X-Message-Number: 28875
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:38:05 -0800 (PST)
From: 2Arcturus <>
Subject: Postponing "the future" to the 22nd Century

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What, the iPhone doesn't future-shock you? :)
   

  I know, the 21st century seems to be lame so far, but maybe it's because 
  sci-fi writers and futurists have been letting their visions of the future 
  accelerate faster than technology has been accelerating.
   

  A lot of basic science is being done, and while that doesn't change our lives,
  it provides the fuel for a future technological 'big bang'.
   

  Also, some of the key developments are in areas that weren't expected and that
  aren't obvious. Bigger bandwidth availability isn't like flying cars and 
  trips to Mars, but accelerating computing power is paving the way to a 
  different sort of future. People may see only in broad categories like 
  'gadgets', but this obscures the qualitative leaps forward. 20 years ago 
  virtual universes would have drawn a blank stare from most people, now it is 
  the quotidian topic of TV news features ("Should commerce in Second Life be 
  taxed?").

  But what continues to work, for which nothing better has been found, will be 
  perpetuated, so in some ways we shouldn't expect the future to be radically 
  different from the past in every respect.
  

Anyway - cryonics may be one of those ideas which (like AI) suffer from arising 
before their time. People thought it would be verified quickly, it wasn't, and 
so they rejected it and consigned it to the trash heap of wishful thinking. It 
is very hard to change the reputation of an idea once it has undergone 
over-expectation and then failure-to-deliver-immediately. Science has continued 
to move forward toward the idea, but scientists identify cryonics with a 
technological abortiveness and infeasibility, so they avoid any notion of 
validating it. When it gets done, the inventors will prob make sure not to call 
it cryonics.
   
  -------------------------------
   
  Message #28871
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:03:02 -0800

I guess because the 21st Century looks pretty lame so far, futurists 
have 
started to project all the science-fictional stuff into the 22nd 
Century.

Case in point: The upcoming PBS show, "22nd Century":

http://www.pbs.org/22ndcentury/

"Many scientists and futurists believe we are on the verge of a 
technological revolution that will look like a page ripped directly 
from a 
scifi novel.

"22nd Century dives head-first into this brave new world on Wednesday, 
January 17, 2007, at 8 pm."

This despite all the propaganda I've heard since my childhood in the 
1960's 
about "future shock" and the wonders of life in the 21st Century. 
(Maybe 
F.M. Esfandiary should have renamed himself "FM-2130" instead.) Indeed, 
the 
world in 2007 looks a lot like the world I remember from my teens.

The non science-fictional appearance of early 21st Century life 
probably 
adds to the perception that cryonics' view of "the future" has 
increasingly 
diverged from reality.

Mark Plus



 

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