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You forget the nature of technological developments. In the 60s nobody would ever imagined that those room-sized and extremely expensive 'computing machines' wo
by rjf72 8y ago
You forget the nature of technological developments. In the 60s nobody would ever imagined that those room-sized and extremely expensive 'computing machines' would become a regular and extremely affordable part of basically everybody's daily life, and even something people would often carry within their pocket, within just a few decades. It'd have sounded quite ridiculous.
Look at future predictions from any era and people always make the exact same mistake. The extrapolate the future to be the present, with some new currently imaginable toys. For instance 19th century predictions of the future included cities with giant domes over them so you don't wet as you walk. In reality the future is always radically warped by frequently unforeseen technologies. And now technology is evolving at a faster than ever rate. So a general guideline would be that if your prediction for the future doesn't sound absurd, you're probably wrong.
- JetSpiegel 8y agoPeople are not software. Unless some cataclysmic event ocurs, no statistical significant part of the population will be gene edited, since you disqualify all babies starting from now. It's still custom per person, very expensive. Modern society is not a simple Darwinian struggle for survival.
- ForHackernews 8y agoExtrapolating the future from the present is completely sensible. Today's society is not that unthinkable for somebody from the early 20th, or even 19th century: People work jobs in offices and factories; they complain that they're busy. Health, transportation and communication have improved. Poor people fight and die in wars that rich people start. My prediction for the rest of this century is that all the large scale trends will continue. There will be no sharp discontinuity with the past. Renewable energy use will increase, and climate change will keep getting worse. More and more species will go extinct. Computers and batteries will keep improving at a decreasing rate. Robots will not take all the jobs. Poor people will continue dying for rich people's mistakes.