The Future: Just Like Today, Only Different

Links to sections of this post's lists:

• My Take on "The Future" and related topics, and highlighted posts
• The Future - Technology, Society and Economics
• Star Trek Technology is So 20th Century
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Robots (and waldos)
  • "Future" technology

The Future: Hope, Fear, and Common Sense

There are technophiles and technophobes: people who are either attracted to, or frightened by, technology. I'm a bit of a technophile. It runs in the family. Arba Zeri Campbell was the first person with a telephone in his part of the world: and had to wait a long time before it rang.

But I don't buy into the old 19th-20th century idea that science and technology will solve all our problems: or the more recent one that science and technology are bad and will kill us all.

My take on humanity and technology is reflected in a really old joke:

"Hundreds of thousands of years ago, man learned how to make fire.

"Generations later, man learned how to put out fires."

Posts about

• My Take on "The Future" and related topics, and highlighted posts:
  • "Lemming Tracks: Toxic Light Bulbs For a Brighter Future"
    (January 16, 2012)
  • "A 21st Century Look at 19th Century Visions of the 20th Century"
    (January 4, 2012)
  • " 'Cancer Causes Cell Phones!' - or, not"
    (July 18, 2011)
  • "Ray Guns, Electric Cannons, and the Mind of the Lemming"
    (June 20, 2011)
  • "Boeing 747-8: Big Can be 'Green' "
    (February 12, 2011)
  • "Nine Decades of Robots Turning on Their Masters"
    (January 25, 2011)
  • "Moore's Law, or Observation, Or Whatever: 45 Years Later"
    (January 9, 2011)
  • "The Pill That Listens: And Wait'll You See What's Next"
    (November 9, 2010)
  • "HP: Memristors on the Shelves in Maybe Three Years"
    (September 1, 2010)
  • "Social Media and - Old Web Habits?!"
    (August 2, 2010)
  • "Lemming Tracks: Erin Andrews, Policing the Internet, and Power to the People"
    (July 29, 2010)
  • "The Web Rewires Your Brain: Ain't That Great?"
    (July 2, 2010)
  • "Brain Scans and Marketing: This Isn't Science Fiction"
    (June 24, 2010)
  • "Facebook, Privacy, Small Town America and a Village of 6,830,000,000 people"
    (May 31, 2010)
  • "Never Heard of a BCI (Brain-Computer Interface)? You Will"
    (April 20, 2010)
  • "Tomorrow's Job Opportunities? Look Up - Literally"
    (April 8, 2010)
  • "Over Four Dozen Space Agencies (and Growing?)"
    (February 28, 2010)
  • "3D Gesture-Recognition Technology: I Remember When the Clapper Was New"
    (February 18, 2010)
  • "Data-Driven Art: For an 'Overwhelmed' 'Hive Mind???' "
    (January 27, 2010)
  • "Spaceport America: More Progress"
    (January 29, 2010)
  • "America's Seventh Spaceport"
    (January 19, 2010)
  • "Robovie-II and Robovie-IV: Robot Assistants for Store and Office"
    (January 7, 2010)
  • "Architects, City Planning, Le Corbusier, Pulp Fiction, The Masses, The City of the Future, and Me"
    (December 16, 2009)
  • "Power Stations in Space: No Panacea; But No Kidding, Either"
    (December 2, 2009)
  • "Next-Generation Prosthetic Hand - and Intel Says Direct Neural Interface Brain Chips by 2020"
    (December 2, 2009)
    Ultra-summarized:
    • Evil Technology? Ain't No Such Thing
    • Old-Fashioned and Simple doesn't Necessarily Mean "Good"
    • Will Brain Implants Be Misused?
      • Of course they'll be misused
      • They'll also be put to good uses
  • "Tofu Turkeys, Genetically Altered Foods, and the Evil Eye"
    (November 14, 2009)
  • "Leon Theremin, Inventor of the Theremin: a Weird-Sounding Instrument"
    (November 3, 2009)
  • "Northwest Flight 188 Overshoots MSP - Time to Reconsider Humans on Flight Crews?"
    (October 23, 2009)
    • Repeated in Artificial intelligence, robots (and waldos), and "Future" technology, below
  • "NASA's X-37 Project, New Technologies, and - EEEK! the Military!!
    (October 23, 2009)
  • "When it's Time to Build Spaceships, People Will Build Spaceships"
    (October 4, 2009)
  • "A Freighter Unloads its Cargo: What's the Big Deal?"
    (September 20, 2009)
  • "Masdar City Video - Looks Cool"
    (September 9, 2009)
  • "'Perfect Solar Storm' 150 Years Ago Today: Good News; Bad News"
    (September 2, 2009)
  • "NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts: Time to Re-Start?"
    (August 11, 2009)
  • "Alan Stern and Space Tourism"
    (July 18, 2009)
  • "Good News, Neural Devices Connect Brain, Computers: Bad News, Same Thing"
    (July 11, 2009)
  • "Power Stations in Space: California Caught On"
    (April 20, 2009)
  • "More About the Marvelous Memristor"
    (May 1, 2008)
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• The Future - Technology, Society and Economics:
  • "Ray Guns, Electric Cannons, and the Mind of the Lemming"
    (June 20, 2011)
  • "Boeing 747-8: Big Can be 'Green' "
    (February 12, 2011)
  • "1938 World's Fair: A Fleischer Cartoon Take on 'The Future'"
    (February 12, 2011)
  • "Social Media and - Old Web Habits?!"
    (August 2, 2010)
  • "Lemming Tracks: Erin Andrews, Policing the Internet, and Power to the People"
    (July 29, 2010)
  • "The Web Rewires Your Brain: Ain't That Great?"
    (July 2, 2010)
  • "The Sentient Cities are Coming: Park Benches With Attitude Coming"
    (October 24, 2009)
  • "Really Cool Ideas for 'the Bathroom of the Future' - Some Might Actually Work"
    (October 8, 2009)
  • " 'The future ain't what it used to be.' Probably Just as Well"
    (August 30, 2009)
  • "Tokyo Motor Show, 2007: Cars of the Future"
    (June 26, 2009)
  • "Chevy Volt Electric Car: Best Thing Since Sliced Bread, According to Chevrolet"
    (July 31, 2010)
  • "Flying Car Invented: Again"
    (July 1, 2010)
  • "Clothing of the Future: 2000 as seen in the 1930s"
    
  (June 26, 2009)
  • " 'House of the Future' - Another One, this Time in Brussels"
    (June 7, 2008)
  • "Urban Chairlift: No Kidding"
    (May 14, 2010)
  • "Bigelow Aerospace Space Habitat Prototype Passes Milestone"
    (May 12, 2008)
  • "Interstellar Travel: Difficult, yes; Impossible; No - NASA"
    (April 30, 2008)
  • "Futurist Fashion Designers of the 1930s"
    (April 4, 2008)
  • "It Bends! It Cleans Itself! It's Solar Powered! Meet the Cell Phone of the Future! Maybe"
    (March 3, 2008)
  • "A World Without Trucks: A Pipe Dream (Literally!)"
    (February 25, 2008)
  • "The Home Computer of 2004: As Imagined in 1954"
    (February 7, 2008)
  • " 'Book of the Future' - 2000 as seen from 1979"
    (February 4, 2008)
  • "The House of the Future: Ecofuture, This Time"
    (January 29, 2008)
  • "Future Truck: Catching Up to the Sixties"
    (January 3, 2010)
  • "Brain Backups: Coming Soon?"
    (November 14, 2007)
  • "Futurists Through the Centuries"
    (November 1, 2007)
  • "Agriculture as a Mistake"
    (October 29, 2007)
  • "The Future Isn't What It Used to Be"
    (October 4, 2007)
  • " 'The Future Isn't What it Used To Be' "
    (August 22, 2007)
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• Star Trek Technology is So 20th Century
  • Artificial intelligence
    • "Galaxy-Sorting Artificial Intelligence"
      (June 5, 2010)
    • "Robovie-II and Robovie-IV: Robot Assistants for Store and Office"
      (January 7, 2010)
    • "Northwest Flight 188 Overshoots MSP - Time to Reconsider Humans on Flight Crews?"
      (October 23, 2009)
    • "What Next? Robot Doctors? (Don't Hold Your Breath)"
      (September 12, 2009)
    • "Sudoku-Solving Robot: with Video"
      (September 8, 2009)
    • "Asimov's 3 Laws, Real Robots, and Common Sense"
      (August 20, 2009)
    • "Cool Robots (One Robot, Many Waldos), a PC World List"
      (April 25, 2009)
    • "Indus Valley Script: Artificial Intelligence Says It's a Language"
      (April 23, 2009)
    • "Better Ideas From Japan: 'Robocop' Rolled Out"
      (January 24, 2009)
    • "The Robot With a Rat's Brain"
      (August 14, 2008)
    • "Winglet: Just Like Segway, Except Slower and Not Available"
      (August 2, 2008)
    • "WALL-E: 'It's the Seven Hundredth Anniversary of
      Our Five-Year Cruise' "
      (June 29, 2008)
    • "Japanese Robot Girlfriend: No Joke, EMA is Here"
      (June 18, 2008)
    • "A Beauty is in the Eye of the - Computer?!"
      (April 7, 2008)
    • "Rubix Cube Meets Robot"
      (March 29, 2008)
    • "Little Yellow Robot: Artificial Intelligence of a Sort"
      (March 28, 2008)
    • "Coming Soon: Glasses That are Smarter Than You Are! (More Observant, Anyway)"
      (March 16, 2008)
    • "Domo, O Roboto"
      (March 3, 2008)
    • "C3PO Will Have to Wait: Artificial Intelligence Today"
      (February 9, 2008)
    • "Big Brother is Watching: Microsoft Applies for Spookware Patent"
      (January 16, 2008)
    • "Lucky, or Loser? Chatroom Bot Lets You Be Both"
      (December 12, 2007)
    • "Robo-Kid Fits in with Toddlers"
      (November 5, 2007)
    • "Face Recognition: Teaching the Machine"
      (October 11, 2007)
    • "Fascinating AI Text Analysis, or Weird PC Project? Either Way, Looks Interesting"
      (September 25, 2007)
    • "Ten Top Bots: Robots for the Future"
      (August 22, 2007)
      Back to top
  • Robots (and waldos)
    • " 'While Strolling Through the Park One Day - - -' "
      (April 12, 2013)
    • "Curiosity: Landing Video; and Settling In"
      (August 24, 2012)
    • "Roomba Review, and Dancing Robots"
      (August 17, 2012)
    • "There's Nickle in Them There Asteroids"
      (April 23, 2012)
    • "Robot Cheetah: No Head, but Really Fast"
      (April 2, 2012)
    • "Mars Rover Spirit: Not Bad for a Limited-Warranty Robot"
      (May 26, 2011)
    • "Flying Mechanical Penguins"
      (February 12, 2011)
    • "Nine Decades of Robots Turning on Their Masters"
      (January 25, 2011)
    • "Space Shuttle Discovery: Last Launch, First Robot"
      (October 29, 2010)
    • "Driverless Van: Nifty Concept; Apparently Works"
      (October 28, 2010)
    • "What Next: Robot Lifeguards?"
      (October 25, 2010)
    • "Meet Fenway the Robot, Hospital Helper"
      (September 21, 2010)
    • "What do Robots do on the Weekend?"
      (June 2, 2010)
    • "Penguin Robot? Roller Skates? You Decide"
      (February 11, 2010)
    • "Robovie-II and Robovie-IV: Robot Assistants for Store and Office"
      (January 7, 2010)
    • "The Robots are Coming! The Robots are Coming!"
      (November 4, 2009)
    • "Asimov's 3 Laws, Real Robots, and Common Sense"
      (August 20, 2009)
    • "Japanese Dwarf Flying Squirrels: And Dancing Robots"
      (August 18, 2009)
    • "Robot Hands: Fast Ones"
      (August 7, 2009)
    • "R & D & Rovers: Back to the Moon and Mars"
      (May 18, 2009)
    • "Hordes of Italian Robots on the Moon: It Could Happen"
      (May 14, 2009)
    • "Mars Robot Spirit Rebooted Itself - Twice"
      (April 15, 2009)
    • "Tweenbots - Cute, Cybernetic, a Bit Kitschy"
      (April 13, 2009)
    • " 'Kittens Meet Roomba' - the Video"
      (January 30, 2009)
    • "Riding With Robots on the High Frontier: A Blog Worth Return Visits"
      (August 12, 2008)
    • "A Robot Gets a Robot to Help Clean Up the Lab"
      (May 1, 2008)
    • "Beer Robot: the Video"
      (April 25, 2008)
    • "Run, Robot: Run"
      (April 13, 2008)
    • "Better Ideas From Japan: A Robot Snowplow"
      (January 1, 2008)
    • "Bristlebot: Technology Doesn't Have to Be Practical"
      (December 30, 2007)
    • "And Now, for Something Completely Different: Hong Kong's Robot Kitchen"
      (December 13, 2007)
      Back to top
  • "Future" technology
    • "Driverless Cars: Keep an Eye on Nevada"
      (June 24, 2011)
    • "Quantum Entanglement, Diamonds, and New Information Storage Tech"
      (March 28, 2011)
    • "Hands off Driving, Driving With Your Brain, and All That"
      (March 4, 2011)
    • "Femtosecond Transient Imaging, Seeing Around Corners: Available in About Two Years"
      (November 22, 2010)
    • "3-D Printer in Space: Seems to Make Sense"
      (November 11, 2010)
    • "Yves Rossy and His Flying Backpack"
      (October 30, 2010)
    • "Coming Soon: Touchy Aircraft"
      (September 24, 2010)
    • "Tractor Beam Developed at Australian National University"
      (September 9, 2010)
    • "Programmable Matter: Today, Robotic Origami; Tomorrow, Claytronics"
      (June 29, 2010)
    • "X-37B / Orbital Test Vehicle Robot Spaceplane Now an Air Force Project"
      (April 5, 2010)
    • "X-51 Waverider, Bullet Trains: Change Happens"
      (March 11, 2010)
    • "Bullet Trains in America: United States Transportation Enters the 20th Century (It's About Time) "
      (January 28, 2010)
    • "Bigelow Aerospace: Space to Rent or Lease, in Orbit"
      (January 20, 2010)
    • "Worlds First Bionic Fingers? Could Be"
      (December 8, 2009)
    • "They're Birds! They're Planes! No, It's the SWAT Team!"
      (December 4, 2009)
    • "Glow-in-the-Dark Flashing Tattoos? Prosthetics With Neural Interfaces? They're Coming"
      (November 20, 2009)
    • "Sailing on Sunlight"
      (November 11, 2009)
    • "Hypersonic Vehicles: Waveriders to Space"
      (November 2, 2009)
    • "NASA's X-37 Project, New Technologies, and - EEEK! the Military!!"
      (October 23, 2009)
    • "New Rocket Fuel: Aluminum and - - - Water?!"
      (October 21, 2009)
    • "Coming Soon: The Man With the Heart of a Cockroach"
      (October 3, 2009)
    • "20 Years of Building Stuff One Atom at a Time"
      (October 2, 2009)
    • "This Electric Motorcycle is No Wimpmobile"
      (September 15, 2009)
    • "Solar Trees Top (Some) California Parking Lots"
      (August 29, 2009)
    • "Dolphin with a Rubber Tail, Tortoise on Wheels - Animals with Prosthetics"
      (August 17, 2009)
    • "Walking, Running, the 'Apollo Number' and Lunar Exploration"
      (August 15, 2009)
    • "Hot New Technologies of Yesteryear"
      (July 22, 2009)
    • "ViRob: Tiny 'Robot' Travels Through Body"
      (June 27, 2009)
    • "Programmable Matter: Next-Generation Morphing Technologies"
      (June 8, 2009)
    • "Seeing With Your Tongue? This isn't Science Fiction, Folks"
      (May 20, 2009)
    • " 'You Will Forget' - The Doctor Will Fix You Now?"
      (April 13, 2009)
    • "Plutonium Powered Pacemakers: Americans with Atomic Hearts"
      (March 22, 2009)
    • "Skylon: Spaceplane for 2019"
      (March 12, 2009)
    • "Protesting Against New Technology - the Early Days"
      (February 23, 2009)
    • "Set PHASERs on Stun: Koloc's Kugelblitz Research is For Real"
      (February 20, 2009)
    • "Smart Speed Bumps: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?"
      (January 13, 2009)
    • "Nanotechnolgy and Electronics: Atom-Sized Transistors ('Nanotronics'??)"
      (February 20, 2009)
    • "Slick Idea from MIT: Nanotech Oil Spill Blotter-Upper"
      (July 10, 2008)
    • "The Chembots Are Coming"
      (July 1, 2008)
    • "Programmable Metallization Cell (PMC): One Terabyte of Data in a Little Package"
      (June 20, 2008)
    • "Neural Interface for Stroke Victims: New Medical Technology"
      (May 22, 2008)
    • "One More Worry: Hackers and Pacemakers"
      (March 12, 2008)
    • "Artificial Skin: New Technologies Coming"
      (February 12, 2008)
    • "Murphy's Laws of Technology - Another Take on the Information Age"
      (December 31, 2008)
    • "Magic Walls and the Information Age"
      (May 19, 2008)
    • "Memristor: Cool New Technology from HP Labs"
      (April 30, 2008)
    • "Next-Generation Tabletop"
      (April 28, 2008)
    • "Spiderman Suit: From CGI to R & D"
      (March 31, 2008)
    • "Nanosieves: Energy-Efficient Filters"
      (March 5, 2008)
    • "Nanotech Solar Collector: Revolutionary, With a Big Catch"
      (January 16, 2008)
    • "Nanobot Designed for Clearing Arteries"
      (November 21, 2007)
    • "Robotic Go-Karts for Crippled Kids"
      (December 20, 2007)
    • "Nanotech Batteries in Clothing"
      (October 19, 2007)
    • "Something New that Water Can Do"
      (October 19, 2007)

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