Re: tech miracles of the year 2000 as seen from 1950

From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Wed May 16 2001 - 07:23:32 MDT


In a message dated 5/16/2001 2:19:34 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de writes:

<< Superluminal travel, but no automation in battle. Monkeys
 frozen in slowtime as flies encased in amber. No telepresence.
 No augmented reality. No robotics. Antiquated communication
 technology, yet no relativistic lag. Almost bare-handed
 handling of antimatter. Nanotechnology, but still people
 around. Nanotechnology, but ridiculously stupid, brittle
 computers. Moronic SOPs. Inconsistent treatment of existing
 technologies. Random regression from one episode to another.
 Here today, and gone tomorrow, substituted by another shiny
 bauble >>
Ah! Eugene! Thee has the first sign of thee Vulcan Mating Fever. Thee blood
burns Eugene, Thee eyes burn, Its Amok Time for you, fella!

<<Diagnosis: not a technology forecast but just space opera
for monkeys. Doing lots of harm by scrambling (especially
young) people's expectations of what is physically possible,
and what is not, what is easy, and what is hard. >>

Have you noticed that in the science fiction pulp mags, as well as books, its
scarcely much better? The printed word isn't so expensive like silicon
graphics special effects are, hence the Trek "cosmos" stuff is always a 'work
around,' and has always been thus.

<<Recommendation: Producers of the series to be the first
to be put up against the wall, come the revolution.>>

Producers, being full members of the privileged class, will probably control
the nanotech revolution, Eugene, as Drexler hinted at. Power comes to money,
most times.

Mitch



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