The Future Today!

[GhothaAyala]

Just probing to see what people think about these topics.

Transhumanism is the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. Transhumanism predicts that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label "posthuman".

Artilects refers to the hypothetical future emergence of greater-than-human intelligence through technological means, it would bring to bear greater problem-solving and inventive skills than humans, then it could design a yet more capable machine, or re-write its source code to become more intelligent. This more capable machine could then go on to design a machine of even greater capability.

As someone I met here says, feel free to elaborate as much or as little on your opinion.

[RubySlippers]

Idiocracy the lack of any threat and the dumb people breeding will result is a stupid low IQ society in the next few centurie - see movie of that name for what this would be like.

Okay more serious what makes you think either is likely and if so the tech will trickle down it could be the rich getting all the perks and the rest of the people get nothing. I think neither is likely at the level your talking about.

[Callie Del Noire]

I think any 'uplift' of humans will be a slow progression unless something really radical happens. I don't see it being something that will happen easily (or at all) unless something radical happens. A pandemic that requires an 'out of the box thinking' cure, or such. Too many people are still culturally shy of fucking with the genome (and rightly so).

When the ability to produce functional nanite tech that can do something concrete to a person I'm sure it will be jumped into the same file as stem cells as 'too dangerous'. With some justification. The Grey Goo outlook for example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo

The thing is.. I don't think we can REALLY picture the implications right yet. I look at it as we're not quite able to distinguish between fact and fiction yet. As any sort of singularity producing tech comes up on the horizon, there will be a short but definite window when the implications will be seen.

I'm willing to bet any really BIG paradigm changing tech out there scares the piss out of big industry. Imagine what any level of 'cornucopia manufacturing' that bypasses normal manufacturing tech will have on the market. Even on the raw structures level. Imaging the cost reductions on being able to build whole structures of any size of say.. drink can to carsize by uploading a blueprint to a machine and having it spun out of something like carbon stock or such.

Some novels show how emergent technologies can have radically impact the market and society. Imagine being able to walk to the 7/11 and dial up anything the fabrication device they have in the store (or you bring with you) for your needs. Without any need from the store to do anything beside provide stock for the machine to build with.

[Vekseid]

I'm not really sold on the idea that nanites will be that much more functional than bacteria, much less be able to outcompete them across enough of a variety of niches that would permit a 'grey goo' scenario. Genetic programming is a horrible way to solve problems, yes. On the other hand, single-celled organisms have dominated the Earth for four billion years, and have capabilities that reflect this.

Incidentally I imagine that gengineering bacteria that we are symbiotic with is going to be among the first steps towards 'transhumanism'. It seems a far more logical step than say, trying to rewrite our own DNA, live.

I'm willing to bet any really BIG paradigm changing tech out there scares the piss out of big industry. Imagine what any level of 'cornucopia manufacturing' that bypasses normal manufacturing tech will have on the market. Even on the raw structures level. Imaging the cost reductions on being able to build whole structures of any size of say.. drink can to carsize by uploading a blueprint to a machine and having it spun out of something like carbon stock or such.

The term for this is 'disruptive technology'. We've had quite a few in the past century.

[GhothaAyala]

Anything I will say has already been said by Vekseid. These disruptive technologies have led, or more appropriately said, forced other changes in society.

II'm willing to bet any really BIG paradigm changing tech out there scares the piss out of big industry. Imagine what any level of 'cornucopia manufacturing' that bypasses normal manufacturing tech will have on the market.

What Callie said there leads to to this.

Okay more serious what makes you think either is likely and if so the tech will trickle down it could be the rich getting all the perks and the rest of the people get nothing. I think neither is likely at the level your talking about.

And since big industry not only deals in good but also in services the next thought is also in their best interest.

I think any 'uplift' of humans will be a slow progression unless something really radical happens. I don't see it being something that will happen easily (or at all) unless something radical happens. A pandemic that requires an 'out of the box thinking' cure, or such. Too many people are still culturally shy of fucking with the genome (and rightly so).

In my opinion, new manufacturing techniques can lead to an age of abundance where basic needs and goods are so widely available you can forget about a price tag. This "free" society now rid of the worries of "how am I going to pay for x or y" will have more room to focus on other things other than their survival and their livelihoods.

The human enhancement techs is a subject more complicated, but I know that if humans decide to develop these they surely will. And once they are safe to use I myself would embrace them.

[OldSchoolGamer]

I for one welcome our new cybernetic overlords.

[elone]

I have no doubt that in the next 100 years (barring nuclear annihilation) everything in human lives will be vastly different. If we go back 100 years, cars were just emerging as were airplanes. I see no reason that technological progression will slow, the energy problems will be solved somehow, manufacturing will be unrecognizable compared with today.

Not sure if goods will be produced on such an efficient scale as to be nearly free. This would require a move from profit and desire for more,  to a whole different societal way of thinking. Such human thought, greed, ambition, etc, have not changed as rapidly as our technology has advanced. We are still subject to the seven deadly sins, so to speak. I think to obtain a utopian society would take a major shift in people's basic instincts. Not sure what type of event would precipitate that kind of change.

Transhumanism? maybe.