Fri 9 May 2008
Contact with E.T.’s? An Old Testament sign from God? A woman president? Proof of what created the universe? Something else? What what you like to see happen before you discard your mortal coil?
Posted by starman11 answers so far!
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Big Big Question is a Josh Millard project.
Cell repairing nanobiomachines so that the “coil” can be mortal by accident but not by aging.
A thorough understanding of consciousness and how the mind works.
Also, an end to irony and post-modernism. I’d love to see a return to “naive” linear narrative.
An end to spam, and spammish marketing models.
Peace on earth.
I would like to see a leader - of any nationality - express their understanding of the fact that the human race is completely interlinked and interdependent, and that the future of the species depends on us learning to acknowledge that fact and work together on large issues - that we have to step past tribalism and nationalism to become what we truly can be.
Then this leader would need to find a way to get the rest of the world to act on that understanding. This would be the difficult part.
I can’t say what I want the outcome to be, because I haven’t imagined it, but I can’t wait to see how the internet evolves. Marshall Brain’s Vertebrane is an awesome concept, although in his story, the circumstances that precede it are awful. (Long story short, robots take over most jobs and citizens are put on forced welfare. Then someone turns Australia into an open-source land where all resources are equal and everyone can do whatever they want. Vertebrane is sort of the internet, sort of a real Second Life. Read the story - it’s really interesting.) Robots in general are neat, but… yeah. Not in the I, Robot sort of way.
I’d like to see more people “being green” - using reusable shopping bags and CFLs - at least until we can come up with something better.
I’ll second an end to spam.
Yeah, it’s corny, but I’d really like to see world peace.
Sentient computers.
I do really want to see a female president of the US. This desire transcends party lines for me.
I’d like to see society have a healthy relationship with art. By that, I don’t mean everyone would be reading Shakespeare and listening to Mozart. I mean that people would be reading, listening and watching purely because they want to — because they love having their thoughts and senses tickled. There’d be no more “I’m reading this because I should” or “I’m listening to this because it’s what cultured people do.” And artists would create only because they have something inside them that needs to come out. Or because they’re fascinated by an aesthetic puzzle. Ego and money wouldn’t enter into the equation.
I’d like to see CO2 emissions brought under control.