This is intended (as the title implies) to be a light-hearted discussion of the social and cultural ramifications of certain types of super-science should it be introduced into our culture here in the year 2011. By "super-science" I intend to mean any scientific advancement which is significantly beyond our own to the point where we can offer no logical explanation to it, but which is, nevertheless, fashioned around technology in one of its myriad forms. i.e. something one would see in Star Trek or Star Wars or any number of various other science fiction works. This is not a discussion about cloning humans. Cloning humans has been beaten to death with the body of a dead cloned human. I'll not stand for it. This discussion is likewise not intended to display how super-science cannot exist. We are making the assumption that it does, though not necessarily all possible examples at the same time or same iteration of "reality." To get us started on the right thread, I propose a discussion of the technology available to the principle characters in the Pokemon series of games. I told you this would be light-hearted. That is to say, for those who have not interacted with these video games before, the ability to convert biological creatures into streams of pure information, restrain them in receptacles specially designed for the task, and then transmit them across the internet, where they can be restored to their previous existence with no side-effects or sensation of lost time. Personally, I think the human trafficking market would have a field day. Mail-order brides would be sold and then received on the Internet. War criminals would never be caught. On the up-side, assuming that this level of technology is as commonplace as it seems to be in the Pokemon games, global warming would come to a screeching halt from the lack of people driving. Only those who drove for the thrill of it would do so. Consequently, gas prices would spike sky high.
I want nanotech body mods...I want to be immortal, indestructable, able to morph my body at will, and able to morph into a swarm of killer disassembler attack nanobots under my conscious control. Devildust. I would use my powers for justice. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I, for one, am glad we do not have holodecks. Holodecks would, let's face it, be used for pornographic purposes at least 50% of the time, and someone would have go in and clean that thing (or clean the scooba robot that cleans that thing), and I prefer just to not think about that. On the other hand, creating a holodeck-style experience a la Total Recall, that would be be great. As that would be entirely in your own head, I'm pretty sure that would be used for porn 99% of the time, but since it's virtual (and the subject happily clothed) cleanup is still a personal affair. Small problem: as was highlighted by Futurama, all of civilization is just a thinnly veiled effort to impress the opposite sex (and sometimes the same sex), in an effort to earn a chance to have sex, so when sex is too easily come by...you get this: http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/48647/detail/ On a semi-serious side, when the cost (price) of sex goes down, you can definitely expect people to do less of other things and have more sex. There is recent work on the economics of sex that suggests there has been some slacking off: http://www.slate.com/id/2286240/ http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/08/09/equality_and_sex/index.html There is some chance that could dramatically escalate if technology provided an experience that was too...umm...immersive (rimshot).
You know, I'd never thought of that, and I don't know why-I had a friend who worked at the sort of x-rated video store where they have "preview booths" in the back...and worse...people would keep cutting "glory holes"....Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Huh. You know, DS9 did imply that things like that happened, but I guess I never really thought about it either. Though, the limiting factor on use of such a vast technological device could be inherent in the cost of using it. I mean, the thing makes and arranges photons in such a way that they feel solid. You'd need a couple of nuclear plants just to run the darn thing, speaking in terms of current power-producing technologies. I guess when you power things by the reaction of matter and anti-matter, a la Star Trek, you can ignore such extreme costs. I also seem to recall that Star Trek ships are a little bit solar powered, too, given how much cosmic radiation they're exposed too, it would make sense. But since we're on the topic of Star Trek, how about replicators? What would it be like to live in a society where you could literally make anything that you could design in AutoDesk Inventor without any considerable lead time?
I was going to say....First, these people make garden scenes just to relax, and there's nary a word about energy use. Second, these people order the computer to use massive amounts of energy just to provide them with tea. The power requirements were never mentioned with any specificity, not even when Quark was running his. In the first episode of TNG, Data recreated a forest seemingly just to practice whistling in (and I assume he quarters would have been available). The biggest problem with the Holodeck, of course, is not the cleaning factor, but the very real possibility (I'd say 1 in 6 odds if the episodes were any guide) that the safeties would fail and the Holodeck characters would try to kill you. For some reason, those safeties are tied into the door controls directly, since it seems they usually cannot leave the Holodeck when this happens (nor can people on the outside get in usually). I always wanted Geordie to say, "The Holodeck safeties must be down...AGAIN! Fuck! Why do we use this thing?!" I think the danger is part of the fun.
