How do you envision technology 50 years from now?

[General Zod]

Right, people were buying homes they couldn't afford because they weren't renting apartments instead. Oh, wait a minute...

Never mind the social problems associated with the sort of high-density living that GrandMasterTerwynn doubtless had in mind.

Quite frankly the sort of social problems associated with high density living is preferable to the sort of social problems that comes with millions of people losing their homes because they were living beyond their means due to the horrible mindset that you "have" to own a home in order to be seen as successful.

[Ryan Thunder]

Right, people were buying homes they couldn't afford because they weren't renting apartments instead. Oh, wait a minute...

Never mind the social problems associated with the sort of high-density living that GrandMasterTerwynn doubtless had in mind.

Quite frankly the sort of social problems associated with high density living is preferable to the sort of social problems that comes with millions of people losing their homes because they were living beyond their means due to the horrible mindset that you "have" to own a home in order to be seen as successful.

So we're going to ignore that there are a huge number of other ways that this whole foreclosure issue could easily be avoided that don't involve cramming people into high-risers, then?

[General Zod]

So we're going to ignore that there are a huge number of other ways that this whole foreclosure issue could easily be avoided that don't involve cramming people into high-risers, then?

You don't get that luxury when overcrowding and obscene costs due to running out of land is an issue. But feel free to go ahead and list the alternatives anyway.

[Ryan Thunder]

So we're going to ignore that there are a huge number of other ways that this whole foreclosure issue could easily be avoided that don't involve cramming people into high-risers, then?

You don't get that luxury when overcrowding and obscene costs due to running out of land is an issue. But feel free to go ahead and list the alternatives anyway.

1. Responsible buyers and lenders. Don't buy a house you can't afford to pay the mortgage on. Don't give mortgages to somebody who can't pay for them.
2. Cheaper, smaller houses. Not everybody needs to live in a McMansion. In fact, nobody does. It's entirely possible to have a relatively small house that is quite comfortable to live in.

To name a few.

As for your objection, the solution to that is birth control.

[General Zod]

1. Responsible buyers and lenders. Don't buy a house you can't afford to pay the mortgage on. Don't give mortgages to somebody who can't pay for them.

That involves tighter regulations; deregulation is another issue that led to this whole mess. Giving mortgages and loans to people who, shockingly, couldn't afford to live beyond their means yet bought into the message that they had to have a home to be successful.

2. Cheaper, smaller houses. Not everybody needs to live in a McMansion. In fact, nobody does. It's entirely possible to have a relatively small house that is quite comfortable to live in.

You still eventually run into the problem of running out of space, even in the US. Ever wonder why San Francisco has one of the highest property costs in America?

[Ryan Thunder]

1. Responsible buyers and lenders. Don't buy a house you can't afford to pay the mortgage on. Don't give mortgages to somebody who can't pay for them.

That involves tighter regulations; deregulation is another issue that led to this whole mess.

Well no shit. What do you think I wanted them to do? Ask nicely and expect it to all just work out?

Giving mortgages and loans to people who, shockingly, couldn't afford to live beyond their means yet bought into the message that they had to have a home to be successful.

You seem to be working under the assumption that they believe this means they have to have a home they can't afford, as opposed to one that they can.

2. Cheaper, smaller houses. Not everybody needs to live in a McMansion. In fact, nobody does. It's entirely possible to have a relatively small house that is quite comfortable to live in.

You still eventually run into the problem of running out of space, even in the US. Ever wonder why San Francisco has one of the highest property costs in America?

You'll never run out of space if you don't breed beyond your means, either. Remember that in Europe they've even managed to have negative population growth rates, which can be a good thing in some places. Like the Americans or the Chinese, for example.

[General Zod]

You seem to be working under the assumption that they believe this means they have to have a home they can't afford, as opposed to one that they can.

I take it you're unaware of the concept "keeping up with the Joneses".

You'll never run out of space if you don't breed beyond your means, either. Remember that in Europe they've even managed to have negative population growth rates, which can be a good thing in some places. Like the Americans or the Chinese, for example.

Good luck instating a Chinese style limitation on birth rates. Care to try for a realistic suggestion instead?

[Ryan Thunder]

You seem to be working under the assumption that they believe this means they have to have a home they can't afford, as opposed to one that they can.

I take it you're unaware of the concept "keeping up with the Joneses".

Which is irrelevant, because it applies to an apartment as much as it would to a house.

You'll never run out of space if you don't breed beyond your means, either. Remember that in Europe they've even managed to have negative population growth rates, which can be a good thing in some places. Like the Americans or the Chinese, for example.

Good luck instating a Chinese style limitation on birth rates. Care to try for a realistic suggestion instead?

Europe, you idiot, has nothing of the sort and has managed fine. Why can't the Americans do it?

[General Zod]

Yes, because people are going to be totally immune to this in an apartment.

Apartments are not "owned" by the person living in them. As such, yes, they are immune to the possibility of being mortgaged or the necessity of requiring massive high-interest loans to pay them off. As anyone who's ever lived on their own could attest. Are you huffing paint today?

Europe, you idiot, has nothing of the sort and has managed fine. Why can't the Americans do it?

Get back to me when you have a practical solution for overcoming the social inertia involved.

[Ryan Thunder]

Yes, because people are going to be totally immune to this in an apartment.

Apartments are not "owned" by the person living in them. As such, yes, they are immune to the possibility of being mortgaged or the necessity of requiring massive high-interest loans to pay them off. As anyone who's ever lived on their own could attest.

So nobody is ever going to rent an apartment they can't afford, right? They're never going to take out a loan to get that nice big apartment to compete with the joneses, eh?

Europe, you idiot, has nothing of the sort and has managed fine. Why can't the Americans do it?

Get back to me when you have a practical solution for overcoming the social inertia involved.

Hey, why do I have to do it for birth control but you don't have to justify your hard-on for cramming people into tall buildings? You think there's no social inertia there, either?

[General Zod]

So nobody is ever going to rent an apartment they can't afford, right? They're never going to take out a loan to get that nice big apartment to compete with the joneses, eh?

It's possible, but far less likely. For anyone who has ever bothered living on their own, the apartment building managers actually perform background checks to make sure that their tenants have a source of income capable of paying on a steady basis. Besides, the goal isn't to eliminate evictions entirely, it's to reduce them to manageable numbers.

Hey, why do I have to do it for birth control but you don't have to justify your hard-on for cramming people into tall buildings?

The fact that you seem to think apartment living is this hideous experience is hilarious and makes me wonder if you've actually ever been out on your own before. Are you honestly suggesting you find running out of usable land preferable to living in an apartment building? Because that's really what you're driving at here. Since millions of people live in apartments anyway, it's easier to convince them that apartment living is not that bad compared to getting them to resist a biological impulse (because that's worked oh so well for the church).

You think there's no social inertia there, either?

It works for Japan, why can't it work for the US?

[Samuel]

Europe, you idiot, has nothing of the sort and has managed fine. Why can't the Americans do it?

I was under the impression the lived in small homes or apartments inside cities and not suburbs for the most part.

Computers, for example, are marvelous number crunchers, so you'd expect them to be primarily used for such, but the average person uses them for nothing of the sort.

Actually, they are. The worlds most powerful computers are used entirely for number crunching, computers managed to get popularized at the workplace partially due to the spreadsheet program and the main recreation activity with them involves their ability to calculate at high speeds (video games).

In retrospect, I think this is actually a rather obvious use given human desires, but as far as I know, few saw it coming 50 years ago. (Of course, it is before my time, so I might be wrong about that.)

The internet and computers are 2 different inventions.

Now, I tend to be extremely conservative in my predictions for the future. I sometimes quite seriously think they should close the patent office, since everything useful that can be invented has already been invented; all we're doing is slightly refining what we already have, and the benefit from that is bound to drop off soon.

You didn't read Broomstick's post just before yours, did you?

This might not be entirely realistic, but I don't think it is terribly wrong either: people's needs will likely stay the same into the near future, so why would there be demand for fancy new technology? Without that demand, why would it be developed?

Because economics is about the realization that human beings have unlimited demands and will always want more. For starters, not dying will always attract more money, no matter how marginal the benefit.

The computer is arguably just a better way to have meetings with people, which has been done for all human history. Same with the cell phone and its ancestors. The oven is just a superior way to harness fire so we can eat. And so on.

Not really. If we were just 20 years in the past, I would never have come in contact with you. The computer is not just for meetings- it is a multifunctional tool with games, porn, news, blogs, information, lies, people thoughts and feelings... it is like taking of the top of everyone's head and looking inside.

The cell phones first ancestor was the telegraph- before that there was nothing comparable except for the rare mirror network. However, cell phones are quantatively different- only industrialized countires could have it and mostly for large scale business, while cell phones have leaked into the third world.

The oven is different from fire. It offers control- turn on and off, something that can't be easily done with fire.

At some point, a point I personally think we are coming very close to, the benefit of improving these technologies will not outweigh the cost of developing them - the existing stuff will be adequately fit and there will be insufficient demand for improvements. Consider that the cost of developing improvements will probably continue to rise: a basement inventor isn't going to do a better job at making computer parts than the engineers at Intel, for example.

Most R&D is done by those folks in the latter category. Also, benefits will continue to increase- remember that the more people in the market, the bigger the benefit, making small ones worth it. And what we have now is millions moving out of poverty and into the market.

The cost goes up, the benefit goes down, so technology, just like organisms under biological evolution, pretty much plateaus despite not being anywhere near the theoretical limits.

You forget oligophical competition. You have a product, even if it is just a little better, and you can crush the competition.

So my prediction for tech 50 years from now is that very little will change. A few implementation specifics will change out of necessity, such as a switch to something like nuclear power on a wide scale, but the most of it, I think, will stay the same.

I'd end this with the "we can close the patent office" quote from the 1890s, but it appears he might have been misquoted.

[K. A. Pital]

Ryan, you never lived in a flat, right? Yeah, McMansions are so superior. Too bad they aren't efficient and suburban sprawl is a death knell to transport infrastructure.

[Guardsman Bass]

Now, I tend to be extremely conservative in my predictions for the future. I sometimes quite seriously think they should close the patent office, since everything useful that can be invented has already been invented; all we're doing is slightly refining what we already have, and the benefit from that is bound to drop off soon.

I'm curious as to why you think that, considering how unpredictable (and useful) technology has been over, say, the past 100 years.

This might not be entirely realistic, but I don't think it is terribly wrong either: people's needs will likely stay the same into the near future, so why would there be demand for fancy new technology? Without that demand, why would it be developed?

Because you can't really predict specifically how those needs might be met, or even what specific form they'll take, beyond "food", "security", "home", and so forth. Few people predicted the cell-phone culture, or the rise of consumer computers up until the latter part of the twentieth century, and so forth.

A great deal of technology around today is similar in purpose to technology in the past. The computer is arguably just a better way to have meetings with people, which has been done for all human history. Same with the cell phone and its ancestors. The oven is just a superior way to harness fire so we can eat. And so on.

That's understating it a bit. That's like saying that penicillin is just a better way of using folk herbal remedies.

At some point, a point I personally think we are coming very close to, the benefit of improving these technologies will not outweigh the cost of developing them - the existing stuff will be adequately fit and there will be insufficient demand for improvements. Consider that the cost of developing improvements will probably continue to rise: a basement inventor isn't going to do a better job at making computer parts than the engineers at Intel, for example.

Considering that futurist predictions for what will "adequately fit" in terms of needed technologies and the like have generally been off historically speaking, I'm skeptical of this.

The cost goes up, the benefit goes down, so technology, just like organisms under biological evolution, pretty much plateaus despite not being anywhere near the theoretical limits.

That depends on how wide-spread they are. The costs of developing new medicines, for example, is extraordinarily high - but you recoup it via things like wide sales and economies of scale.

So my prediction for tech 50 years from now is that very little will change. A few implementation specifics will change out of necessity, such as a switch to something like nuclear power on a wide scale, but the most of it, I think, will stay the same.

It's always the unsuspected stuff that gets you. Perhaps in a society where electricity is the main power for transportation, they'll abandon the idea of having internal power on cars, and switch over to having them run off the grid in cities.

[Guardsman Bass]

Again, I feel obligated to point out that it's not a choice between "suburban nation" and "high-rise tenements". Before the widespread advent of tract housing designed around the automobile, usually only the very poor lived in tenements; most of the middle class lived in either closely-packed stand-alone houses, or "row houses" and the like (hence why I brought up New Urbanism as an example). The rich tended to live on their own streets in stand-alone mansions, but that's a guarantee in any place where money determines your quality of housing.

You could easily see something like that happening again, if widespread automobile use became prohibitive for a number of reasons.

[Forum Troll]

"Forum Troll"? Cripes, how do you react to a new poster with THAT name? You realize you're sort of starting off at a disadvantage here?

LOL

If implants - no matter how routine - do not scare you, you have a poor understanding of medicine and how things can go wrong. Implanting shit is still surgery and still carries risk and that will not change in the foreseeable future. Even with "microrobots".

A few microscopic robots may do less damage than a paper cut or insect bite.

Size affects everything. A miniscule amount of cells being temporarily damaged is a paper cut. A large cut is a life-threatening and dangerous situation.

Mosquito bites often aren't even initially felt due to a local anaesthetic. If it were to turn out that not even general anaesthesia was needed, that'd help reduce risks right there.

Nor do I expect it to be cheap.

If a dude in 1920 heard the average citizen would own something with countless millions of circuit elements, he could dismiss that as ludicrously absurd. It would take a millionaire to do that if each vacuum tube or switching device cost even 10 cents each!

21st century. Intel Xeon Enterprise processor. 2.3 billion transistors for a small portion of a regular salary.

Don't make too precise cost assumptions when talking about the distant future.

For something like correcting deafness (think cochlear implants, another thing that didn't exist when I was the same age as most of the posters here) the benefits outweigh the risk. For communications... not so much.

While obviously making something worthwhile as a mere elective is particularly a technological challenge, again be careful with assumptions.

Example: It may be that the future views people having tiny implants as reducing risk, because a side bonus of multi-purpose implants is sending out a signal if the person is unconscious and needs medical care, for anything from a gunshot wound to a heart attack.

How many features can be packed into one implant? Depends on future technology.

Holy fuck - WHERE do I begin with this?

I'm not here to rigorously prove the unknown future. I wanted to see what people thought might be cool.

Most people here are getting into boring unimaginative grimdark assumptions. What would you find cool, new, different? If you were writing a science fiction story, how could you be imaginative? I liked a Dr. Who episode showing an alternate-reality London with a bunch of blimps overhead.

Well haven't got time at the moment, but here some thoughts/questions to ponder:
1) What is the size of a personal "blimp" (let's just say airship) to hoist just one person?
2) How much does the helium required to lift such an airship cost at today's prices?

You're already narrowing your imagination with assumptions, of them being helium-based.

Yet to answer your question: Not a huge amount compared to $200000 for a new private airplane.

$1.90 to $2.30 per cubic meter, so $380 for helium lifting a craft per 200 kilograms of its weight.

Don't believe me? It's trivial to do this.

Of course, the main cost of even a helium blimp is other than the helium itself.

This is why that one crazy on the news sometime back lifted himself in his lawn chair with a case of beer, a pellet rifle, and a bunch of helium weather balloons, successfully getting airborne and causing a life-threatening air traffic problem. Even a redneck could afford the helium.

3) Do you know where we get most of our helium? (VERY important question!)

Overall, helium is the second most common element in the universe. 2059 is probably early for extraterrestrial sources, though it would be pretty unimaginative to always dismiss the gas giants.

Past alpha-particle radioactive decay caused helium build-up in pockets under earth's crust, it thus formed by a nuclear process. Some people confuse this with the chemical formation of natural gas, but it just happens that the most common contemporary reason for drilling into underground cavities is to get natural gas, in which case there is helium mixed with it.

We don't even know whether the blimps would be based on helium from the crust, helium extracted with future tech from the 5 parts per million in earth's atmosphere, carbon nanorod vacuum dirigibles with future materials in an elevated argon and higher-density domed city internal atmosphere, or whatever. You'd even get some helium as a byproduct of fusion power if you had it, though I admit that's only a moderate source.

Although not for manned craft, hydrogen could be okay for unmanned craft, especially if they were light enough that they'd fall slowly and be unlikely to kill anybody below even if they took damage. I wonder if future improvements in lightweight insulators might mean usage of steam craft, 60% the density of hot air at a given temperature.

4) Are you familar with the licensing and training requirements for operating airships of any size in any representative country? (I happen to know them for the US, but other countries are even more regulated)

Loosen up a bit!

We don't even know whether or not future humanity will be ruled by Skynet, commies, mad scientists, or anything, yet you're already worrying about the exact details of regulations.

Besides, a 20 mph recreational blimp can cause less of a high-velocity accident than an aircraft ten times faster, yet even a pilot's license for the latter only takes, what, 40 or 100 hours of actual flight time plus some ground studying & instruction if my vague memory is right? Of course, there's currently all the time driving back and forth to the local airport, preflight checks (30+ minutes before taking off?), and more, which are nuisances no doubt currently cutting down on the number still viewing it as net fun.

We may instead be talking about blimps mostly flown by AIs, which don't require runways, which somebody hops on not far from their house after renting. Another dude was going on about "ten lads handy to tie the stupid thing down when you're on the ground," but that might take just one strong robot like the local maintenance bot who is in the area anyway.

A funny story about future prediction, posted by some guy on the internet:

In 1898, delegates from across the globe gathered in New York City for the world's first international urban planning conference. One topic dominated the discussion. It was not housing, land use, economic development, or infrastructure. The delegates were driven to desperation by horse manure.

The horse was no newcomer on the urban scene. But by the late 1800s, the problem of horse pollution had reached unprecedented heights. The growth in the horse population was outstripping even the rapid rise in the number of human city dwellers. American cities were drowning in horse manure and well as other unpleasant biproducts of the era's predominant mode of transportation: urine, flies, congestion, carcasses, and traffic accidents. Widespread cruelty to horses was a form of environmental degradation as well.

The situation seemed dire. In 1894, the Times of London estimated that by 1950 every street in the city would be buried nine feet deep in horse manure. One New York prognosticator of the 1890s concluded that by 1930 the horse droppings would rise to Manhattan's third-story windows. A public health and sanitation crisis of almost unimaginable dimensions loomed.

And no possible solution could be devised. After all, the horse had been the dominant mode of transportation for thousands of years. Horses were absolutely essential for the functioning of the 19th century city - for personal transportation, freight haulage and even mechanical power. Without horses, cities would quite literally starve.

[Ariphaos]

I sometimes quite seriously think they should close the patent office, since everything useful that can be invented has already been invented; all we're doing is slightly refining what we already have, and the benefit from that is bound to drop off soon.

...this has to be the dumbest phrase I've read this week.

A general-purpose chemical synthesizer has not been invented yet. This device can be conceived of, but it has not been invented yet, at least to my knowledge. It would be up there on useful scale, for sure.

The computer is arguably just a better way to have meetings with people

...and this takes the spot for number two.

The computer is a communications system, yes.
The computer is also an entertainment platform.
The computer is also a data analyzer.
The computer is also a task organizer.
...I can go on.

Destructionator, on various advances that seem reasonable in the next fifty years:
Widespread microfabrication ability: "We've always been able to make stuff!"
Common solar power: "We've always used the sun!"
Algaculture for food and fuel: "We've been eating since before we were vertebrates and we've been burning fuel for half a million years!"
Genetic decoding of pathogens to determine vaccines/other remedies: "We've had vaccines for centuries!"
Combination plane-blimps for more efficient aerial freight: "This is just taking two ideas and combining them!"
Basic anagathic treatments: "Your diet has -always- affected your lifespan!"
Widespread genetic therapy: "That began in the 80's!"

You'd probably say something similarly stupid for the synthesizer. I can imagine, though, your reaction to a Hall effect lifter that was actually powerful enough to completely displace the helicopter. "Durrrr..." Not reasonably likely, but there are a lot of things that currently seem unreasonable and flat out declaring that everything that currently seems unreasonable is impossible is just being an idiot.

[Forum Troll]

I can imagine, though, your reaction to a Hall effect lifter that was actually powerful enough to completely displace the helicopter. "Durrrr..." Not reasonably likely, but there are a lot of things that currently seem unreasonable and flat out declaring that everything that currently seems unreasonable is impossible is just being an idiot.

I like the way you think.

If you hadn't already heard of it, you might find this interesting.

Most people would foolishly discard the thought as soon as hearing it requires more P/W ratio than regular aircraft to take off from the ground.

Yet it could rule at heights like 300000 feet (60 miles) altitude, the border of space, as it does better than a rotor, propeller, or turbojet turbine with so low density air. The gap between conventional aircraft altitude and low earth orbit has gotten interest in recent years, for small military UAVs or communication relays.

A lightweight craft with a microwave beam from the ground might have power to spare. Hell, you don't even have to have all the lift coming from the thruster. Put it on a modified high-altitude weather balloon, and use it for controlled flight.

No moving parts = low maintenance engine

It's not a new idea, but technology often progresses in fits and starts.

Example: Many textbooks say the transistor was invented in 1947. Bullshit.

It was first developed in 1925 by Lilien, who patented it and even built a working transistor radio but didn't luck out on getting a company to commit funding to commercialization. Two decades later, Bell Labs independently reinvented it, unaware that it had been invented twice before (who really looks through millions of patents?) and this time got it commercialized, starting the semiconductor revolution. That wasn't even an industry with particularly high barriers to entry.

Widespread microfabrication ability: "We've always been able to make stuff!"

Given some past pages of the thread, I bet some would dismiss that because they think energy and raw materials are the main costs, but that'd be damn wrong.

For small items like consumer electronics, raw mats are mere chicken feed. You'll buy a fancy shaver in a store that costs $50, but it uses a fraction of a pound of plastic and aluminum, both of which cost under $1 for that weight of raw materials.

That's especially so for custom-made items. Give me a lathe plus a milling machine, and I can shape some aluminum stock into a small custom part, yet the materials expense is small compared to the far greater labor expense, the amount of time involved.

Good enough 3D printing and computerized rapid fabrication working with a combination of plastics and low-melting-temperature metal alloys would lead to interesting possibilities.

Compete with conventional manufacturing if mass-producing a million items of exactly the same design? Doubtful. Yet it would utterly rock for custom work or particularly small production runs.

[Forum Troll]

You can look at common tasks and ask how would you change them.

Like something as boring as shaving: If anything was possible, I'd say a magical spell making me never need to shave again. Too bad there's no magic. Yet there is advancing biotech.

We have laborious hair removal treatments now, but the difference between them and just smearing future anti-shaving cream from Walmart on your face once an eon might be the difference between a 10th century wooden rowboat and a 20th century luxury cruise liner. Both are boats, yet one makes practical and convenient things that the other didn't.

Or maybe that isn't developed, but we put a robotic bug on our face that crawls around and shaves us while we commute?

Furniture? What if we could have strong desks that weighed 2 kilos?

Houses? Will they always take a team of workers months to build and cost multiple times annual salary or is there a chance for change?

Interior furnishings?

Air conditioning of 2009 is a crazy luxury if suggested in 1909. Who would have guessed the coming of MySpace? What might be mundane in 2059? Will it be common to see somebody suspended from a ceiling in a virtual-reality feedback suit?

Some big technologies are subtle ones. Containerization of the 1950s and later had more revolutionary direct and indirect economic effects than almost anyone foresaw.

Will improvements in food preservation methods, robotic delivery, 3D food assembly equipment duplicating the best chefs, and assembly cost reductions spell the end of almost anybody bothering to cook food and make meals manually?

[Shroom Man 777]

How about refrigerators with internal UV lights to kill bacteria, or circulating clouds of nanomachines to make sure food stays fresh or at least undecomposed?

[Sky Captain]

Although having a personal recreational blimp would be awesomely cool big problem is weather. I doubt that small blimp would be capable of more than 50 - 60 km/h speed. Everything would be OK while the weather is calm, but what happens if the wind suddenly get`s gusty or unpredicted thunderstorm develops in an otherwise nice and calm summer day and there is nowhere to safely land and deflate your blimp. If those things become a futures equivalent of a today`s recreational power or sail boat I can see a lot of accidents happening like blimps being blown into trees, power lines, tall buildings, restricted airspace and so on.

[Broomstick]

Now, I tend to be extremely conservative in my predictions for the future. I sometimes quite seriously think they should close the patent office, since everything useful that can be invented has already been invented; all we're doing is slightly refining what we already have, and the benefit from that is bound to drop off soon.

You're kidding, right?

Please tell me you're kidding.

I'm thinking back on my lifetime and how things have changed, and I have a hard time (outside of a major collapse of civilization) imaging no more significant progress.

Let's look at a few changes that have occured in my less-than-half-century of life:

Medicine:
I remember when cardiac bypass surgery was new and experimental. Needless to say, I remember when angioplasties were new, too.

I remember when organ transplants were rare because cyclosporine hadn't been discovered yet - they were mostly done between identical twins when done at all, and usually involved kidneys.

I remember when, if something was cut off there was NO CHANCE of having it sewn back on. Zero.

I remember when the definition of "death" moved from "no heartbeat" to "brain dead".

I pre-date the MRI, CAT scan, PET, ultrasound.... really, until my teen years x-rays were the ONLY way to look inside the body other than opening someone up.

And by "open someone up" I mean really open them up - I pre-date laproscopic surgery, too.

I remember when we couldn't sequence genes, and couldn't locate them more definitately that "somewhere on this chromosome". Forget all the DNA testing we take for granted now - it just didn't exist.

I pre-date artificial joints, too. Cochlear impants. Insulin pumps. For that matter, I pre-date hand-held glucose meters which are FAR more accruate that the old test-strips.

I remember when cancer was a virtual death sentence and the drugs that lead to 90% cure rates for things like childhood leukemia hadn't been discovered yet.

I remember when pregnancy testing invovled a trip to the doctor and women couldn't know for sure before the second or third month that they were pregnant, no one had any way to know the gender of an unborn child, and there was absolutely no way to detect disorders and disease prior to birth.

Gee, that's just off the top of my head.

Consumer Electronics
I remember when TV's had vacuum tubes instead of circuts (I also remember that stores had machines where you could bring in vacuum tubes to have them tested to see if they still worked). When I was a kid few people had color TV's, no one had a VCR in their home, casette tapes there the new invention, there were no such things as CD's. I remember the time before personal calculators even existed (the first one my family bought was about the size of a shoebox. My current phone has more calculating ability than it did). Personal computers hadn't been invented yet. No one had a cellphone. Cars still had carbeurators instead of fuel injectors for their engines. The height of battery technology was the alkali cell - lithiums just didn't exist (at least not outside the military or NASA). I remember the time before digital watches existed.

Other Random Stuff
Back when I was young... no carbon composites. No kevlar. No GPS. No 30 mpg cars. No internet (outside of a very, very few univerisities and military bases - the average person hadn't heard of it and had no access). No ATM machines - you had to actually go to a bank to get money, and you had to do it during normal business hours.

Gee, just off the top of my head. Most of that in the latter half of my current lifetime. I could probably think of more stuff if I put my mind to it. I suppose you could dismiss some of that as not major innovation, but it really has had an enormous impact on how people live their daily lives.

[Forum Troll]

How about refrigerators with internal UV lights to kill bacteria, or circulating clouds of nanomachines to make sure food stays fresh or at least undecomposed?

UV that goes on only when the door is closed, so people wouldn't be exposed?

Playing around with your idea, it leads to some more too.

A terrestrial hyperstructure or arcology or a space colony is going to need a lot of air processing anyway. If you put UV bulbs or emitters in the air ducts, you could sterilize the invisible aerosol droplets in the air which carry airborne viruses, such as those that contaminate a room's air after somebody sneezes. Is it worth the trouble? It's not that much extra trouble if just one part of a whole processing system also used or needed for removing pollutants. The future guys might feel it was worthwhile if their recent history included deadly pandemics from bioterror.

Outside, sunlight with its UV is important (even helping eventually break down many biochemical agents out in the open), but you can't count on it everywhere.

In other uses, optionally go from UV to x-rays, for deep penetration. In Switzerland, they currently have irradiated milk. It's awesome. It has been sterilized and sealed so it doesn't need refrigeration, so you can store it long-term for weeks in your cupboard, just putting a container in the refrigerator when drinking that particular milk carton. (Either the U.S. FDA hasn't approved it yet, or public ignorance makes major companies hesitate to market it in the U.S. so far).

If such was available locally, I could get enough irradiated milk for a whole month on a single trip, heavily loading my vehicle, not having to make as frequent trips to the store.

I'm not really sure whether or not the particular refrigerator UV application would be worth it. Bacteria underneath the surface layer of food wouldn't tend to be affected, though it could helpfully sterilize surfaces and airborne particulates. But I still like your idea either way, as ideas lead to other ideas, and it's nice food for thought.

If you had nanomachines already, you might solve most disease problems. You could probably even make your body itself resistant if not invulnerable to ordinary disease, or redesign human bodies so they were simply incompatible hosts.

Example: Even HIV works by finding compatible CD4 / chemokine receptors on the surfaces of human cells, etc. An alien organism or a human made to be alien-like in the relevant regards would be effectively "inedible" to the virus.

[Forum Troll]

Although having a personal recreational blimp would be awesomely cool

Yes! You got the point: something awesomely cool.

Obviously there is already recreational flight now. Yet spending often a hour round-trip driving to go to the nearest runway (airport) and back is just the start of the nuisances. After all, why are flying cars still so popular in the public imagination? (Yes, I'm aware of arguments against their practicality). It's the dream of more convenient flight for Joe Q. Public.

Low-altitude blimp flight even at slow speed or hovering, AI controlled but under the passenger's instructions? Land on a hilltop, reach out and touch the top of a tree? Maybe it couldn't be permitted everywhere but maybe in some parks, some city areas.

Only a helicopter can currently land everywhere. Private helicopters are rare, expensive, and not casual user-friendly. Even merely forgetting to duck below the extremely-dangerous open rotors when walking up to a helo can get people decapitated if the rotors ever droop or tilt too much.

Although having a personal recreational blimp would be awesomely cool big problem is weather. I doubt that small blimp would be capable of more than 50 - 60 km/h speed. Everything would be OK while the weather is calm, but what happens if the wind suddenly get`s gusty or unpredicted thunderstorm develops in an otherwise nice and calm summer day and there is nowhere to safely land and deflate your blimp. If those things become a futures equivalent of a today`s recreational power or sail boat I can see a lot of accidents happening like blimps being blown into trees, power lines, tall buildings, restricted airspace and so on.

Current recreational light aircraft are already weather restricted. A friend of mine can fly only 1/2 to 2/3rds of the weekends, after reviewing the weather forecast, because more than a moderate wind or cloudy weather is too much. He knew somebody else who tried to take off in a 30 or 40 knot wind but screwed up while taxiing and got his light plane literally flipped over and ruined.

Most people are used to more robust airline jets with instrument-rated pilots which handle more.

Yet for mere periodic recreation similar can be okay. You might need enforcement of a rule that people aren't permitted to take blimps airborne on days of high winds. With future AIs everywhere, that might be readily monitored and enforced. There should be many spots to land the blimps, as they don't need runways, just a local robot on the ground to help tether them.

Also, don't discount the possibility of domed cities, since we are talking about the future here. (They'd save huge amounts of energy on heating and air conditioning, incidentally, as a "single big building" is more efficient than thousands of small buildings sticking up like the spikes of a radiator, less surface area relative to volume). Gently floating around inside one of those, you have no natural storms or high winds to worry about, perfect weather year-round.

[Broomstick]

If implants - no matter how routine - do not scare you, you have a poor understanding of medicine and how things can go wrong. Implanting shit is still surgery and still carries risk and that will not change in the foreseeable future. Even with "microrobots".

A few microscopic robots may do less damage than a paper cut or insect bite.

Size affects everything. A miniscule amount of cells being temporarily damaged is a paper cut. A large cut is a life-threatening and dangerous situation.[/quote]
Laproscopic gallbladder removal involves only a very few, tiny cuts - but one of the complications is liver failure followed by either transplant or death. A small cut in the wrong place, or poorly done, can certainly have life-threatening consequences. There is also the possibility of a poor reaction to anything introduced into the body, and there is always a problem of infection in any surgery.

It's not impossible, but I think it highly unlikely. As I said, removable appliances are much more likely and, while the risks of catastrophic injury in regards to implants may be rare, the mere fact that they can be catastrophic will make people less inclined to run them for mere convenience.

Nor do I expect it to be cheap.

If a dude in 1920 heard the average citizen would own something with countless millions of circuit elements, he could dismiss that as ludicrously absurd. It would take a millionaire to do that if each vacuum tube or switching device cost even 10 cents each!

We are talking about 50 years in the future, not 75. If Mr. 1920 said his comment about you'd need to be a millionair he'd be correct, because in 1970 computers DID cost millions and millions of dollars for machines that, by today's standards, are too pathetic to be given to school children for use in math class.

Don't make too precise cost assumptions when talking about the distant future.

Again, we're talking 50 years - that's not the "distant future" (although, admittedly, you are far more likely to still be alive to see 2059 than I am)

Example: It may be that the future views people having tiny implants as reducing risk, because a side bonus of multi-purpose implants is sending out a signal if the person is unconscious and needs medical care, for anything from a gunshot wound to a heart attack.

Except, even now, you don't need an implant to serve that function. We've had small sensor capable of transmitting such data for, oh 40 years or more now. Granted, originally they were too expensive for the civilian market, but now we could incorporate them into your underwear. no need for implants at all.

Well haven't got time at the moment, but here some thoughts/questions to ponder:
1) What is the size of a personal "blimp" (let's just say airship) to hoist just one person?
2) How much does the helium required to lift such an airship cost at today's prices?

You're already narrowing your imagination with assumptions, of them being helium-based.

Suggest an alternative. I'd throw out hydrogen (and the Graf Zepplin demonstrated that hydrogen can be a reliable and safely used lifting gas) but other than those two what could we use? Those are the two lightest elements, matter doesn't get lighter than that. Well, hot-air can be used for lifting, yes, but you require much greater volumes of it, as well as a heating system which adds additional weight and complexity.

Yet to answer your question: Not a huge amount compared to $200000 for a new private airplane.

You can get a new private airplane for under $100,000, actually (granted, it's not a fancy one). In fact, I've flown a brand-new airplane that sold for about $79,000 just a couple years ago.

$1.90 to $2.30 per cubic meter, so $380 for helium lifting a craft per 200 kilograms of its weight.

Don't believe me? It's trivial to do this.

Oh, I believe the price - it's the amount required and the total cost that I dispute. There are people who fly personal blimps now - last time I spoke to one he said it cost him $3,000 to fill up his ship for a flight. I had no reason to doubt his claim, and as he had actual experience in owning and flying such an aircraft I tend to trust his statement.

Keep in mind that the airship must life not only the pilot but also it's own weight. Larry Walters lifted a lawnchair with relatively little helium because his lawnchair + minimal gear + Larry weighed very little but very few people are going want to be in such a minimal aircraft. They'll want things like a safety harness, and an engine so they can go somewhere.

Of course, the main cost of even a helium blimp is other than the helium itself.

Initially, yes, but the cost of helium will be the major, on-going expense. There is no envelope material that completely elminates leakage. You will need to top the blimp off on a regular basis. For deflation, you will either lose the helium entirely, or require equipment to recover and recompress the gas, which will require power, maintenance, storage, and energy to run. There is also repair to the structure - aircraft do experience wear, it's surprising how abrassive/corrosive air can be. Not to mention the effect of UV on various materials.

This is why that one crazy on the news sometime back lifted himself in his lawn chair with a case of beer, a pellet rifle, and a bunch of helium weather balloons, successfully getting airborne and causing a life-threatening air traffic problem.

Let's not get hysterical here - Lawnchair Larry wasn't "life-threatening", even if he was a collossal annoyance. Well, maybe threatening to his own life (and he did later eat a shotgun) but not to others. It was a nice day, the jets had no problem seeing and avoiding him.

Even a redneck could afford the helium.

"Redneck" does not necessarially mean "without money".

3) Do you know where we get most of our helium? (VERY important question!)

Overall, helium is the second most common element in the universe. 2059 is probably early for extraterrestrial sources, though it would be pretty unimaginative to always dismiss the gas giants.

Yes, I'm aware of the abundance of helium in the universe as a whole, but we live on Earth. Right now, our major source is natural gas wells. It's all very well to speculate on extraterrestial sources, or making our own in nuclear reactors, but at this point in time neither seems likely as a commercially viable source of the gas. Right now, getting stuff from space is horribly expensive. Barring a major breakthrough in space travel - not just getting to orbit, but a major, major breakthrough in speed through interplanetary space, it ain't gonna happen, m'kay? Not in 50 years.

Some people confuse this with the chemical formation of natural gas, but it just happens that the most common contemporary reason for drilling into underground cavities is to get natural gas, in which case there is helium mixed with it.

Right. Hence, it being our most common source. I suppose we could start drilling explicitly for helium, but that's still pulling it out of the ground and it will still be of comparable cost.

carbon nanorod vacuum dirigibles with future materials in an elevated argon and higher-density domed city internal atmosphere, or whatever.

Assuming we're still talking about planet Earth, why the hell would we dome a city and pump up the pressure? That makes no sense. It certainly wouldn't be cheaper than just building the damn blimps.

4) Are you familar with the licensing and training requirements for operating airships of any size in any representative country? (I happen to know them for the US, but other countries are even more regulated)

Loosen up a bit!

You may not have heard - I'm having an exceedingly bad week. I'll try to minimize the influence on my non-related postings.

We don't even know whether or not future humanity will be ruled by Skynet, commies, mad scientists, or anything, yet you're already worrying about the exact details of regulations.

Well, why not? Do you think future society will eliminate or increase regulation? I suspect the latter choice. I also know WHY training and regulation is necessary for flying machines rather than a free-for-all environment. There's more to safe flying than simply making the machine go where you point it.

Besides, a 20 mph recreational blimp can cause less of a high-velocity accident than an aircraft ten times faster, yet even a pilot's license for the latter only takes, what, 40 or 100 hours of actual flight time plus some ground studying & instruction if my vague memory is right?

40 hours is the minimum required, most folks take 80. Just for the record, licensing requirements for private blimps in the US also require 40 hours flight time. The physical exam and ground school is the same - because most of ground school concerns things like weather, navigation, and communications. Yes there is a small sliver devoted to your chosen aircraft, and that's very important, but it's not the bulk of ground school.

I will also state that a 20 mph recreational blimp is EXTREMELY limited - you'd be better off in so many ways with a powered parachute that goes the same speed but requires far less in materials and space for storage.

There is also the problem of weather. Many pilots do not want to fly small airplanes in winds about 20 mph. Last time I flew a small plane in 30 mph winds I had bruises across my shoulders and hips from the safety harness because I was thrown around that much in the wind. Mountains and skyscrapers both generate hazardous turbulence at even lower speeds than that. A lot of people would be puking sick from that sort of bouncing around.

Of course, you ARE talking about pure recreation, at least in part, so you can be very choosey about when you fly. I just wanted to point out that what is perceived as a gentle breeze on the ground can be quite a different thing once you're off the ground.

Of course, there's currently all the time driving back and forth to the local airport, preflight checks (30+ minutes before taking off?), and more, which are nuisances no doubt currently cutting down on the number still viewing it as net fun.

Well, I don't view a preflight as a nuisance so much as a life insurance policy... 20-40 minutes, depending on a variety of factors.

Another dude was going on about "ten lads handy to tie the stupid thing down when you're on the ground," but that might take just one strong robot like the local maintenance bot who is in the area anyway.

You'll need multiple tie-down points - one rope along will not be sufficient. It has to do with controlling the aircraft, not just holding it to one spot.

I think you have seriously underestimate the amount of helium required, and the physical size of the aircraft. Now, blimps could be moved around by electric, possibly even solar engines, but the savings there will be balanced by other costs.

Bottom line, flying ain't cheap. Never has been. I suspect it never will be. We would require a society of a certain base affluence to allow the average person to fly at a price that is affordable. Right now, I'm not sure where that wealth/energy would come from. Solve that problem you're about halfway to personal blimps being common.