The Future Isn’t What It Used to Be

The future is gonna be moving picture displays, bill boards crowding out my view, gadgets that come with drivers i can't find, and menu's i have to learn to navigate through?

There is something to be said for life and nature unfiltered which i'm philosophically unqualified to write about. Kid's and people shouldn't necessarily be inundated with all this tech because it's possible, unless of course it removes much of the (unergonomic?) interfaces and junk you have to wade through to find what you were originally looking for. Heck, i can't even stay on the internet for longer than an hour until i feel a little socially removed and want to go outside.

It just looks like a Commercial future where ads are gonna invade or integrated wallet displays and car dashboards HUD's trying to sell us something.

Hi robert1374,

You raise an important question that is always relevant to scientific research-- Does 'we can' necessarily mean that 'we should'? One never knows how scientific 'advancements' will be used, or what they'll lead to.

Scientists can now clone dogs without much trouble-- (www.popsci.com/category/tags/cloned-dogs/)-- and I recently read an article in the NYTimes about wealthy people cloning their beloved pets who've passed on. Of course, this doesn't cause harm to anyone, but is it healthy? Isn't there something to be said for life's transience-- isn't that what makes life special?

We had an early-release copy of a book lying around the office here, written by two scientists, about the ways in which people can prolong their lives long enough to reach the next epoch in scientific advancements, and thus proceed to, eventually, cut off the process of aging all together. All of those ways in which the body is conditioned to break down, according to these authors, are reversible, or will be. I'm not sure of the legalities around naming the book right now, but I'll check in with the editors here and review it on the site as soon as possible. Here's what I've been thinking while flipping through it so far:

People clearly are afraid of death, and change, and that's why any products that claim to reverse aging processes, from skin-care lines to hair-regrowth products, do so well. But death is one essential fact of our existence; it's a major part of our lives, and always has been. That's part of what makes us human. First of all, no matter what these scientists are writing right now, I don't believe it is yet, or will soon be, possible to reverse-age and skirt death. That's not happening. But even if it did, to consider it as a hypothetical possibility-- is this something we want to do? What would this do to us, as a species? How would this impact our world populations? How would this affect our political and cultural worlds?

There's a big picture to be considered, and while scientific advancement is more often than not made in the name of progress, the big picture remains important, of the ultimate importance. So the question you've raised is indeed important: What kind of future do we want? Let's carefully consider that first, and then consider how science and technology can get us there.

Thanks for commenting on our site.

Taylor Hengen
Digital Content Manager
PopSci.com

If it were possible to just predict the next big invention, instead of revealing it to the world, I'd be producing it and making out big. That's the central problem with even making a video that projects the world 10 years from now - it's quite naive.

Incredible technology development can not be ignored,
it exceeded the expectations of the industrial revolution by far. Today, the first time in history, we live in the recession, when everything is enough and in abundance. I do not think that we really understand what the world can achieve in 10 years, with technology and knowledge that is available today. But high technology is not accessible to all. In the future, will increase the differences between developed and developing nations, which will entirely change the image of the world. This will be one of the most decisive tests for humanity and will determine our future.

in 5-9 years were going to get the power of a current computer in a macdonalds toy"just plug in a keyboard mouse and attach to your tv and get the power of mclinux

The Computer Geeks/Scientist/Technologist/Futurist will inherit the earth, whether you like it or not. I love tech & I want to use it all the time & be connected to the net all the time & what I say to the techno phoebes are (You do not have to use it, put it down). But I for one will be using it all & if god even has a problem with it I say(so what) We will argue when I get up there, but while I am alive I want to be laced with technology. I welcome all forms of tech & science. It is only one way to go & that is the tech & science way because as you can see we need several different kinds of technologies just to stay alive. Technology even saved my eyesight & it is to this day the reason I can see & not to mention my wonderful doctor that did the surgery. If you have a problem with tech, then simply do not use it,but I will be using it & I will be cloned hopefully sometime in the future so I can have spare body parts(Wink-haha) & yes in your eyes that may not be moral, but I simply do not care. Yeh I know far out, but thats why I love science & technology because it is the best & plus I am a computer geek. I Want My Flying Car!

Oh & I as an American think that we should work with others all around the world to improve everything, but do it together because as you can see from this economy thing we are all connected if we collapse everyone else collapses & if Europe goes down we here in America will go down because we are to me a big connected global world & I think we would all benefit if we just worked on everything together like technology/science/going to mars & the future. I think that we could learn a lot from one another. Lets all advance together & then we will get there faster & in a better way. More brains working towards the same goals will get us to success faster then trying to do it all by ourselves.

The Computer Geeks/Scientist/Technologist & futurist will inherit the earth! Wheres my flying car?

There is nothing revolutionary about this vision, just evolutionary, bigger screens, more pervasive tech, touch access. Where is the speech recognition and AI. Programs like Talkingdesktop software are already showing features to users that you would think be part of this Microsoft version of the future.

Yes I agree. The video is not so much a vision of the future, but Microsoft's vision of where their currently existing technology will go in 10 years. The video is completely void of any of Microsoft's competition's products - we all know apple will still have a few gadgets everyone wants (where's the iPods and iPhones in Microsoft's futuer?)

I must say that for the amount of money that went into research and production for that video, it's very short sighted.

Of course they know that there are gonna be competitors, but why would they show them in a video to promote their products ???

I mean the iphone is a consumer technology and is fair close to this sort of stuff i can't imagine what the top rate iphone type technology is like

Weather you like it or not, the tech haves will inherit the earth, while the have-nots will become our secriteries. Hopfelly, people will learn to recicnize that you shouldn't do somthing just becouse you can, (like recing our planet.) Next thing you know, angry track runners who think that every one in the juges home town is biased will use some sort of powerful engin to blow the place up; and kids will be blowing elementery schools to smitherines with there dad's workshop tools. I'm an optimest, but an "evil" one

As for the question of what if we didn't age/die, an excellent fictional account would be Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. In it, the technology exists, combined with global warming and sea level-rise. The population spikes up, and all kinds of political and economic havoc ensues. People enter in to indentured service for decades in exchange for their anti-aging treatments. The gap between the rich and poor nations widens and wars and terrorism are commonplace.
And as for those people who are living to 200 years and more? They face all kinds of psychological problems related to aging, memory, chronic deja vu, and the like.
I highly recommend this series.