The demise of the familiar, but not intimate, relationship?

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Personally, I find it exciting, I cannot wait to see what technology awaits us in the next fifty years if we are able to get that far without our fears overcoming our rationality. Whilst our physical world may not be the utopia we may hoped it to be, I think that we may be able to make our non-physical world a more favourable place to live, and thus humanity will eventually move towards a more data based existence, in a manner perhaps not unlike that seen in the Matrix...just with less genocidal robots...possibly.

I hope so. When I think of the internet future I always recall a sci-fi novella I stumbled across in 1974 as a kid. It was set in a world where everyone live in apartments underground and lived their lives vicariously through machine communication with others. Leaving your abode even to step into the hall out your door was considered a horror. So was physical communication or contact with others. It was originally written in 1909, but was remarkably prescient in many ways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops

Just food for thought.

[Kptlt. Neuerburg]

Originally Posted by Dread Knot

I hope so. When I think of the internet future I always recall a sci-fi novella I stumbled across in 1974 as a kid. It was set in a world where everyone live in apartments underground and lived their lives vicariously through machine communication with others. Leaving your abode even to step into the hall out your door was considered a horror. So was physical communication or contact with others. It was originally written in 1909, but was remarkably prescient in many ways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops

Just food for thought.

For some reason that reminds me of Einstien's probable prediction "I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots." With the way people are becoming more and more reliant on technology how many generations will it take before such a thing comes true, if it will even happen?

Almost as if to prove this point some family friends came down from Washington State to visit Disneyworld and my family a visit as well, one of them who is a pre-teen was glued to his iPhone for almost the entire trip and wasn't even remotely interested in anything other then the iPhone.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Dread Knot

I hope so. When I think of the internet future I always recall a sci-fi novella I stumbled across in 1974 as a kid. It was set in a world where everyone live in apartments underground and lived their lives vicariously through machine communication with others. Leaving your abode even to step into the hall out your door was considered a horror. So was physical communication or contact with others. It was originally written in 1909, but was remarkably prescient in many ways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops

Just food for thought.

Good lord, and I thought old Herbert George had a gift for future prediction, that looks a very interesting novella, I will have to check it out...I imagine the copyright has expired by now so it should not be difficult to come across.

I think there are blessings and curses to come, because as we have seen, each technology can be used for good and bad. When I mentioned earlier about creating an online utopia, perhaps I misspoke, because in my enthusiasm for the technological future of the human race, I forgot to factor in humanity. There will, of course, be crime, crime that will range from identity theft, to mental damage, to straight up murder depending on how the technology integrates itself into our body. The cliché story of 'If you die in the game, you die for real' may yet become a reality.
Then, of course, there are two other factors that are coming up real fast, cloning and robotics.
Todays science fiction is asking us questions that human society is going to have to answer within the next generation or two. What is a human being? Can a robot be classed as sentient and given the same rights as a human being? It'll be the civil rights struggle all over again.
We are already branching into this territory in a way, I saw a while ago, science 'sets' that could be brought for children that you fit onto a cockroach and by tuning this transmitter you can essentially control the cockroachs movements by the impulses the transmitter sends to the cockroachs antennae. Now a cockroach is not exactly a creature that creates much sympathy for the average person, but consider what might be next, a device to control the movements of a bird? Remote controlled cats, a manner of training them to act the way that humanity wants them to act rather than how they wish to act.
In short, little more than enforced slavery upon these creatures.
And would it stop there?
Eventually, soon, probably within our lifetime, someone is going to clone a human. It's inevitable, and it will probably happen in China since the laws regulating genetic experimentation are more lax there than in the rest of the world. From this cloning will come an explosion of genetic computing, 'designer babies' as it is often called, and there will also come the potential for a new race of slave labourers.
Imagine this, an adult, strong and muscular, but with the self-awareness and intelligence of a two year old, governed by a chip in his head that tells him that he must do something, be that a menial task, or a murder.

Of course, this is the very darkest...well, not very, but more darkest side of the spectrum, I find it personally rather unlikely that we would deliberately create a slave race out of human clones. Robots, entirely possible, but human clones seems a step too far for us. However, I could definitely see human behavioural problems dealt with by a cranial chip which would modulate the brains wavelengths. No more need for anti-depressant tablets, a chip will do the job for you 24/7 and in the long run be a lot less expensive than a continual prescription.

Ah, I hear you say, what if someone interferes with the chip? Well, it's possible, and it's likely to be an example of a new force of criminal activity that future law enforcement will have to deal with.

One thing is certain, the singularity is closer now than it ever has been, and there are exciting, and dangerous times ahead, with a LOT of moral questions to be asked and answered.

[Skybird]

Morals play the lesser a role the more things can be done. It shouldn't be like this, but that's how it actually is. Even more so when states and monopolised businesses are involved. Morals is for the powerless and the weak. Opium for the masses. Power corrupts. The more power, the less morals. The more greed, the less morals.

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Eventually, soon, probably within our lifetime, someone is going to clone a human. It's inevitable, and it will probably happen in China since the laws regulating genetic experimentation are more lax there than in the rest of the world. From this cloning will come an explosion of genetic computing, 'designer babies' as it is often called, and there will also come the potential for a new race of slave labourers.

Yes, I certainly see a lot of future ethical issues with "biological robots", but if the profits are there and oversight is lax, I could see it happening. Obviously, a biological robot has a lot of the nagging technological issues worked out that a mechanical one doesn't. Slavery, like War seems to be one of those dark human institutions that dog us no matter what technological turns we make. (Slavery is currently resurging in the Thai fishing industry.) Given the built-in proclivities of the human male, I could also easily envisage female clones being grown and sold simply perform only one specific form of labor. Producing human clones, whose only purpose is to provide spare body parts and donate their organs on demand seems like a distinct short term possibility too.

On the whole I think we are in transition from one international order (the sovereign nation state) to another (whatever that's going to be), which will cause ructions. Such transitions always have before. Technology and science will continue to build on what exists. Human society goes through cycles of similar form, but knowledge is constantly accumulated. That, in my opinion, is what breaks down social orders, as powers-that-be fall for the temptation to spend their effort on preventing, rather than exploiting, technological advance. Somebody will exploit it.

We're only beginning to run into resource limits and land degradation, which always leads to trouble. Climate change and aquifer depletion are all in the news lately. As energy gets more expensive increasing amounts of marginal agricultural production become sub-marginal. A sure sign is the volatility of food and fuel prices recently. So, I can easily envisage a future where your on-line life becomes more enticing to you than your physical one, as your physical one becomes a drab struggle against growing limits, shrinking opportunities and dwindling resources. The internet in contrast, seems so boundless, dynamic and carefree in comparison. A place where you can project any image you want, regardless of how grim your real circumstances are. Frankly, that already happens.

On a lighter note maybe we can turn to the unintentionally hilarious Criswell of Plan Nine from Outer Space fame for the answers...

Originally Posted by The Amazing Criswell

Greetings my friends. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future. We once laughed at the horseless carriage, the aeroplane, the telephone, the electric light, vitamins, radio, and even television! And now some of us laugh at outer space. God help us... in the future.

God help us... in the future. Oh yeah.