186
submitted 2 years ago by Phen@lemmy.eco.br to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

Some news that would be completely mundane today but scary or shocking in the past.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Aceticon@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

"XXI-century people carry in their pockets a machine that lets then see what's happenning on the other side of the planet as it happens, check the biggest encyclopedia there is without having the go to a library, talk live to people anywhere in the World and which can calculate the most complex mathematical problems in a fraction of a second".

It's not technological change that would be unimaginable but rather what ended up being done with it as, at least judging by SciFi films over the years, people tend to look at what they have and more or less lineraly project forward.

I mean, look what what Metropolis expected the future would be or even the 1970s film and TV-series idea of the kind of materials, design and human machine interfaces the future would have (it's kinda funny to look at the CRT-display-based "future" tech of 70s TV series).

Mind you, socially mankind doesn't seem to have evolved much in these 100 years, but in terms of Tech and the possibilities openned by it, it has.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

It's a pattern that emerges over and over again. Technology is reasonably easy to predict (we're still using 1920s physics) but the way people will react to and interact with technology is completely impossible to see coming. Like, our guesses are about as good as random chance; that's why nobody saw PCs and smartphones coming and then turned around and poured a lot of money into 3D TVs and wearables.

I don't think it would be impossible to model somehow, but I've yet to see any convincing work in that direction.

this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
186 points (100.0% liked)

Asklemmy

47757 readers
435 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS