3 ms·

How about 60 years ago? 80? 100? At some point, if I explained to someone that I would be able to pick up a small black plate filled with electrical signals (ha

How about 60 years ago? 80? 100? At some point, if I explained to someone that I would be able to pick up a small black plate filled with electrical signals (ha!) flying around it many million times per second and use it to learn the answer to any question, talk to (AND SEE) any person in the world, in real time, how far back would you have to go to hear "that's impossible," because I guarantee you, at some point, someone thought that it was, even if not 40 years ago. Hell, I remember explaining to my dad when I was a kid that someday there would be a way to watch whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, simply because that's what people wanted to exist. In my mind, it was an inevitability, and he felt it would never happen. This was only a scant 20 or so years ago.

bitwize 13y ago
* How about 60 years ago? 80? 100? At some point, if I explained to someone that I would be able to pick up a small black plate filled with electrical signals (ha!) flying around it many million times per second and use it to learn the answer to any question, talk to (AND SEE) any person in the world, in real time, how far back would you have to go to hear "that's impossible," because I guarantee you, at some point, someone thought that it was, even if not 40 years ago.* Pretty far back. Even Dick Tracy had a similar thing. I think you would have to go back before Marconi and Tesla.
lmm 13y ago
>At some point, if I explained to someone that I would be able to pick up a small black plate filled with electrical signals (ha!) flying around it many million times per second and use it to learn the answer to any question, talk to (AND SEE) any person in the world, in real time, how far back would you have to go to hear "that's impossible," because I guarantee you, at some point, someone thought that it was, even if not 40 years ago. As soon as we have real science (i.e. post-Descartes) anything mechanistic seems possible. There was probably a point at which we had insufficient knowledge to say one way or another, but this isn't the kind of thing that's ruled out by physical law in the way that FTL travel is. >Hell, I remember explaining to my dad when I was a kid that someday there would be a way to watch whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, simply because that's what people wanted to exist. In my mind, it was an inevitability, and he felt it would never happen. This was only a scant 20 or so years ago. You were lucky that time, but it's not a reliable heuristic. Plenty of people want to be immortal, but it hasn't happened yet. (OTOH, human immortality seems a lot more plausible than FTL travel - we can't see how it would work yet, but there's no law that rules it out - which puts it in the same category I think a phone would have seemed like in Newton's day).

bitwize 13y ago

* How about 60 years ago? 80? 100? At some point, if I explained to someone that I would be able to pick up a small black plate filled with electrical signals (ha!) flying around it many million times per second and use it to learn the answer to any question, talk to (AND SEE) any person in the world, in real time, how far back would you have to go to hear "that's impossible," because I guarantee you, at some point, someone thought that it was, even if not 40 years ago.* Pretty far back. Even Dick Tracy had a similar thing. I think you would have to go back before Marconi and Tesla.

lmm 13y ago

>At some point, if I explained to someone that I would be able to pick up a small black plate filled with electrical signals (ha!) flying around it many million times per second and use it to learn the answer to any question, talk to (AND SEE) any person in the world, in real time, how far back would you have to go to hear "that's impossible," because I guarantee you, at some point, someone thought that it was, even if not 40 years ago. As soon as we have real science (i.e. post-Descartes) anything mechanistic seems possible. There was probably a point at which we had insufficient knowledge to say one way or another, but this isn't the kind of thing that's ruled out by physical law in the way that FTL travel is. >Hell, I remember explaining to my dad when I was a kid that someday there would be a way to watch whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, simply because that's what people wanted to exist. In my mind, it was an inevitability, and he felt it would never happen. This was only a scant 20 or so years ago. You were lucky that time, but it's not a reliable heuristic. Plenty of people want to be immortal, but it hasn't happened yet. (OTOH, human immortality seems a lot more plausible than FTL travel - we can't see how it would work yet, but there's no law that rules it out - which puts it in the same category I think a phone would have seemed like in Newton's day).