages match cost of living and simultaneously say UBI will fix it with capitalism.
Housing is expensive because there isn't enough. If capitalism could fix it, then housing would have at a minimum matched inflation and should have decreased in price because of technology improvements. So giving people more money absolutely cannot fix the housing crisis. UBI would be a handout for landlords.
When demand is the problem in a supply/demand economy, you can't fix it with more demand (cash).
Capitalism means that they stop building before the price dips below wildly profitable, because capital is risk adverse. Capitalism won't, not can't, fix these problems.
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Not just capitalism, but all forms of corrupt, greedy governments.
which are all capitalist, thank you for agreeing with me.
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Corporations are predictable - they try to make money. If their profit motive aligns with my own interests, then what they do will be good for me. Amazon, for example, sells me all sorts of things for low prices and with great customer support. My interests and corporate interests won't necessarily align and that's why exit rights are so important, but at least I will still be dealing with an entity acting more-or-less rationally.
wrote last edited by [email protected]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.
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Alarm clock that reads my brain activity and only wakes me up at the point in my REM cycle, where i'll feel refreshed waking up.
These exist in smartwatches. Not reading your brain activity but tracking your micro movements (or macro) and vibrating on your wrist when you are in a lighter stage of sleep around your alarm time.
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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.
Constructing an Orbital ring and then using that to get a form of space elevator built.
Totally possible to build with our current technology but the cost if we do it pre space elevator or similar is pretty insane.
Building a ring let's us basically have a stable space side anchor at low earth orbit instead of geo sync ish like you need for a normal space elevator to match ground speed.
Even more fun is cost for additional rings drops massively and you can build them in different orientations you can get space elevators to rings without having to be on the equator.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMbI6sk-62E
Last and my favorite part is the possibility of having literally trains that go up to a ring cross an ocean and go back down. Wouldn't be faster than planes but massively better cargo capacity and efficiency as well as comfortable for passengers.
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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.
Drone deliveries, food or mail. Its being trialed small scale but I want it everywhere.
