The era of smog-filled skies will be over, because fewer of us will be driving cars. There will no longer be the use for cars and roads as we'll be piloting environmentally friendly personal vehicles between cities and under the seas. And we will never be lost again thanks to GPS-driven virtual mapping. Then again, with teleportation we will not need to travel at all.
And, best of all, we'll all have more time to enjoy the astounding advances of our near future, because we'll all be living longer. A lot longer. Find out what we can expect to see in the future in this well produced documentary.
9 comments:
Can't wait...
Lot of interesting stuff, but some of it is going too far. Futurists have usually been more wrong about tech applications than about development itself. the human genome has been out for years but it hasn't done much for us because there's fighting over the rights to it, and people are skeered of what might be possible with that information. Plus epigenetics is showing that there's more to genetics than just the genome itself; it's wayyyy more complicated.
Highway-in-the-sky has been around since the 60's. The heyday of NASA made us think flying cars were coming, so they drew up a grid of corridors with varying altitudes. If oil's going to be running out like he says, then personal flight will be pretty exclusive to super rich people. Like drug dealers. The rest of us will have to make do with improved ground transport. Bigger airports, Boeing carbon fiber jetliners, and Airbus Superjumbos are the future of flight for the rest of us.
Cool new skyscrapers and architecture is a given. That was right.
As for farm towers, not going to happen. Land & logistics aren't going to get THAT expensive. One-story greenhouses in the suburbs should be good enough. A few changes to the laws governing agriculture will solve the problem. Don't forget, the 30% who don't live in the cities should still have land for farming.
The bit about bio-gerontology was the most exciting of all. Imagine the effect on careers: imagine if your professional working career lasted 80 years instead of 40. You'd be a VERY wise, educated, skilled, experienced, and accomplished member of the workforce. Human capital would stay in use longer. You'd have spent a larger percentege of your time being productive. Let's hope this doesn't get cockblocked by religious luddites.
Land & logistics are going to get THAT expensive and probably a lot faster than you think. We're already one minute to midnight methinks.
But man cannot live on water and power alone
It sounded to downplay all of the problems that we have today. Still, some of the ideas were interesting and their application in many years would be great. I'm not worried about going out like the dinosaurs tho.
yeah, non-pilots pushing 1 button for the destination, but are expected to put the thing together themselves, and for "only" almost a half million bucks...hmmmm...
Eric, is it because of the population growth? That's expected to level off near 11 billion according to the UN. There's more to fertility than Malthusian economics. Malthus predicted large-scale human misery and famine in the 1800's due to population spiraling. Doom & Gloom prophecies have been around since the 70's. They helped sell magazines, but they haven't come true. In fact we're farther than ever from subsistence living. Futurists like the ones in this video need to learn from past mistakes in order to get things right.
Bigger middle classes, feminism, and urbanization all lead to smaller families. And those 3 trends are growing in the 3rd world where most births happen.
There are many techniques that increase crop yield per acre we have yet to exploit. Towers save space, but that urban space is better off used for people, not food that could've been grown outside where it wouldn't need artificial light. There are labor-intensive farming methods that can give us several tons per acre, like growing multiple crops in the same spot to balance out nutrient demand on the soil. and US only uses 2% of its workforce for agriculture. We can work the land harder when we have to.
I felt the water purification invention was pretty applicable and would be something that could make a big difference. I'd like to have a couple.
this filtration system is better:
http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_pritchard_invents_a_water_filter.html
And we'll see who makes it to the future. If the biosphere collapses or another ice age is triggered when the great ocean conveyor slows too much or whatever, we're likely to see the human species go through another bottle neck first and then its anyone's guess if we'll see anything too fun in our lifetimes.
http://forum.philosophynow.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2769
Is it just me, or was the concept of that mini-robot running off cells from a mouse's brain both amazing and scary at the same time! If we are really getting to the point where we need to integrate with machines to keep up and also, have our minds enhanced, we will lose all individuality. We will be going 'borg'!! Who else this is never a reality but me?
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