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A functional healthcare system.
Fiber to the Home Internet connectivity that was paid for 30 years ago.
Wisecracking robots who drink alcohol.
Universal Healthcare
Half-Life 3
I recently played HL2 again and it's still awesome.
Flying cars and hover boards
I'm just mad as hell at how many things seem to have topped out in the 1940's. My car is basically the same. Five wheels and I chase an explosion around. Air travel is basically the same. Big aluminum tube that's expensive size as hell. TV is basically the same. Tune in, sit on ass, watch.
You look at how life changed between 1900-1945, and how life changed since then, and we've really stagnated.
That's not to say it's all the same, phones are amazing, but they don't change my life fundamentally, a day without my phone is very much the same as a day with my phone.
I think we've still made amazing progress, just in different areas. For example, communication. In the 40s, if you were in the US and needed to contact someone in, say, Australia, the options would either be to send a letter and wait maybe weeks or months for a response, or possibly a prohibitively expensive phone call.
Nowadays you could click two buttons and have a six-hour HD video conversation if you wanted to, essentially for free. And you could send them documents, videos, money, whatever you want basically instantly. Heck, if you really wanted to you could both create realistic 3D avatars and hang out in VR if that's your thing lol
Since around the 1940s and the 1950s scientists and Engineers have definitely kept progressing. Do you think all that human experimentation by the Nazis Etc came to nothing? No. Much was learned & implemented.
Scientists & engineers are keeping a ton of technology proprietary while they've also figured out how to hypnotize the plebian masses into being consumers, entertainment-seekers, and obedient ignorant workers.
Private jet packs, flying cars, robot butlers, implantable cybernetic upgrades, a cure for baldness, affordable and safe space flight, free healthcare, a future that doesn't look like the love child of Idiocracy and Demolition Man.
Universal Healthcare.
The one thing I feel deprived of, is the proper sci fi aesthetic in our devices.
The beeps, the switches, the UI. All forsaken for an asinine black mirror .
TBF all those sci-fi transparent displays would be terrible to use
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The Bell Riots.
Fully automated luxury communism
We went Aldous Huxley when we should have gone Iain M. Banks lol
something like tricorders, they'd be kinda usefull for medical personel or engineers, of course they wouldn't be as advanced as in tng, but still
also I'll get one as soon as they're invented
more international cooperation for global benefit. instead we have more profit taking from everyone
First we sent small animals into space: a dog, then monkeys.
After that: people.
And then we stopped. I expected that we would have sent cows, horses, maybe even hippos or elephants by now.
A blue whale would be impressive.
And a bowl of petunias.
Not again!
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Not backsliding into feudalism?
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Bluetooth that works. The ability to email large files. Low cost broadband. The right to repair. Not lose the ownership of digital media.
It's been a long, long while that I've had any issues with any Bluetooth device.
Also printers that work
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I grew up in the '80s. I was expecting either nuclear annihilation or cities on the moon.
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Honestly thought I'd see more phones, with desktop modes, replace laptops in day to day life.
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Something, anything in the freaking moon.
Why haven't we been back there in, like, 50 years? That mission was done with computers that were less powerful than my stupid phone.
Anything, a telescope, a transmitter of I-don't-know-what shit, a lunar farm, a Coca-Cola or Disney advertising, ANYTHING!
Short answer: it's not that we don't have the technology, its that we don't have a reason to. With very few exceptions, if you can do it on the moon you can do it on earth or in Earth orbit
Long answer: in the space industry/field the moon is incredibly boring, relatively expensive to get to, and adds an extra step of logistics to an already complicated mission profile. Most space related technology advancement efforts have gone into doing things in orbit and there is more to do there than on the moon, it's logistically simpler, and cost is orders of magnitude less. Stuff is still advancing there, think Hubble vs James Web, GPS 1 vs GPS 3, the entire GOES system. In terms of technical challenges, they're far more interesting than anything on the moon, but it's not as flashy/headline grabbing so it's not talked about much.
The US going to the moon in the 60/70s was a rare combination of a win for scientists, politicians, and the people. The political incentive went away since as the USSR space program collapsed so too did political pressure to continue to put men on the moon and "prove 'Murica is better than those damn commies".
In modern times the political incentive is returning with the continued efforts by China to do more stuff in space so we get the Artemis program, but the incentives aren't that strong which is why the program has moved so slowly.
I know all that, it's what causes me the most frustration. In the end the "Greatest Achievement of Mankind" is not much different than a guy jumping to touch the ceiling because they told him "bet you can't reach", and after that, unless they find oil or some shit like that on the moon, they're never coming back.... At least the Americans, since the Chinese do plan to establish "something" there, at least to show they can.
For me, I view Apollo as the highschool quarterback winning the homecoming game.
In the context, its a great achievement. A lot of time, effort, and luck all came together at just the right moment to create an entertaining spectacle. The school is all happy and celebrating, students will remember that moment for years to come. But in the grand scheme of things, it's not that big of an achievement since everyone there will move on to bigger and greater things, except they won't have a student body cheering them on.
I think saying the Apollo program is one of the greatest achievements of mankind falsely puts it on a pedestal and forever sets up all other achievements as being lesser. Makes us all feel like anything that isn't chasing that glory isn't worth it. It's an achievement for sure, but not the biggest. If I had to give the greatest achievement in space technology to anything, I'd give it to either GPS or GOES.
For me the one of the greatest is the Sputnik, it was the beginning of something amazing.
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Advanced cybernetics. From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel.
It's saddening to see the slow slow progress of cybernetics.
You what?!
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Self driving cars and fusion. I'm still optimistic about fusion.
High speed rail (USA)
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- open source software that pays for contributions
- privacy laws that protect people against corporations
- living wage
- end of sexism and mysoginy
- global democracy
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From the perspective of a kid in the 70s, I thought for sure some level of space colonization, whether it be a Moon colony or O'Neill type settlements. Along with that would be moving industry into space to tap unlimited resources and allow the Earth to heal.
Just because there are nearly unlimited resources out there, doesn't mean we won't keep abusing the ones down here.
Hoverboards, RePet and a hangover cure
Laptops with good build quality, I mean the type of build quality Thinkpads used to have
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Not a particular technology, but I really had a little bit of hope that we’d be able to tackle climate change like we tackled ozone depletion due to CFCs/HCFCs/HFCs with the Montreal Protocol.
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More improvement in the area of vaccine technology, acceptance, and adoption of these techniques: alternative forms of administration, less reliance on boosters, improved thermal stability. A better understanding of the immune system, neuroscience, and human biology in general. I expected more infectious diseases to be eradicated such as HIV, TB, and malaria.
These things are progressing and I see hope in how technologies are progressing, but I believe vaccine and infectious disease research and development have been severely limited by the industry's obsession with intellectual property and pursuit of profit. Our understanding of human biology has improved, but thinking back to my teenage years, I was naive as to how complicated biology is and how little we actually understand.
I'm still a bit salty no one ever brought dinosaurs back from the grave. Our progression in flight technology has been disappointing without flying saucers too.
Still waiting for my personal jetpack and/or flying car
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this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
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