Comments on: Let's Be Unrealistic https://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-r-word-2.html Live to see it. Thu, 16 Dec 2021 08:21:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6.1 By: MDarling https://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-r-word-2.html#comment-9483 MDarling Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:19:25 +0000 http://localhost/specblog/?p=1426#comment-9483 1-3 years
- blog threads that last more than a few days
- home networks for all delivered data (will not have 100% AD conversion capability)
- commercially available electric car with “significant” market penetration (2-5 %?) (The mean age of inventory on the road will go down temporarily- people will accelerate the new purchase to get the ev)
- an implantable cell phone like device that will allow at least 24/7 location
- 99.9% accurate machine translation
- decent robot sex surrogates (>= 5% of single males will have attempted one)
- a cloned human
- verification of the Higgs Boson
- grass that stays green & alive no matter how little water it gets that costs the same or less than current turf)
- an “auto pilot” for cars & trucks that will keep vehicles on the road and separated
- a fuel cell driven airplane
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]]> By: xiaoding https://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-r-word-2.html#comment-9482 xiaoding Mon, 24 Dec 2007 06:28:19 +0000 http://localhost/specblog/?p=1426#comment-9482 The batterys! They are just so NOT THERE.

The futrue is turning out to be a whole lot slower than we thought it would be. Unrealistic assumptions.

IN the next five years? Much more powerful hand weaponry, hand grenades that can take out half a city block. Better batteries, but still not good enough.

Twenty years out, an entirely new source of energy, due to the rediscvery of the E8 diagram in physics. Immpossible to predict what else will come of this. Big changes on the long term.

]]> By: Achillea https://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-r-word-2.html#comment-9481 Achillea Mon, 24 Dec 2007 02:18:09 +0000 http://localhost/specblog/?p=1426#comment-9481 A cure for this farkin’ cold.

An ad for an all-electric car that actually says how fast the thing goes. I mean, range is all well and good, but … I can throw my hybrid into battery gear any time I want — provided I’m not looking to move faster than parking lot speed.

Terraforming Mars. Heck, terraforming Afghanistan.

A sociopath-proof lie detector.

A device to look back into the past, ala that Denzel Washington movie. (Best. Car Chase. Ever.)

]]> By: Ed Minchau https://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-r-word-2.html#comment-9480 Ed Minchau Sun, 23 Dec 2007 23:49:20 +0000 http://localhost/specblog/?p=1426#comment-9480 In the next five years we are going to see:

- private corporations (ie SpaceX) selling passenger flights to an orbiting (Bigelow) hotel
- solar power satellites beaming power to a rectenna on the ground (perhaps just as a demonstration in Palau)
- earth-based solar power panels selling for less than fifty cents a watt
- a solution to the protein-folding problem

]]> By: jeff https://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-r-word-2.html#comment-9479 jeff Sun, 23 Dec 2007 23:23:45 +0000 http://localhost/specblog/?p=1426#comment-9479 Your hyperlink of the words ‘serious people’ leads to http://www.lifeboat.org, the web page for LifeBoat Ministry, Inc.

Did you intend to link to http://www.lifeboat.com, for the Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity?

[Fixed. Thanks for catching that.

--Phil]

]]> By: celebrim https://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-r-word-2.html#comment-9478 celebrim Sun, 23 Dec 2007 22:52:51 +0000 http://localhost/specblog/?p=1426#comment-9478 Unrealistic, inconceivable, and impossible mean different things.

Right now, we live in a world with very little skepticism. So many people were wrong in the past about what was ‘impossible’ that the general feeling is that anything is possible, and that the more that we will learn the more evident it will be that it is possible.

I personally feel that this is a false assumption. We can gaurantee that any given handwavium needed to do the impossible can exist. In fact, reasonably we ought to expect that by its very nature, its unlikely to be possible. Often in the past, people simply meant ‘inconcievable’ when they said impossible or unrealistic. But in a world of non-skeptics, concievablity isn’t the issue. We can concieve of almost anything, but we shouldn’t imagine that anything we can concieve is realistic or even possible.

]]> By: Jan Bussey https://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-r-word-2.html#comment-9477 Jan Bussey Sun, 23 Dec 2007 22:38:38 +0000 http://localhost/specblog/?p=1426#comment-9477 The Aptera will (supposedly) be available next year with a 120 mile range, with hybrid 300mpg version (again supposedly) out in 2009, so a 300 mile electric shouldn’t take too long.

Unrealistic? How about Bussard Fusion conversion kit for every car on the road. Don’t know about the physics of making one small enough to propel a car…

]]> By: Eric Akawie https://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-r-word-2.html#comment-9476 Eric Akawie Sun, 23 Dec 2007 21:47:59 +0000 http://localhost/specblog/?p=1426#comment-9476 It recently occurred to me that the least believable thing about Star Trek communicators is that they don’t do video.

]]> By: accountant https://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-r-word-2.html#comment-9475 accountant Sun, 23 Dec 2007 21:20:41 +0000 http://localhost/specblog/?p=1426#comment-9475 I have no idea what’s unrealistic. If you had told me in 1980 that I would be carrying my computer and my phone with me by the middle of the next decade I wouldn’t have believed it.

]]> By: kg2v https://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-r-word-2.html#comment-9474 kg2v Sun, 23 Dec 2007 21:06:45 +0000 http://localhost/specblog/?p=1426#comment-9474 Fully electric cars dominating the highways in 5 years? Nope. The Mean age of cars on the highway right now is 8.9 years. Assume sales go to 100% tomorrow – in 5 years, you won’t have replaced even 1/2 the cars on the highway

]]> By: Junk Science Skeptic https://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-r-word-2.html#comment-9473 Junk Science Skeptic Sun, 23 Dec 2007 20:54:27 +0000 http://localhost/specblog/?p=1426#comment-9473 Realistic mass-market electric car = 300 miles range + 15 minute recharge + battery pack no larger than 4 cubic feet and no heavier than 200 pounds.

Time to reality under present circumstances = 20-30 years.

Time to reality with “Manhattan Project” for battery technology = 5-10 years.

]]> By: MDarling https://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-r-word-2.html#comment-9472 MDarling Sun, 23 Dec 2007 11:53:56 +0000 http://localhost/specblog/?p=1426#comment-9472 MPATHRG footnote:
IMDB should just post the script- they almost have anyway.

]]> By: MDarling https://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-r-word-2.html#comment-9471 MDarling Sun, 23 Dec 2007 11:51:15 +0000 http://localhost/specblog/?p=1426#comment-9471 Forget about Mars, man.
Even if it survives the imminent impact*- it will eventually get creamed.

More later-

latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-mars21dec21,0,6729483.story?

]]> By: MattShultz https://blog.speculist.com/scenarios/the-r-word-2.html#comment-9470 MattShultz Sun, 23 Dec 2007 11:17:27 +0000 http://localhost/specblog/?p=1426#comment-9470 Time travel. Interstellar wormholes. Impossible to predict when and even if they’re possible, and they’d throw a nice little monkey wrench into things if they did.

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