Pajiba

My backpack's got jets. I'm Boba the Fett.
I bounty hunt for Jabba Hutt to finance my 'Vette.
I chill in deep space, a mask is over my face.
I deliver the prize but I still narrow my eyes
Coz my time I don't like to waste. Get down.

I'm a sucker for old school shit. My house will be decked out in "antiques." I can't wait for when laptops weigh only a few ounces and you can fold them up and put them in your pocket. I was watching a video the other day of a cell phone touch-screen that is transparent and can be folded in half and hit with a hammer without breaking. I swooned a little.

My first cellphone was in 2002, when I graduated high school. My mother insisted on me having a phone when I went away to college.

I'm more surprised at how the computer has evolved. When I was a kid, maybe 2 out of every 5 homes had a PC. So at school, it was a treat to go to the computer lab and play Oregon Trail, using those floppy disks, no less! Now computers are so commonplace, 3 year olds know how to email. That just baffles me.

For a think piece, there's really not much thought here. "Technology has changed, and what people imagined 50 years ago isn't what it's like today, and the gadgets from my youth are becoming relics because, like I said, technology has changed." Fascinating - I've never read such an in-depth discourse.

Raul, I think the think is supposed to happen in the comments section. Yours was good for a first try, keep at it.

I predict the desktop computer will make it's exit in the near future. It won't be due to some upgrade/update/new product. It will be because all of our systems will start to become more and more fully integrated. Cell phones can already dial up your home TV to order it to record your favorite show. Your TV shows you who is calling on the phone so you don't have to get off your fat ass to look at the caller ID.

Before too long, your TV will just be a big monitor for the wee box that sits under your PS4 (it already is in many regards). If you want to check your e-mail, you'll be able to pause what you're watching, pull the roll-up rubber keyboard from under the coffee table (or more likely, under the couch) and get sidetracked on Pajiba in no-time.

I am still waiting for cars that fold up into briefcases, like they had on The Jetsons. Also I'm pretty sure we're only a generation or two away from doing away with all screens of all kinds and everyone will just have fancy chips in their brains that allow them to view media and emails on their eyeballs.

oooh DeistBrawler I think I love you for posting that song... Fett's Vett was my ring tone for the LONGEST time :)

I think in the near future we're all gonna have those touch screen / video things in those yellow book ads... where that one ho keeps catching her skeezy bf cheating... and then she wants to remove a tattoo and then shop for a hot dress to make him jealous...

that and flying cars damnit!

Man, I remember being the envy of all my friends because we had a VCR. And it had not only a Rewind, but a FAST rewind. Remember the separate tape rewinders?
I am not a technology fiend. I do not own CD's, or Ipod, or MP3. I have a TV I bought in 1998, still works GREAT. Heck, I have one TV around here that is from about 1989, also still going strong. My DVD player is almost 10 years old. I usually wait for my techie friends to buy new shiny toys, then I get their slightly used ones.

I must say I like how effortless airplane travel has become, though. Print boarding pass, scan it in, BAM! Good to go. I remember the days of endless check-in lines and waiting for hours to get things started. Now, aside from the rigamarole of security, it is like catching a bus. THAT is progress.

One good thing about technological progression- I never have to worry about my sons popping in my old porn on VHS. I don't have even have a VCR, why the fuck do I still have them? Ah, memories... One thing, evidently, I will have to worry about- them watching internet porn on their eyeball computer screens.

Fantastic. Just like my ol' grandpa used to say: "no eyeball computer porn for you until you're 12, dagnabbit!"

"abotut"?
Spelling will also be obsolete, I have decided.

I just want Tony Stark's little plasma cell phone thingy from Iron Man 2. @_@ I don't much care about the rest.

@BWeaves: I knit, spin and sew my own clothes, too! The good thing about all this technology: people are impressed when you can knit a square or sew a straight line, never mind an entire outfit.

James Burke made the point that people in the industrialized nations have become very accustomed to the rapidity of change, but there's a sting in the tail - we tend to mistake technology for actual science. As long as we can hold it in our hands and it's smaller and more expensive than last year's model, we're very happy to sit and play with it.

Research that could actually improve things? Not so much, as that's rather abstruse, difficult to understand, and usually relegated to the people in the white coats who speak a different language.

My vision of the future is a tad Hobbesian. There will be a greater stratification of society and a wider divide between Haves and Have Nots (this, of course, is predicated on the assumption there *won't* be a global environmental disaster; if there is, the scramble for resources will make the current wars look like sandbox spats), and tech will become our bane as well as our benefactor.

There are disadvantages to being so constantly interconnected, after all.

Hearing aids and a lot of vision correction gizmos will go away as we build or grow embeddable replacements.

I agree somewhat with the Wanderer: the resources required to make all these spectacular little gadgets are not limitless, so unless we make the philosophical choice to live with less and/or find ways to live in harmony with our surroundings, things can only get shittier for all but the upper 1%.

My prediction:
Tech
“Organic tech”- a fusing of technology and natural, renewable materials, shift away from plastic
Energy derived from chemical/biological (hydrogen, chemical reactions, algae, etc) and the environmental sources we know about (solar, wind etc)
Vast improvements in energy efficiency to compensate for the loss in
Decreased reliance on physical infrastructure.
The next most valuable resource will be the landfill rubbish dumps of the 20th century

Social,
A return to the notion of shared resources and communal living-
The social balance will shift back to socializing with the people around you as a matter of necessity as well as desire. Think about it: right now, is there any fundamental, vitally important reason for you to interact with people around you? Work maybe? As someone who can go for an entire working day job with all but minimal contact with anyone, I can imagine it would be easy to comfortably live as a hermit in the middle of even the busiest city if you wanted to. Reintroduce the need to share resources and all that starts to change.

Basically, a society that is driven by necessity to make the most out of the least, built on a sustainable platform, that has learned the difference between what it wants and what it needs.

Ok, that last bit was more wishing than believing. It may not be a sexy vision of the future (and it is far from fully thought through), but at least one that doesn’t predict that great sci fi trope, the doomsday crash. Not to say it isn’t likely, but lets try a little optimism eh?

I can't wait for the flying cars. The drunk-flying crashes will be AWEsome! Imagine waking up and finding five bodies on your roof.

The idea that we can predict the future--and that events will unfold on a linear, logical plane--is the conceptual equivalent of 8-track tapes. This morning I woke up, fired up my computer, and in an instant I was reading about a broken pipe gushing toxic shit into the food chain. High-tech meets The Creature From The Black Lagoon. We can't handle much of what we've already invented.

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