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?
-
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.
-
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.
-
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)
-
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.
-
THAT'S COMMUNISM
we're commies on the moon, we carry a....
-
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.
-
Not just capitalism, but all forms of corrupt, greedy governments.
which are all capitalist, thank you for agreeing with me.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Arcologies.
Dense housing with good soundproofing, atop commercial space, in a walkable neighborhood.
Wouldn't need rent control if there was more houses.
This. This is the solar punk dream.
Add a rooftop patio or gardening setup and I might cream my jeans
-
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.
From what I've seen about a space elevator, is that the we don't have the means to do it without creating a massive material shortage in the world.
The most plausible idea I've seen is using the centrifugal force of the earth spinning to keep a mass at LEO. But without a futuristic material like long carbon nanotubes, we would have essentially a ten mile thick metal cord tapering to something a few feet thick, and you would be limited in payload to like a few hundred pounds.
Just curious, why do you think a ring would predate the elevator?
-
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.
How about a machine that can fold your laundry after it's washed and dried?
-
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.
Along somewhat similar lines, I wouldn't mind a fan that monitored my temperature while sleeping and adjusts its speed accordingly.
-
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.
Chicken and vegetarian was just an example, also the chicken was implicitly dead in my example so it was no longer sentient, also also there might be non moral reasons, which paint color do we give people for their walls? How often? Etc etc etc.
In the request system you propose there needs to be some sort of pointing or valuation, requesting a car should not be equivalent to requesting an apple. Whatever form of valuation you use for that, there's your currency. Not to mention that for the requesting system to be able to work the government would need to own all products so it can redistribute them according to requests, and what would it do if 100 people requested something that only 50 were made? It's a nice idea but it becomes very complicated very fast, whereas using currency takes away all of that complication and gives you something tangible that could be implemented tomorrow instead of in 20 years being very generous.
-
We easily produce enough food to feed everyone with our current technology level. Making it free and available to everyone is mostly a logistics and economic problem.
-
Yes, but if you do it in the form of currency without changing the system in which the currency is used, it's just feeding that system. Are capitalists suddenly going to be less greedy, and more likely to care about their compatriots instead of eager to exploit them because we give them more power and more money?
No. They won't. They'll just find better ways to exploit this sudden surge of basically free money.
Sure, other stuff needs to change as well, but using currency for an UBI is the easiest and fastest way to implement it.
-
From what I've seen about a space elevator, is that the we don't have the means to do it without creating a massive material shortage in the world.
The most plausible idea I've seen is using the centrifugal force of the earth spinning to keep a mass at LEO. But without a futuristic material like long carbon nanotubes, we would have essentially a ten mile thick metal cord tapering to something a few feet thick, and you would be limited in payload to like a few hundred pounds.
Just curious, why do you think a ring would predate the elevator?
Just curious, why do you think a ring would predate the elevator?
(Not OP) Because simply from a construction-point-of-view it's achievable now. Unlike a space elevator, a ring could actually be built and used with today's materials.
-
Just curious, why do you think a ring would predate the elevator?
(Not OP) Because simply from a construction-point-of-view it's achievable now. Unlike a space elevator, a ring could actually be built and used with today's materials.
Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I don't see us launching enough space raw material from ground level to build it. Not trying to sound rude, I've just been in the logistics game(even helped put a small satellite into orbit) and I just don't see the millions of tons of material needed being launched from the ground. Again, not trying to sound rude, this is just my observation from being "in the game".
