When will we be living in the "future"?

[londrum]

i was thinking about this the other day, when i was watching "Wall Street" on the telly, with their big chunky mobile phones and big chunky shoulder pads and big chunky hairdos — if they could see our mobile phones now, and our computer screens and fancy graphics, then they would probably think it was futuristic. but what we have now doesn't seem like the future to me.

some people think that Google Glass is futuristic. and someone i know was just happy when he could get boiling water to come out of his tap.

when we start sending people to Mars — that is when i think we will be living in the "future"

or when a robot comes along that actually looks like a human, and can have a conversation with you. When that day comes, then i think we will truly be living in the future.

so i'm wondering whether we will still be alive when the future comes. I think we might just about make it!

[Mackin_USA]

Starting Friday, January 20th 2017

[brotherhood of LAN]

When fusion power is in abundant supply, for me. Start of a new age.

[LifeinAsia]

When will we be living in the "future"?

By definiteion- never. Once we reach the future, it will then be the present.

The "problem" is that when the future does arrive, it often creates new issues for which we look to for a new future.
Case in point:
- clunky mobile phone -> today's mobile pones
- chunky dos -> bald/extremely short hair

When I was a wee lad and went to Disney World and rode Space Mountain for the first time, after the ride you exited by going past several exhibits describing what the future may look like. Some ones I remember offhand:
- video phones
- video security system that allowed you to see who was at your front door
- multiple computers in the house that let you communicate worldwide and shop

Haven't been to D-World in decades, so not sure what that part looks like now...

[Mackin_USA]

I still have my Motorola 6800x Brick Mobile Phone
Purchased in 1989.

[LifeinAsia]

or when a robot comes along that actually looks like a human, and can have a conversation with you.

Does he look like Arnold Schwarzenegger?

[incrediBILL]

Go back a couple of more decades and you're closer.

The current technology of computers, phones, etc. is just incremental, nothing massively futuristic about it except that those tablet computers. flip phones, talking computers and stuff we saw them use on Star Trek in the early 60s are now reality.

But none of that is really far fetched or far reaching, it was just science fiction based on the natural evolution of the technology of the day, it just took 40 years to make it happen.

For me the 'future' would consist of:
- End of all war, famine and persecution on earth, a global government that makes sure all are fed and clothed daily. All extra resources spent not on earth-based military, but protecting the earth from threats like asteroids, etc. and colonizing other worlds or building artificial colonies in space.
- A self-sustaining colony on the Moon, Mars, etc.
- Intergalactic travel and some people at Nasa really are working on a Warp drive
- True artificial intelligence, but some of the computer programs you can talk to today are so amazing the lines are blurring.
- How you house the AI, in a humanoid form, or R2D2 kind of kit, doesn't matter to me, I just want one.
- All vehicles self-driving eliminating all vehicular deaths, no DUIs, etc.

Will we make it?

Based on the current nonsense of world governments bickering over little plots of land and idealogical differences, I seriously doubt it.

Plus the market driven economies don't encourage companies to do the right thing, only the profitable thing.

Maybe Apple, MS and a few other mega tech corporations should just bond together and take over running the whole planet.

We need a CEO...

[RhinoFish]

when we move to Future City, IL:
[google.com...]

(I looked for a city named "Future", by I confused Google, expect an outage soon)

[tangor]

The current technology of computers, phones, etc. is just incremental, nothing massively futuristic about it except that those tablet computers. flip phones, talking computers and stuff we saw them use on Star Trek in the early 60s are now reality.

One can go back even further to the 1930's movie serials like Flash Gordon and Dick Tracy.... a 1911 Barsoom, or 1860s with Verne...

The future is always tomorrow... but for anyone living today that gets to tomorrow, the "future" will look like "yesterday."

[Samizdata]

When will we be living in the "future"?

When Scotty can beam you up.

...

[brotherhood of LAN]

or when there's sharks with frickin laser beams...

Back to the Future II's "future" is next year.

[piatkow]

"The future" was supposed to be when computers meant that we only needed to work 2 days a week!

[incrediBILL]

some people think that Google Glass is futuristic.

Bolting a miniaturized smart phone to your forehead is hardly futuristic, just the next step into becoming the Borq, another Star Trek creation.

People all bitch about privacy yet give it up willingly in such ways that we'll only know what we really did when the future sneaks up from the past to bite us in the ass.

[Old_Honky]

stuff we saw them use on Star Trek in the early 60s are now reality.

Could it be that we only have these devices because star trek inspired us to invent them. Without star trek showing the way we might never have had mobile phones and tablets.

The future is now on hold until we get another star trek TV series which will give us more goals to achieve.

[johnhh]

some people think that Google Glass is futuristic.

nope - saw a version in a "Tomb Raider" film the other day - does that screw the patents ?

Actual my "Eagle" comic - many years ago - had us all flying around in cars.

I do think the future does come, it's just too slow to getting there !

[engine]

The future will never be obtained.

Progress is a continuous process which is ongoing every day, and in the future, there will be more progress.

Only our conciousness makes us think about the future. As individuals, our conciousness only extends as far as a lifetime, however, we can easily see into the past through the recent generations that have lived before mobile phones, before medical many advances, before we could all travel in our own vehicles, and before flying was taken for granted. Technological change, especially, has made many of those things become a reality.

In the scale of things, think about our time on this planet. We will, if we're lucky, live for 80, 90, or even 100-years, and because of the pace of progress we would have seen some fantastic things come to fruition. Our children, and their children, etc., will see that, too.

Back to scale; Humans, as we understand them, have been on this planet for a few thousand years, and that is a blink of an eye compared to the millions, and billions of years of progress of the known universe. Progress is not something limited to Man, or his technology. Progress is going on around us all the time in nature without our intervention, and will continue to do so, in some shape or form.

We aspire to live in the future because of our conciousness, and with each development, as it is acquired, takes us forward.

The stuff of the '60s Start Trek was wonderful at the time, and some is a reality today, and some is still a dream that, perhaps, will never be obtained.

On a lighter note: I bought some of the future from Amazon the other day. Hopefully, it'll arrive sometime in the near future. ;)

[londrum]

there are some occasional things on the news that make me think "wow", and, "i didn't know that even was possible". do you remember when they landed that thing on an an asteroid or a comet, picked up some stuff and brought it back to earth. that sounded like science fiction. and when they got that rocket all the way to saturn and descended a probe through titan — and got pictures from the surface too. that definitely sounded like science fiction. and growing ears in petri dishes. i think i saw some doctor's grow someone a new ear on their arm -- harvesting it on their arm.

[jecasc]

Actually I think somehow we are slowing down regarding technological progress. Improvements have been made in the last decades but no real world-changing technological breakthroughs. A person born in 1875 living until 1970 would have seen: Invention of the telephone, movies and cinema, radio, first cars, trucks, tanks, flight, nuclear power, nuclear bombs, antibiotics, television, jets, commercial aviation, rockets, space flight, computers, moon-landing.

No wonder people thought that at that speed we would have the first colonies on moon and mars in 2000.

I can't think of any changes in the last 40 years that have been that significant. Well there is the world wide web, but somehow that falls a little short compared to the changes I mentioned above.

[brotherhood of LAN]

>the last 40 years

The cloning of an animal is pretty major in the scheme of things imo. DNA profiling has done a lot for forensics. We also passed the point where more people live in cities than in the country for the first time in human history. I guess generally there's more of a bias towards technological progress... maybe there's been a lot of advances in city planning for instance. I'd class the C language as a major proponent of advancement, alas it's slightly older than 40 years ;o)

To add to my suggestion of fusion power, stick me down for quantum computing too. Either of those seem like game changers... it seems like they're both a good 15-20 years away at a minimum.

[tangor]

Stephen Hawking: The creation of true AI could be the 'greatest event in human history'

Pioneering physicist Stephen Hawking has said the creation of general artificial intelligence systems may be the "greatest event in human history" – but, then again, it could also destroy us.
[theregister.co.uk...]
Another look at "the future"...

[ronin]

"The future" was supposed to be when computers meant that we only needed to work 2 days a week!

We do only need work 2 days a week - that's why so many people are unemployed.

Perhaps "the Future" will be the point where more people are spending the entirety of their lives in Virtual Reality than in the physical world.

There is a theory - I don't know the source, regrettably - that the reason why Earth has never been visited by extra-terrestrials is because immersive VR can be achieved before interstellar travel... and no civilisation which has succeeded in inventing immersive VR has ever been able to escape its lure.

[incrediBILL]

Technology is cute and all that, but I think a real future is more of where human kind treats ourselves as a collective unit instead of the current system where half of the planet wallows in abundance and wealth while the other half sits in their own filth dying of starvation.

There are war lords killing and raping and worse, human trafficking, etc. yet we don't care as long as it's not us.

When they do it to our citizens, which is currently in the news, all hell breaks loose but the minute this is resolved it'll go back to status quo.

We'll be living in 'the future' when everyone has an equal chance at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and little kids aren't starving and living on the street while the number of people and companies with billions have the resources to change this stark reality but the greed of wallstreet prohibits them from doing it.

I'm not suggesting global communism as it obviously doesn't work either, but something has to give.

We could easily solve those problems if we didn't have to waste all our money on the global war machine.

As long as you have wackos running countries that are in charge of weapons that threaten the security of the world, we'll never have a future.

Sadly, as predicted in much science fiction, I think the final step to utopia will be one of the biggest red stains in the timeline of human history, but if it must happen to take us to the next level, so be it.

I see it like a bandage on a wound, you just have to rip it off, it's gonna hurt like hell, but it will heal.

FWIW, we already have alien minds on earth we can't communicate with called Dolphins and it's certainly not for their or our lack of trying!

[Old_Honky]

incrediBill,

The problems you describe are caused by religion,tribalism and patriotism - in that order. Until we can understand that these control mechanisms from the past are now redundant we can never have a society where everyone has equality of opportunity.

Religion is the main problem because zealots imagine that they have the "imaginary friend" on their side and use this as an excuse for slaughter, torture and rape.

We need a change in our collective mind set and an infusion of stark reality which will take a few more generations and inevitably a few more wars, but someone must sow the seeds now if future generations are to learn to live together in harmony.

[The Shower Scene]

Will we make it?

No. The opposite, we are done. There are no "game changers" because the game has ended.

Our species had peacefully existed as hunter gatherer omnivores for hundreds of thousands of years. Then agriculture was discovered and in a blink of an eye, 13,000 years, we killed the planet. It's done. We killed it. We are fleas on a dying dog. You may call me pessimistic but I'm only being frank. It's reality.

When will we be living in the "future"?

We won't. ;)

[LifeinAsia]

Remember the days when if you wanted to print something, you had to turn your computer on and wait for it to boot before sending the file to the wireless printer? Or the old days when the printer was connected to your network with wires? Or the even older days when you had to *gasp* use a computer that was directly connected to a printer?

Well those days are over! A revolutionary new invention combines a keyboard and printer in one device. And it's very green: no ink or toner cartridges polluting landfills. Some models don't even need electricity to run!

Ladies and gentlemen- the future is NOW! I bring you... the typewriter!

[lawman]

And of course there are those who don't have an imaginary friend who believe they have it all figured out and are never wrong. This has happened in the past, its happening now and will happen in the future.

[lucy24]

When will we be living in the "future"?

When young people listen to music that is fundamentally different* from what we grew up with, in the way that popular music of 1964 was fundamentally different from that of 1934, which in turn was fundamentally different from that of 1904.

;)


* Not the same thing as "You call that noise music?!"

[carloborja]

Maybe it would be something like this?
[staff.com...]

Robots, automation, remote work, etc. We are living in the 'early days' of the future though not fully there yet.