People Unimpressed With Tech Progress

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A new Zogby poll found that many people feel we should be more technologically advanced than we currently are. Speaking of, it is 2010, where the hell are all the robots and flying cars?

While some may be disappointed that we won't be entering 2010 living like the Jetsons, 21% believe we are more technologically advanced than they thought we would be by the start of this new decade. Another 37% say the current level of technological advancement is just about where they thought it would be by 2010.
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People can't drive as it is. Imagine if cars could fly? Human missles zooming all over the place.
 
I think we're reaching the point of diminishing returns for the capability we have now. We need breakthroughs in things we're bottlenecking, such as fuel type, or breaking away from conventions and standards we fall victim to repeating (such as the wheel).

Changing the patent laws would go a long ways too.
 
idk. On one hand, there are some advancements I thought we would have made by now that we haven't. On the other hand, looking at things from an absolute perspective, I'm amazed with the level of technology in our society today.

The biggest "wow" factor for me comes from wireless technologies. When I think about all of the different data signals passing through my body right now - WiFi, cellular, mobile broadband, bluetooth, satellite TV, GPS, FM radio, cordless phone, VHF - many on the same frequencies, all without interfering with one another, it blows my mind.
 
Well hell, here it is nearly 42 years after the premier of 2001:A Space Odyssey (April 6,1968), and Earth's manned spaceflight capability is a joke compared to what is depicted in that film, not to mention its sequel 2010. In that respect our technological advances are pathetic.
 
Only 5 years left to get my car a hover conversion! Real technology will come from artificial gravity and matter conversion capability. Till then it's a snore fest.
 
If you want something done, do it yourself....

Go be a scientist and discover these things....
 
If we still had the think tanks we had from the 40s to the late 80s then maybe we would have been 5 or 10 years ahead of where we are now, but most of them are gone or are shells of themselves due to CEOs wanting profits yesterday. It used to be something to brag about how many patents a company got in a year, but today what's more important is if its something that's going to make it's R&D budget back within the next quarter or two.
 
Damnit, where are computers that run at 4 Yottahertz!

4Yhz would make me shit bricks, can you imagine how fast that would be? Except we won't see those speeds until 2150.
 
Why do we expect all of these advanced things when its the world business model to make more money using yesterdays technology as long as humanly possible?

If there is anyone to blame its upper management and shareholders who do the most to stop the advancement of things like R&D and true innovation.

I'm not saying that you must fix it even if it is not broke, but damn, there are companies out there with 486DX processor PC's running Windows ME. Really, there are.
 
qdemn7 said:
Well hell, here it is nearly 42 years after the premier of 2001:A Space Odyssey (April 6,1968), and Earth's manned spaceflight capability is a joke compared to what is depicted in that film, not to mention its sequel 2010. In that respect our technological advances are pathetic.
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Yeah when a movie has better technology than us in the real world you know we are fucked.
 
qdemn7 said:
Well hell, here it is nearly 42 years after the premier of 2001:A Space Odyssey (April 6,1968), and Earth's manned spaceflight capability is a joke compared to what is depicted in that film, not to mention its sequel 2010. In that respect our technological advances are pathetic.
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yeah, wtf... where's the moon base and the manned mission to jupiter already?
 
Axiomatic said:
Why do we expect all of these advanced things when its the world business model to make more money using yesterdays technology as long as humanly possible?

If there is anyone to blame its upper management and shareholders who do the most to stop the advancement of things like R&D and true innovation.

I'm not saying that you must fix it even if it is not broke, but damn, there are companies out there with 486DX processor PC's running Windows ME. Really, there are.
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doesn't the space shuttle run on 286's?
 
qdemn7 said:
Well hell, here it is nearly 42 years after the premier of 2001:A Space Odyssey (April 6,1968), and Earth's manned spaceflight capability is a joke compared to what is depicted in that film, not to mention its sequel 2010. In that respect our technological advances are pathetic.
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My biggest disappointment as well. All those decades since "one small step",and no giant leaps. I honestly don't know if they'll even make it to Mars in my lifetime. If they put all the time, effort,and money into space exploration as they have into wars,we'd have colonies there by now!
 
michael.pa2 said:
My biggest disappointment as well. All those decades since "one small step",and no giant leaps. I honestly don't know if they'll even make it to Mars in my lifetime. If they put all the time, effort,and money into space exploration as they have into wars,we'd have colonies there by now!
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We as a race should be focused on defeating problems on our home planet before we colonize another planet.
 
michael.pa2 said:
My biggest disappointment as well. All those decades since "one small step",and no giant leaps. I honestly don't know if they'll even make it to Mars in my lifetime. If they put all the time, effort,and money into space exploration as they have into wars,we'd have colonies there by now!
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This is possibly the biggest dissapointment in my lifetime. I'm 26 now and I honestly question if we'll actually see a manned mission to mars succeed within my lifetime. We have the technology to get something up and out, but too many (not exactly baseless) hangups about fission power in orbit for it to ever happen.

My dad kept a subscription to discover magazine for the first 15 years of my life, and going back and reading some of that speculation now is more than depressing.
 
Screwing around on the Moon and Mars is cool and all, but right now we're sort of just getting out of a recession, and not to mention, we have quite a few more important things to worry about on planet earth.

So for now, it ranks pretty low on the totem pole of things to do.
 
The only bottleneck to progress are entities holding firmly onto things like patents and distribution channels. They want to sell old crap that is cheap for them to make or distribute and milk it for as long as possible. Smaller innovators face a lot of obstacles in this playground.
 
CptFalcon said:
We as a race should be focused on defeating problems on our home planet before we colonize another planet.
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Or accept who we are and move on? We're human beings, not God Almighty.
 
Was just talking about this while replaying Mass Effect with my SO. We're 27 and 26, and both are disappointed that, in our lifetimes, we'll likely never be able to leave Earth and visit a colony on the moon or Mars.

For all its insanity, the Cold War did a lot for the space program in the US. Perhaps the next Space Race will occur someday between the US and China?
 
Batteries still suck. I want safe, high-amperage, rechargable, micro-nuclear power cells or something that allow high-drain devices to last years on one charge like a watch lasts years on a tiny lithium ion battery. Maybe a laptop battery that can last a full month in a desktop-replacement, high performance laptop at full load.

But, seriously, batteries still suck.
 
It is a trickle down effect. The technology is probably more than a 1000 years ahead of establishment science. Because of the slowly economy the trickle down effect is very very slow.
 
CptFalcon said:
We as a race should be focused on defeating problems on our home planet before we colonize another planet.
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How do you know that the solutions to the problems we face here on Earth won't be solved while looking for answers on how to colonize space?
 
qdemn7 said:
How do you know that the solutions to the problems we face here on Earth won't be solved while looking for answers on how to colonize space?
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You obviously have nothing even approaching a clue as to just how much of our current tech 'goodies' are a direct result of NASA research during the "Space Race" with the old U.S.S.R.

I think some of you youngin's have something of a short sided view.

I was born in 1945, just after WWII ended. Some of the things that I use every day were nothing more than SciFi back then. The amount of tech progress in my lifetime has been incredible. So many things that you take for granted now weren't around when I was a kid. I remember how amazing it was when my folks bought on of the first TVs in our little town. It had a small ROUND screen, and all of the other kids in the nationhood would visit and we would sit close just so we could see it. Color TV and the huge screens of today were things that we couldn't even imagine.

I really wish I could live for another 60-70 years, just to see what going to be around then.

It will be amazing compared to today, and I envy you that will still be around then.
 
I don't think anything special happened in the past decade. Sure, internet and mobile phones are far more common now than 10 years ago but still, nothing new.
 
well in the last decade the internet has become a necessity for business and life, it was not 10 years ago.....
 
RAF_OldBuzzard said:
You obviously have nothing even approaching a clue as to just how much of our current tech 'goodies' are a direct result of NASA research during the "Space Race" with the old U.S.S.R.

I think some of you youngin's have something of a short sided view.

I was born in 1945, just after WWII ended. Some of the things that I use every day were nothing more than SciFi back then. The amount of tech progress in my lifetime has been incredible. So many things that you take for granted now weren't around when I was a kid. I remember how amazing it was when my folks bought on of the first TVs in our little town. It had a small ROUND screen, and all of the other kids in the nationhood would visit and we would sit close just so we could see it. Color TV and the huge screens of today were things that we couldn't even imagine.

I really wish I could live for another 60-70 years, just to see what going to be around then.

It will be amazing compared to today, and I envy you that will still be around then.
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If people would start taking cryonics seriously (like if we had to freeze people to make long interstellar trips for example) you very well might eke out another 60 years to a century, as it stands now, with companies profiting from a protracted death, rather than a long healthy life, it does seem pretty unlikely.
 
Freddo said:
Sure, internet and mobile phones are far more common now than 10 years ago but still, nothing new.
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That would be like someone in the 1940's saying the electric grid was nothing new.

wolfen22 said:
Screwing around on the Moon and Mars is cool and all, but right now we're sort of just getting out of a recession, and not to mention, we have quite a few more important things to worry about on planet earth.

So for now, it ranks pretty low on the totem pole of things to do.
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We won't find ways to monetize colonization by staring up at the sky. We have to go there.

We waste trillions of dollars on pointless shit. The cost of the space program is a small price to pay considering the long term benefits.
 
I know you dudes love space, and would LOVE to live on the moon, but let's be honest here, how many people actually care? People right now care about if they have a job, not the moon, or mars, or anything really.

Something as big as colonizing a planet should be done at a time when we have the technology and when we have the time..... and we have neither right now.
 
Freddo said:
I don't think anything special happened in the past decade. Sure, internet and mobile phones are far more common now than 10 years ago but still, nothing new.
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But can you realistically say that you moved today's style of corporate management back to 1980 when the first cellular systems were taking off that management would still go for it if they were told flat out that it may take 10-15 years before everything becomes affordable to the average person? Today almost no one is interested in creating something new unless it can bring in hundreds of thousands of users, if not millions in two years or less.

I think what could be a potential example is Clearwire, which has rolled out to 30 locations but still has a relatively small amount of users. Right now it has an excuse, the economy but let's say that a year from now everything is better. I really think people will be calling for the plug to be pulled. Some things are going to take some time to develop, and most companies now can't stand it because of their shareholders demanding a dividend.
 
People have no room to complain about the lack of technology until they can set up a freakin' wireless router without calling me!
 
I think the average person has no real concept of where technology and science actually are. They only have the barest perception of what applied technology is currently providing, but really no sense (or interest in) the theoretical.

The job of science fiction is to speculate well beyond the present day. In certain big areas, that have turned out to be much tougher to solve from either a physical or economic, standpoint, one could say we "lagged". Spaceflight could be seen as one of these areas. For every person that wants a manned mission to Mars just "because", there are ten who will say "we need to spend money here". The fact is, the Universe presents certain physical boundaries that are enormously difficult to overcome. Sci-fi authors have the benefit of saying "well they just did it". Reality is that overcoming the theory of relativity isn't easy and tapping into a source of unlimited energy is a very, very hard pre-requisite for any possible solution.

On the other hand, look how far we have come in terms of our cosmological understanding. String theory is monumental and is far beyond nearly any speculative thought. Most people have really no idea of what it even is and likely lack the capacity to even begin to understand it. Same with the work going on at the super colliders. How many people know what a "higgs boson" is or why scientists are obsessed with it?

When a survey asks what people think about technology, they want to know why we don't have laser pistols, sex bots and warp drive. Really moronic stuff. So take it from where it comes.

Meanwhile, scientists continue to make incredible advances in the areas of quantum computing, protein computing, nano-technology and theoretical physics. It's just that the 'applied technology' aspect of these disciplines isn't there yet and energy is becoming a gigantic challenge.

Likely any intelligent civilization faces this challenge. Since society seems to never evolve and most people seem to remain greedy, lazy, ignorant and bent on destroying each other, it becomes a race to see if your science can make resource constraints a thing of the past before the species annihilates itself.
 
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