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And yet the supermarket is very much possible only because of the technologies behind planes, antibiotics and snapchat. It's curious. I think the hard part, a

And yet the supermarket is very much possible only because of the technologies behind planes, antibiotics and snapchat. It's curious. I think the hard part, as noted, is not necessarily the materialization of 'new tech', but very much how that tech plays with all the other new tech to produce a very new society. And in that you are exactly right, the most curious parts of that new society are not the technological tools themselves, but the social capabilities that spring from their convergence - the supermarket. I work at the convergence of tech and synthetic biology, and a huge 'miss' many suffer is a blindness to just how powerfully the two technologies will interconnect in the near future - and not the tech as the product, but the capabilities of their convergence. It's not that computers, AI and all that jazz will become small and invisible, nor that genomics and biology will become easy, but actually what will occur at their intersection. It's that fun space mixed with both where things get really interesting. And this is why reading sci-fi is fun for me. It allows an author to explore the clashes, implications and make prognostications on the outcomes of the convergence of multiple technologies with respect to relatable characters' choices in their lives.

donw 9y ago
Absolutely; Neal Stephenson's latest book ("The Rise And Fall Of D.O.D.O.") touches on this, in asking what series of "small" changes it would take to unravel the modern world. Was a good read. From where you sit, what is the impact of the intermix between those two technologies? As a layperson, I can see tailor-made medications becoming cheap and common over the long run. Not only might that read "goodbye, cancer!", but also mitigate the resultant threat of biological warfare. After all, if you can cook up tailor-made anticancer and antiviral drugs in a machine at Walgreens, then you can counter a tailor-made bioweapon pretty easily. Food production is another obvious boost, so we might have a second Norman Borlaug that once again lifts the carrying capacity of Earth. We can probably also assume foods engineered to grow in extreme environments. From that, you also get biological air and water recycling for spacecraft, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
- stdgy 9y ago
  Oye, I've been putting off getting this book since it was co-written by Stephenson and I wasn't sure how that would pan out. Guess I'll have to add to the collection!
  - donw 9y ago
    I was skeptical as well, but it turned out to be a good read. Not quite up to the standards of Anathem or Cryptonomicon, but still definitely worthwhile.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jfarlow 9y ago
  Arbitrary biological i/o; stimuli and responses can be designed and linked, sampling from anything the world of life can currently do. Age (see Constitutional Article 2.1, 14th US Amendment). Memorizable strings of data worth billions of dollars. Aesthetic biology around us, and within us as a form of expression. Wealth (as energy expenditure) driving speed and permanence vs quality or capability (think hill coefficients). Metal & rock as materials of speed, but also waste, whereas literal capabilities are mirrorable with biology, are much more efficient, but 'slow'. (More) Von Neumann Probes everywhere, but resembling acorns, fruit flies, and yeast. (Explicit & commercialized) synthetic symbioses for individuals and for societies, and for other life.
- worldsayshi 9y ago
  > tailor-made medications And at the same time we are moving towards a world of tailor-made anything. From cars and clothes to user interfaces and lifestyles. If we can handle the complexity of it all.
XorNot 9y ago
I remember being struck by the realization of the sheer amount of infrastructure that was necessary to enable to me to wrap a petri dish in aluminium foil when I was doing research. Like, aluminium smelters are massive...then there's the mining, the rolling, the local, national and international supply chains - all so I can keep a light sensitive chemical in the dark during a 15 minute experiment setup. I mean this is all true if you use it in the kitchen too (which is amazing) but what struck me was the weird way that progress was enabling progress - something had to go from non-existent to consumer-cheap, and suddenly a whole bunch of science is possible to do easily and en masse.

donw 9y ago

Absolutely; Neal Stephenson's latest book ("The Rise And Fall Of D.O.D.O.") touches on this, in asking what series of "small" changes it would take to unravel the modern world. Was a good read. From where you sit, what is the impact of the intermix between those two technologies? As a layperson, I can see tailor-made medications becoming cheap and common over the long run. Not only might that read "goodbye, cancer!", but also mitigate the resultant threat of biological warfare. After all, if you can cook up tailor-made anticancer and antiviral drugs in a machine at Walgreens, then you can counter a tailor-made bioweapon pretty easily. Food production is another obvious boost, so we might have a second Norman Borlaug that once again lifts the carrying capacity of Earth. We can probably also assume foods engineered to grow in extreme environments. From that, you also get biological air and water recycling for spacecraft, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

stdgy 9y ago
Oye, I've been putting off getting this book since it was co-written by Stephenson and I wasn't sure how that would pan out. Guess I'll have to add to the collection!
- donw 9y ago
  I was skeptical as well, but it turned out to be a good read. Not quite up to the standards of Anathem or Cryptonomicon, but still definitely worthwhile.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jfarlow 9y ago
Arbitrary biological i/o; stimuli and responses can be designed and linked, sampling from anything the world of life can currently do. Age (see Constitutional Article 2.1, 14th US Amendment). Memorizable strings of data worth billions of dollars. Aesthetic biology around us, and within us as a form of expression. Wealth (as energy expenditure) driving speed and permanence vs quality or capability (think hill coefficients). Metal & rock as materials of speed, but also waste, whereas literal capabilities are mirrorable with biology, are much more efficient, but 'slow'. (More) Von Neumann Probes everywhere, but resembling acorns, fruit flies, and yeast. (Explicit & commercialized) synthetic symbioses for individuals and for societies, and for other life.
worldsayshi 9y ago
> tailor-made medications And at the same time we are moving towards a world of tailor-made anything. From cars and clothes to user interfaces and lifestyles. If we can handle the complexity of it all.

XorNot 9y ago

I remember being struck by the realization of the sheer amount of infrastructure that was necessary to enable to me to wrap a petri dish in aluminium foil when I was doing research. Like, aluminium smelters are massive...then there's the mining, the rolling, the local, national and international supply chains - all so I can keep a light sensitive chemical in the dark during a 15 minute experiment setup. I mean this is all true if you use it in the kitchen too (which is amazing) but what struck me was the weird way that progress was enabling progress - something had to go from non-existent to consumer-cheap, and suddenly a whole bunch of science is possible to do easily and en masse.