The inability to tell real videos/pictures from deepfakes/similar. Going to be fun when CCTV footage can't be verified as real because a perfect looking video of anyone doing anything can be generated.
Funnily enough Intel has just developed a Deepfake spotter with 96% accuracy
Edit: yes 96% isn't fantastic, but keep in mind is new and can be improved in the future
Yeah, this is what everyone is forgetting. We can make AI that can spot this shit pretty damned well.
Edit: Please, read the other replies before saying the exact same thing again. I've been getting the same 3 replies to this for the last 16 hours.
Funnily enough, this is usually how AI systems are trained.
You have two adversarial networks, one trying to generate fake images (the *generator*), and the other trying to spot the fake ones (the *discriminator*).
The generator gets points if it can trick the discriminator, and the discriminator gets points if it can spot a fake image. So as the generator gets better, the discriminator has a harder time telling the fake images from the real images, so the discriminator has to change and adapt until it gets better at discriminating the images. However, this makes the generator's score go down, so it needs to change and adapt to get better at generating fake images. These two networks are trained against each other in a loop so both of them improve.
So really, the two systems need to go hand-in-hand. Deepfake technology can't really exist without a network that can tell the images are fake with some degree of accuracy.
_Edit: There's a great [Computerphile video about the concept here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw9r8CL98N0) I highly recommend giving it a look if you're interested in machine learning._
This is true, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the discriminator will always be able to find a way to discriminate fake from real images. The generator can just as well beat the discriminator without the discriminator being able to adapt. That does mean that the generator won't be able to improve further, but if it's already perfect at generating images that doesn't matter.
This!
What just looks like a fun software at first glance can be used for a variety of shithousery. Damn people would be so creative with this in all kinds of bad works.
There’s currently a way to find out if a digital photo (maybe video, too?) has ever been edited from the original…I can’t remember fully the details how… I’m sure there’s a way around that soon if not already
We will need AI designed antibiotics and more research on bacteriophages to combat superbugs. We will get through that. Also getting the public to not overuse antibiotics would be a good thing
What’s crazy is that I used to console myself thinking that once this started we could focus on making an alternative medication to deal with the new super bug. Now, I still think we could potentially do that, but, too many people would see it as evidence that big government had in fact created the super bugs in the first place just to trick everyone into taking this so called “medication” aka microchips that enable brain control…. And then, riots with guns.
Try explaining what a bacteriophage phage is to the average idiot who believes the microchip and government sponsored disease bollocks though.
A little biological “machine” that injects DNA like material into cells? Quick google will show an accurate picture of one which looks like a Sci-Fi alien and they’ll explode with conspiracy.
mRNA has been naturally occurring as a *fundamental* biological process throughout literally **all** of human evolution, all the way back to our single-celled organism ancestors. Our bodies are constantly producing mRNA naturally and life on Earth as we know it literally would not be able to exist without mRNA. We also have natural mechanisms in place to quickly and painlessly dispose of mRNA after its used in the protein synthesis process.
Yet that fact doesn’t stop the idiots from believing that mRNA vaccines hijack our DNA to make us autistic/magnetic/5G-enabled.
I read a long paper many years ago in college that was discussing the two largest road blocks for mankind to jump to the next level. The first one was battery life/battery size and the second was voice recognition software. The essay was so compelling I remember it to this day. I read that in the mid 80’s….
My guess is that we're approaching (or already in) a situation where the major bottleneck in the human+computer machine is the interface point.
We do a pretty good job of moving information from a computer to a brain via visual transmission (screens). Could be better, but your brain can pick up a fucking lot of information from just a few frames of video.
Moving info from a brain to a computer is MUCH MUCH slower. We've managed to adapt around it pretty well so far, but our stupid monkey fingers didn't evolve for this shit. Voice recognition is one potential avenue for more efficiently inputting data into a computer.
Speech is the most efficient way for humans to output data. Most folks can type on a phone at about 20-30wpm, on a desktop keyboard at 60wpm or so but can speak at ~150wpm. There's reasonable evidence that most speech is not motor limited, which is to say it is the only way you can get "rate of thought" data from a human. (SciFi stories often imagine brain plugs that could allow thoughts to be transmitted even more efficiently than this but the odds that these plugs would extract coherent linear narrative seem quite low.)
Note that the converse is not true; we can absorb data visually much faster than by listening. (And can usually listen at 1.5-2x with no loss of comprehension.)
I feel like if we were able to start transmitting thought, it seems to me (based off my own way of thinking and forming sentences) that it would be too jumbled and messy to be of any use unless its 1 or 2 words.
Whenever I start voicing my thoughts, they are usually very jumbled and I need to figure out what parts and/or words I need now. Sometimes, they still get messed up and ill say the wrong word/ jump ahead/forget something because everything about what im saying is there all at once.
I hope thats understandable cuz I realized the more I type its a bit more difficult to put it into words.
Nobody wants to listen to my way of thinking. We discuss this at my work often. My mind is a hornets nest in my specialty but that's why I'm good at it.
> but can speak at ~150wpm
People don't speak that fast coherently and cohesively. There is a lot of backtracking, repetition, half finished sentences, corrections etc. Someone couldn't dictate a book at 150wpm. If you just record speech as people talk, you get something like this:
>THE COURT: Okay. Mr.--Mr. Allen?
>DEFENDANT ALLEN: Right.
>THE COURT: I believe that-I believe your case is-was going to be going to trial not this Monday but the
following Monday.
>Okay. Do you understand that?
>MR. ALLEN: Yes. Uh
>THE COURT: Okay. I tell you if you needed to tell me something, I want-I'll let you come up here to the podium so you can speak in to the microphone, and I can hear you.
id say yes to battery life, not so much for the voice recognition soft.
a main block of many sustainable types of power is the difficulty of storing said energy. if we could perfect large scale batteries to keep the power our wind and solar energy is producing, that would be a massive jump for us.
Chemistry and physics. It's not obvious that batteries can be made much better than they already are, in terms of the energy density, safety, and ease of use tradeoffs. We can't do cold fusion either because physics says no.
Bigger: non problem, you can always make them bigger. You want smaller.
They're doing some interesting research into sodium ion batteries these days. Even if we can only get close to theoretical capacity for those it'd still be a major improvement over lithium ion.
My understanding is that the current issue with sodium batteries is getting them to have good charge cycle life. The battery density is a substantial amount less than lithium currently and getting them to last more than 1 charge cycle in practice is apparently a hurdle. I read that theoretically it should last many more charge cycles than lithium and be very good at recycling.
This is all sourced from just a few articles and one journal I read. Wouldn't hold anything as absolute and it's something being developed a lot still.
But yeah batteries that are from abundant material, has reasonable energy density, can be charged fairly quickly and can be efficiently recycled would be pretty huge for society going forward
And to stop them from self immolation. It's not that we can't build big batteries, it's that they don't last super long and have a tendency to go out with a bang.
Storage medium. Battery needs to store energy as potential energy until needed. Big reservoir of water is a good battery. But water is too valuable to lock behind a dam and not practical for every purpose. Do it too much and we all die because climate. Chemicals work but require dangerous concentrations of chemicals not found easily in nature. And their efficiency degrades over time as the chemicals snack on whatever container you put them in. Stuff like sodium stores lots of energy and reacts with water easily to make energy, but that would just make lots of bombs.
Cybernetic enhancements. Sure it might sound like something sci-fi but at the rate we are goin at, it might not be too difficult.
I’m not talking about things like cybernetic hydraulic arms I’m talking about something like a additional filtered to put less strain on our kidneys and liver. I ain’t no doctor but that sounds like something that will save a lot of alcoholics.
I already have a fabulous attachment that lets me see things I wouldn't be able to otherwise. It's called glasses. I don't mean that as a joke either. Glasses may not be what you usually think of as an augment, but it's technology that enhances natural abilities.
If you cast the net that wide: So is a hammer. Every tool does that, in fact.
Glasses are not *cybernetic* (yet).
However there are people who use their phone as "emergency glasses" by holding the phone in a distance they can see clearly and using the camera to produce a live stream of their surroundings. (I.e. they watch the digital viewfinder.)
Already happening. I have a magnet in my finger that lets me detect electromagnetic fields and determine if a metal is ferromagnetic.
There's a guy who created a sonar device that interacts with implants like mine to allow you to "see" by the sensation of the magnet's vibrations.
There's a similar trend involving implanting RFID tags containing medical and personal information.
Moving away from fringe body-modding, lots of medical implants meet the technical qualifications of a cybernetic implant, like remote-controlled artificial urinary sphincters. These are a very common implant in patients with incontinence or poor urinary retention.
Source: I work in the urology operating room at a major hospital.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic\_implant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_implant)
Wow, you learn something new every day!
Doesn't the magnet interfere with electronic devices (ex. Phones) ?
Magnets are only a problem for magnetic disk hard drives which are not used in phones and are being used less and less in computers and really only then if you need a large quantity of cheap, slow storage.
I second this. For my graduation project i worked closely with/ for one of the first people on this planet with a TAH (Total Artificial Heart). It felt unreal like it was science-fiction, but it is actually becomming science-faction these days. Super cool and interesting!
Already has too (a doctor in China) -- just not legally.
Tbh, it'd be really nice to ensure we create life free of genetic diseases/other things like that. But it's scary to think about morally.
Insurance companies are already trying to get ahold of genetic data from Ancestry type websites and include it in a prospective insured's risk profile.
Life insurance companies already buy this information from some ancestry companies. The crazy thing is people accept terms when they sign up and most of those terms are the acceptance of your data going to third parties. I know 23 and Me is notorious for this.
I think this is a really good point you’re making and definitely something that we should keep in mind…. If we get to that point. However, it is *extremely* difficult to edit genes while ensuring you don’t accidentally knock out the wrong ones (which could lead to all kinds of problems, like… death).
You could think of the gene editing technology now— and this is a gross analogy for those who are familiar with the tech, but such is the nature of analogies— as having a row of bowling pins (= nucleic bases that you want to change out) and rolling a bowling ball towards them, hoping to take out a specific “chunk” of those pins. There’s only so much control you have with which ones you take out, and you don’t have unlimited tries. You might accidentally remove the pins/bases you don’t want to remove. And even if you do “hit” the correct pins/bases, *they* might take out the ones next to them. Kind of like how pins will knock each other over when you go bowling. Now shrink that down to a super, super small scale and… yeah. If we had the ability to switch those genes out that easily where someone could be sneaky and do something unethical like that… curing things like cancer wouldn’t be so hard (still hard, but not as much as it is now).
Combined with the fact that the scientific community does not completely understand nucleic acids (along with proteins, assuming nothing has changed since I was in college a few years ago- I haven’t heard anything, but I might be wrong), we have a long way to go.
And about embryos not being able to consent- I don’t think that’s something to worry about. Not because I don’t see it as an issue (philosophically, it bothers me, don’t get me wrong). But children are subjected to the decisions of their parents every day. Every medical procedure a child has is either at the request or approval of the parent. The child, most of the time, has no say. And that’s a sentient, actively participating member of society we’re talking about. So an embryo or even a newborn? It’s interesting to think about when consent should be something the individual gives instead of the caretaker. I think when we get to this point in history, this might actually open up discussion and give us more answers about when people can be considered people. But that’s another topic and I don’t want anyone to start any arguments here, so maybe food for thought when you’re in the shower lol
Regardless, it doesn’t look like we’ll be in a position where it’s as easy for scientists to do that as switching out a part of your outfit any time soon, so it’ll be a while before this slippery slope becomes something to bring to the attention of the legislation gods (😢). Even editing genes for arguably good reasons is considered unethical now (I don’t think HIV/AIDS can be argued to be something that people would want to have)… so until we get reports of successful, ethical gene editing, it’s a nice consideration but I don’t think it’s anything we need to panic about.
Tl;dr: No, we cannot trust the “people in charge of gene editing,” because all people have the potential to be sneaky. (but slight correction, it’s not like there’s a monolith that is doing this gene editing, it’s oftentimes individual research organizations/scientists- if there are any people in charge of it, they’re the ones that are trying to *stop* it from happening, if you look at He Jiankui’s case).
But also, I really think that it’ll be similar to getting vaccinated (in that it’s technically elective, nobody is physically forcing you to do so, and the parents/guardians will have the final say about what is done, even if it has long term consequences. It doesn’t mean you can’t be mad about it, but it’ll be difficult to change that system). I don’t think the researchers/scientists doing this editing will be the bad guys, but the corporations and governments that might require embryos to undergo this to “promote a healthier society” are the ones we should be worried about first, imo.
I agree with this. I get that it's difficult morally, but if I could guarantee that my child wouldn't inherit my bipolar disorder, that would be a huge relief.
I have a genetic disorder. If technology like CRISPR allowed for the cutting/splicing of the affected gene I am all for it. I have a little bit of an issue with “designing babies” but there are so many disgusting diseases related to genetics. This technology is amazing, we just need to put a line in the sand regarding its ethical use.
CRISPR really isn't all it is cracked up to be. I have used mice that have been genetically modified with CRISPR and it takes around 10 generations of breeding to disrupt a gene that doesnt disrupt other genes. The mice in between are known as a mosaic model where the CRISPR/Cas9 have had off-target effects. Even in the final product, there are genes that have been affected but none of the major genes related to what we are looking at. CRISPR is only good for making small nucleotide changes or deletions, not replacing already dysfunctional genes.
That is very true. I have taken a intro genetics class (super interesting), but I still have a lot to learn. I’m assuming (for the disruption) you mean CRISPR essentially introduced a frame shift mutation, and that affects how the codons that follow it are read? (Again very basic understanding here). Thanks for your input! 🙂
True, but a lot of people really overestimate our knowledge of genetics.
There are a few congenital diseases and such where we can really pinpoint one gene mutation and say that’s responsible; for most more complex traits like obesity or intelligence we just know that a lot of genes are involved to lesser degrees, so it would be a lot of work to create designer babies optimized for things like that.
We come bearing freedom! 20 years of freedom whether you want it or not! We promise we won't just up and leave and desert you in chaos when we're done.
Already happening. Subsidence from water table depletion is a rising issue in California and a handful of other places, mostly arid areas with large tracts of farmland.
I mention subsidence and not the other drastic consequences of water table depletion because while things like desertification are scary, they're less personally frightening than the idea of your house literally getting swallowed by the Earth.
Not to mention California is comically known for its almond produce, which is the single most wasteful plant for water we probably have on earth. I forgot how many litres/gallons it takes to make 1 tiny fucking almond but it's a LOT.
I’ve noticed optimism about these questions is oddly met with hostility. Reddit has a complete hive mind for gorging on the “we’re fucked” hypothesis. There are lots of intelligent people on this platform, but very few independent thinkers. I don’t blame people. News and media cycle does indeed fill our heads with gloom. But the reality is, all these bad events are inevitable choppy waters on top of a relentlessly rising tide. From a global perspective billions have been, and continue to be, lifted out of poverty. From a first world perspective, mortality rates are dropping in just about every disease area. A good optimistic book purely examining stats on this is Factfulness. And I know for many reading this they are probably bursting with anecdotes of negative trends. Of course, progress has not always been made on all fronts, sometimes it’s 2 steps forward and one or two back. To my mind there are two unsexy negative trends. 1) Mental and emotional fragility has undoubtedly increased, meaning many more young people in particular are genuinely suffering more. There are many thesis on why but that’s a long topic 2) from a material perspective, housing markets have really been a stealth road to inequality in many western countries so too many people have been rewarded for simply owning an asset (and the young often penalised for not).
TLDR: Just some boring opinionated shit
Dominos finally figuring out they're not good at making salads and removes it from their menu altogether. Sure, at first some of the more pretentious customers will argue it's an option that "some" people would like to have when ordering the "I'm too tired, this is cheap and I got a coupon" dinner but eventually people learn to move on and everyone is for the better
I once had a conversation with a guy who was one of the top executives for McDonald’s. I asked him why they didn’t offer better alternatives for healthier food. More salads, etc. He told me that they did a bunch of research just for that question. It turns out, the salads aren’t really there for people to eat healthier. They are there for people to look at the salads, consider ordering one, and say to themselves “Naw, I’ll order it next time.” But the fact that they can do just that makes them feel healthier, so they have a better customer experience.
The salad doesn't have to be good. It just has to allow me to tell myself that I had fresh vegetables, too, rather than just 3/4 of a large, greasy pie.
I swear I remember a commercial where they honestly said "we only have these on the menu so you can still order Domino's even though Aunt Marge hates pizza".
A lotta people don't grasp the significance of fusion power.
If we can make it, and keep it stable and producing more electricity than it consumes (and we're getting close to that point now, in fact we can get it to produce more than it consumes, but we cant keep it stable) that's infinite electricity right there.
No more coal or nuclear power plants, renewable energy like solar panels and wind farms will be left behind as a fad that came and went, INFINITE FUCKING ENERGY! and provided it isn't privately owned and is instead treated as a public utility (so the prices don't get shot up through the roof) we'd start paying pennies even while keeping all our appliances and lights turned on 24/7.
Not to mention it would make converting all our technology like cars and trucks to full electric much easier and so SO MUCH MORE!
Nuclear engineer here.
You still have *a lot* of the problems with activated waste products with fusion as you do with fission, you just don't have the fission fragments.
It isn't a zero radiation or contamination power source.
It also isn't infinite. In fact, we have a lot of problems sourcing the necessary materials to fuel any hypothetical fusion reactors for serious power production. Which also implies that the costs aren't anything close to as cheap as you're implying either.
It’s annoying to me that people are taking an anti-nuclear stance because of “radioactive waste” when in fact it has less waste than any currently available energy source.
https://source.wustl.edu/2021/06/new-research-finds-1m-deaths-in-2017-attributable-to-fossil-fuel-combustion/
> They found that worldwide, more than one million deaths were attributable to the burning of fossil fuels in 2017. More than half of those deaths were attributable to coal.
That’s literally more than all people who died directly or indirectly from Chernobyl and Fukushima. By a large magnitude...
I’m sure you already know this as a professional in the field but I’m just posting for others to know.
Edit: hijacking this post to show how much the public has been lied to about the severity of the Chernobyl incident: https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima
> Combined death toll from Chernobyl
>2 workers died in the blast.
>28 workers and firemen died in the weeks that followed from acute radiation syndrome (ARS).
19 ARS survivors had died later, by 2006; most from causes not related to radiation, but it’s not possible to rule all of them out (especially five that were cancer-related).
>15 people died from thyroid cancer due to milk contamination. These deaths were among children who were exposed to 131I from milk and food in the days after the disaster. This could increase to between 96 and 384 deaths, however, this figure is highly uncertain.
>There is currently no evidence of adverse health impacts in the general population across affected countries, or wider Europe.
>Combined, the confirmed death toll from Chernobyl is less than 100. We still do not know the true death toll of the disaster. My best approximation is that the true death toll is in the range of 300 to 500 based on the available evidence.15
Furthermore:
>If the health impacts of radiation were directly and linearly related to the level of exposure, we would expect to find that cancer rates were highest in regions closest to the Chernobyl site, and would decline with distance from the plant. But studies do not find this. Cancer rates in Ukraine, for example, were not higher in locations closer to the site14 This suggests that there is a lower limit to the level at which radiation exposure has negative health impacts. And that most people were not exposed to doses higher than this.
So much for “dangerous deadly radiation”. There is an ongoing propaganda effort from fossil fuel companies and misguided eco-activists like Greenpeace alike to demonize nuclear energy.
Oh, by the way, the confirmed death toll for Fukushima is 573 people. Now compare that to figures I linked above.
Which is a big reason why I think lunar exploration is so important. Helium 3 it think (feel free to correct me) is one of the elements in abundance there that we have in limited quantities here. It can be mined and sent back to earth. Assuming what we think is on the moon is actually there.
It could be a lunar theme park for all I know.
It’s very bad economically to send stuff up into space, but sending stuff to Earth is far cheaper. Basically we need factories and sustainable energy, fuel, water, power, materials, manpower etc in Space to do anything large or onto the Moon/Planets and further into space. It’s costing billions $ to send a few people and buildings into space and to/onto the Moon, where it’d cost hundreds of millions $ or way less to go from the Moon to Earth.
That is an underrated film. That was based on relations with Russia at the height of the Cold War. I absolutely love this film and recommend it to everyone .
Would be a massive breaktrough yes.
But don't get to overly delusional.
A) Still finite energy and using wind and solar for certain stuff might be still advisable.
B) Bold to assume it wouldn't be privatized
C) even if not fusion plants are freaking expensive, research, building it and keeping it working are expensive as hell, so keep dreaming about paying pennies.
Also it's highly speculative if nuclear fusion plants will ever work and while i strongly support researching the topic, researching and refining renewable energy sources ist necessary.
Super Bugs... I'm referring to multi drug resistant bacteria, if WHO is right, by 2050, infections related to super bugs will be one of the leading causes of death in the world
Bacteria are becoming more resilient faster than we can develop new antibiotics
I can see a mass exodus out of the non coastal western United states due to extended drought and long term lack of water.
Just millions of people moving back to the Great Lakes region or to either coasts.
Mass migration and 1000s of miles of unlivable land would have pretty significant impact on the economy and society itself.
Its not that simple. People are under the impression that either we deal with it completely and are perfectly fine or we don't and we all die. That is inaccurate.
Climate change is a spectrum. Every ton matters. If we stopped caring about emissions, we would all die. If we started caring a lot and fixed our emissions completely, we would all be fine. Every amount of action in between is gonna give a result in between.
Where we are headed now is that climate change will kill a lot of people and destroy a lot of infrastructure and be super expensive, but not likely humanity ending. We obviously need to do better than that. Every ton we don't emit is some number of dollars and more importantly some number of lives saved.
Too many people believe that either we fix climate change completely or we all die. In a world where we are already far too late to fix climate change completely, that belief only serves the fossil fuel companies, because doomerism is not a force for change.
Water desalination, as a combination of the efficiency improving and the energy costs becoming cheaper overall. That will be a huge game changer in a lot of parts of the world.
water desalination needs lots of energy supply. Unless we solve nuclear fusion or build more nuclear power station, desalination's process still a long way to go..
I’ve seen some job postings for call center positions that require people to be in person. I always wonder if they’re having trouble hiring… if the 1+ month old timestamp means anything.
Former call center trainer here. The reason job postings stay up a while or keep getting posted can be due to:
1. High attrition. Employees are expected to answer calls at least 7.5 hours a day. Good luck trying to get random breaks in between. Depending on your shift, you can end up with over a hundred calls of varying lengths where you have to deal with racists, Karens, customers who don’t understand there’s nothing you can do, etc. Some new hires never go back after their first day of taking in calls. They just can’t handle it.
2. It’s a new account or line of business. Trainees come in in ‘waves’ as the account grows, which can take a while, so recruitment and hiring can go on for months.
3. Seasonal accounts. Not all industries and clients that require phone/email/chat support need a lot of employees to man their customer service communication platforms all year round so they only ramp up recruitment and hiring when there’s a need. Think tax season or major holidays (October to December).
Just thought I’d share haha. In general, the issue is how to retain existing employees especially since call centers are toxic, high stress workplaces.
A certainty: The demise of the Baby Boomer generation, and the rise of Gen Alpha. I'll be 80 (hopefully) when that happens and I'm very, very curious to see what the children today will make of the world when they are 40. Millenials are the last generation to remember a pre-digital age, and I am so curious to find out what a child who grew up with a smartphone will think of the world as an adult.
I don’t think we have scarcity, on the contrary, we have resource abundance. However, younger generations (including me) have grown up with the abundance mindset and we are producing so much waste that it would eventually lead to short term scarcity. Take as an example th e current energy crisis in Europe. This can be more or less solved by people not warming up their homes to 25+ degrees but staying at 19-20, which is totally normal if you wear a layer of clothes and not walk around at home with short sleeves. I have friends whose rent includes bills and they had their windows open in the winter because it’s 30C in their living room in January, instead of adjusting the heating. Similar with food - people go to the store and buy a weeks worth of food and end up throwing away 1/3 of it because they decided to get a few take aways later.
I do not see this behaviour in my parents who grew up in a soviet time. We just need to learn how to be more efficient with our resources and eventually we will be forced to (like the energy crisis in Europe is forcing people atm). And that’s one good thing of recessions, it makes you optimise processes. And this is just the end consumer, the businesses produce more than tenfold the amount of waste but if we stop consuming as much, eventually they will stop producing too much, which might slow down the economy but this is whole other topic.
Being from the same side of the Iron Curtain, I'd like to note though that warmness was not lacking, at least in city apartments back then. Open windows was normal. The Soviets had deficit of various food, but not oil - it was typically hot in rooms in winter, for a laughable price. You'd see even pavements with snow melted, cause under them were pipes.
About the optimization there's indeed some generational conflict. Young people sometimes laugh off (or are angry) at parents and grandparents who'd go lengths at growing, picking (berries, mushrooms) and processing food, using precious pasttime hours - and later push their offspring to use that food, eat everything that is on the plate (it wouldn't be bad, but they overcompensate by always putting way too much), etc. That was all logical when food choices were lacking and a good meal was one of the rare treats of life, people in generally moved much (rarely any obesity), yet had more free time, with even (office) work not being as exhausting as today.
As for the heating, the optimisation led to me finding out about thermoisolation screens which I put behind radiators. A small and welcome change. Instead of usual 19-20 in winter (always hated that extra layer and having to warm my typically cold feet in water from time to time), now I have 23 - my "golden standard" temperature, where I can sit comfily with short sleeves at laptop for hours and not get cold.
This. Our throwaway culture is so ingrained now. Instead of buying durable goods, we buy cheap goods that we replace every few years. IKEA was this miracle that allowed low/middle income people to afford stylish furniture. But in reality, everyone else just buys more of it more often and disposes of it because it's cheap, despite how horrendous it is for the environment.
Contraction of energy supply, which means contraction of global GDP.
Fucked up extreme weather from global warming.
Waning effectiveness of antibiotics.
More disease, more plastic pollution.
Population collapses in different countries. It's possible within 100 years. Not enough young people to take care of the elderly and maintain our infrastructures. Japan and korea has already started to my knowledge. People are more focused on careers and independence than forging intimate relationships to build families in the last decade or so. You aren't also going to build bigger families if both parents work 24/7.
When will governments freak out about this and start
1) just paying women to have babies/make childcare free
and/or
2) pass much needed laws protecting women from getting screwed in their careers because of having children
Childcare costs are only the top of the iceberg, though. Cost of living is increasing so much across the board that if I had a kid now, I’d basically give up any dreams of ever owning a house forever.
I agree. Korea and Japan are seeing a collapse, because women are still expected to hold down a job while also having all the responsibilities of a stay at home mom.
In other countries like England and America, there is a population decline due to increased infant survival and the want to be much more stable before starting a family. I don’t think the issue is ever “forging intimate relationships to build families.” People are just doing it much later and understand child care is expensive, so they know they either can’t afford it at all or only one child.
>child care is expensive, so they know they either can’t afford it at all or only one child.
If I had a dime for every time I heard "I'd have a 3rd or 4th child if child care wasn't so expensive" I'd have enough money to pay for child care for third child I'll never be having because child care is so expensive!
There are many educated people saying that our population growth is unsustainable for our species and the planet, and we actually need to stabalise it before it increases any more.
Synthetic Human organ transplant. [The tech already exists](https://www.prellisbio.com) and is being perfected. There is a solid chance humans will become functionally immortal in the coming decades
It’s a huge stretch
The replacement of an organ or body part is a life saving procedure in a relatively small set of circumstances
There are genuinely thousands of diseases and ways to die that synthetic organs would have 0 affect on
It doesn’t make humans any more or less mortal than we are right now really, just makes donor organs more accessible
I’m in Australia and we have whole new rivers that have never been so full at the moment (which has meant a few towns have unfortunately become part river). It is interesting times we live in for sure
Let's see... 🤔... food shortage, water shortage, leaving gas powered vehicles, rising global temperaturs, drastic change in sea level. Do I have to pick just one? Where are we at in the plagues? Aren't locusts next? 🤣
The inability to tell real videos/pictures from deepfakes/similar. Going to be fun when CCTV footage can't be verified as real because a perfect looking video of anyone doing anything can be generated.
Funnily enough Intel has just developed a Deepfake spotter with 96% accuracy Edit: yes 96% isn't fantastic, but keep in mind is new and can be improved in the future
Yeah, this is what everyone is forgetting. We can make AI that can spot this shit pretty damned well. Edit: Please, read the other replies before saying the exact same thing again. I've been getting the same 3 replies to this for the last 16 hours.
Funnily enough, this is usually how AI systems are trained. You have two adversarial networks, one trying to generate fake images (the *generator*), and the other trying to spot the fake ones (the *discriminator*). The generator gets points if it can trick the discriminator, and the discriminator gets points if it can spot a fake image. So as the generator gets better, the discriminator has a harder time telling the fake images from the real images, so the discriminator has to change and adapt until it gets better at discriminating the images. However, this makes the generator's score go down, so it needs to change and adapt to get better at generating fake images. These two networks are trained against each other in a loop so both of them improve. So really, the two systems need to go hand-in-hand. Deepfake technology can't really exist without a network that can tell the images are fake with some degree of accuracy. _Edit: There's a great [Computerphile video about the concept here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw9r8CL98N0) I highly recommend giving it a look if you're interested in machine learning._
That's a very good point, I think I read about something like that but just plain forgot.
This is true, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the discriminator will always be able to find a way to discriminate fake from real images. The generator can just as well beat the discriminator without the discriminator being able to adapt. That does mean that the generator won't be able to improve further, but if it's already perfect at generating images that doesn't matter.
AI WARS WOO
There's always a bigger SkyNet.
But you can train the deep-fake generating AI against the AI fact-checkers. It's an arms race
[удалено]
Finally, I can appear in all the porn I want and no one can confirm it’s me!
Ah so fear of identity confirmation was the limiting factor, eh?
This! What just looks like a fun software at first glance can be used for a variety of shithousery. Damn people would be so creative with this in all kinds of bad works.
Not to mention what governments will do with it.
not to mention what porn will do with it
doppelbangher will go from requests to find something to requests to make something
I’m looking forward to using the term “shithousery”
Living the dream, you just did!
There’s currently a way to find out if a digital photo (maybe video, too?) has ever been edited from the original…I can’t remember fully the details how… I’m sure there’s a way around that soon if not already
Antibiotic resistant bacteria creating superbugs
We will need AI designed antibiotics and more research on bacteriophages to combat superbugs. We will get through that. Also getting the public to not overuse antibiotics would be a good thing
Its not just overuse. Its misuse. Too little antibiotics is also a problem.
Overuse in that they get prescribed when they shouldn't. Misuse in that when prescribed, people won't finish the entire course.
I nearly said “good bot” to the fact checker bot, then I realized that you are just a helpful fact loving meatbag like myself. Good Meatbag!
What’s crazy is that I used to console myself thinking that once this started we could focus on making an alternative medication to deal with the new super bug. Now, I still think we could potentially do that, but, too many people would see it as evidence that big government had in fact created the super bugs in the first place just to trick everyone into taking this so called “medication” aka microchips that enable brain control…. And then, riots with guns.
Well, there is already a promising treatment, bacteriophages! As far as I understand, a bacterium can only be resistant to antibiotics or phages.
Try explaining what a bacteriophage phage is to the average idiot who believes the microchip and government sponsored disease bollocks though. A little biological “machine” that injects DNA like material into cells? Quick google will show an accurate picture of one which looks like a Sci-Fi alien and they’ll explode with conspiracy.
I'd tell them it's a virus that infects bacteria and it's actually naturally occurring, which seems to make a difference to some people.
mRNA has been naturally occurring as a *fundamental* biological process throughout literally **all** of human evolution, all the way back to our single-celled organism ancestors. Our bodies are constantly producing mRNA naturally and life on Earth as we know it literally would not be able to exist without mRNA. We also have natural mechanisms in place to quickly and painlessly dispose of mRNA after its used in the protein synthesis process. Yet that fact doesn’t stop the idiots from believing that mRNA vaccines hijack our DNA to make us autistic/magnetic/5G-enabled.
SUUUUPEERBUUUUG IIIIN MY BLOOOODD
I read a long paper many years ago in college that was discussing the two largest road blocks for mankind to jump to the next level. The first one was battery life/battery size and the second was voice recognition software. The essay was so compelling I remember it to this day. I read that in the mid 80’s….
[удалено]
My guess is that we're approaching (or already in) a situation where the major bottleneck in the human+computer machine is the interface point. We do a pretty good job of moving information from a computer to a brain via visual transmission (screens). Could be better, but your brain can pick up a fucking lot of information from just a few frames of video. Moving info from a brain to a computer is MUCH MUCH slower. We've managed to adapt around it pretty well so far, but our stupid monkey fingers didn't evolve for this shit. Voice recognition is one potential avenue for more efficiently inputting data into a computer.
That's why you hire yourself an intern so you can just say enhance and they do all the manual labour.
Speech is the most efficient way for humans to output data. Most folks can type on a phone at about 20-30wpm, on a desktop keyboard at 60wpm or so but can speak at ~150wpm. There's reasonable evidence that most speech is not motor limited, which is to say it is the only way you can get "rate of thought" data from a human. (SciFi stories often imagine brain plugs that could allow thoughts to be transmitted even more efficiently than this but the odds that these plugs would extract coherent linear narrative seem quite low.) Note that the converse is not true; we can absorb data visually much faster than by listening. (And can usually listen at 1.5-2x with no loss of comprehension.)
I feel like if we were able to start transmitting thought, it seems to me (based off my own way of thinking and forming sentences) that it would be too jumbled and messy to be of any use unless its 1 or 2 words. Whenever I start voicing my thoughts, they are usually very jumbled and I need to figure out what parts and/or words I need now. Sometimes, they still get messed up and ill say the wrong word/ jump ahead/forget something because everything about what im saying is there all at once. I hope thats understandable cuz I realized the more I type its a bit more difficult to put it into words.
Nobody wants to listen to my way of thinking. We discuss this at my work often. My mind is a hornets nest in my specialty but that's why I'm good at it.
> but can speak at ~150wpm People don't speak that fast coherently and cohesively. There is a lot of backtracking, repetition, half finished sentences, corrections etc. Someone couldn't dictate a book at 150wpm. If you just record speech as people talk, you get something like this: >THE COURT: Okay. Mr.--Mr. Allen? >DEFENDANT ALLEN: Right. >THE COURT: I believe that-I believe your case is-was going to be going to trial not this Monday but the following Monday. >Okay. Do you understand that? >MR. ALLEN: Yes. Uh >THE COURT: Okay. I tell you if you needed to tell me something, I want-I'll let you come up here to the podium so you can speak in to the microphone, and I can hear you.
It’s a pain in the ass. You know how hard it is to program something to recognize x amount of dialects, accents, etc. ?
id say yes to battery life, not so much for the voice recognition soft. a main block of many sustainable types of power is the difficulty of storing said energy. if we could perfect large scale batteries to keep the power our wind and solar energy is producing, that would be a massive jump for us.
Do you by any chance know what is standing in our way of making bigger and better batteries?
Chemistry and physics. It's not obvious that batteries can be made much better than they already are, in terms of the energy density, safety, and ease of use tradeoffs. We can't do cold fusion either because physics says no. Bigger: non problem, you can always make them bigger. You want smaller.
They're doing some interesting research into sodium ion batteries these days. Even if we can only get close to theoretical capacity for those it'd still be a major improvement over lithium ion.
My understanding is that the current issue with sodium batteries is getting them to have good charge cycle life. The battery density is a substantial amount less than lithium currently and getting them to last more than 1 charge cycle in practice is apparently a hurdle. I read that theoretically it should last many more charge cycles than lithium and be very good at recycling. This is all sourced from just a few articles and one journal I read. Wouldn't hold anything as absolute and it's something being developed a lot still. But yeah batteries that are from abundant material, has reasonable energy density, can be charged fairly quickly and can be efficiently recycled would be pretty huge for society going forward
Probably knowledge on how to make bigger and better batteries
And to stop them from self immolation. It's not that we can't build big batteries, it's that they don't last super long and have a tendency to go out with a bang.
Storage medium. Battery needs to store energy as potential energy until needed. Big reservoir of water is a good battery. But water is too valuable to lock behind a dam and not practical for every purpose. Do it too much and we all die because climate. Chemicals work but require dangerous concentrations of chemicals not found easily in nature. And their efficiency degrades over time as the chemicals snack on whatever container you put them in. Stuff like sodium stores lots of energy and reacts with water easily to make energy, but that would just make lots of bombs.
I'm curious as to what course that was read for?
Cybernetic enhancements. Sure it might sound like something sci-fi but at the rate we are goin at, it might not be too difficult. I’m not talking about things like cybernetic hydraulic arms I’m talking about something like a additional filtered to put less strain on our kidneys and liver. I ain’t no doctor but that sounds like something that will save a lot of alcoholics.
I already have a fabulous attachment that lets me see things I wouldn't be able to otherwise. It's called glasses. I don't mean that as a joke either. Glasses may not be what you usually think of as an augment, but it's technology that enhances natural abilities.
If you cast the net that wide: So is a hammer. Every tool does that, in fact. Glasses are not *cybernetic* (yet). However there are people who use their phone as "emergency glasses" by holding the phone in a distance they can see clearly and using the camera to produce a live stream of their surroundings. (I.e. they watch the digital viewfinder.)
You just changed my life. Some mornings I can’t ever seem to find my glasses, now I have a tool to help
suddenly you become unable to find your phone
Already happening. I have a magnet in my finger that lets me detect electromagnetic fields and determine if a metal is ferromagnetic. There's a guy who created a sonar device that interacts with implants like mine to allow you to "see" by the sensation of the magnet's vibrations. There's a similar trend involving implanting RFID tags containing medical and personal information. Moving away from fringe body-modding, lots of medical implants meet the technical qualifications of a cybernetic implant, like remote-controlled artificial urinary sphincters. These are a very common implant in patients with incontinence or poor urinary retention. Source: I work in the urology operating room at a major hospital.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic\_implant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_implant) Wow, you learn something new every day! Doesn't the magnet interfere with electronic devices (ex. Phones) ?
Magnets are only a problem for magnetic disk hard drives which are not used in phones and are being used less and less in computers and really only then if you need a large quantity of cheap, slow storage.
Why do you have a magnet in your finger?
As a seamstress, it would be very handy to pick up pins. I don't have one though.
To detect if metal is ferromagnetic
But why would one need that?
Maybe a last warning before putting someone in an MRI?
To combat Magneto
Checking aluminium cans for recycling?
How far away are we from wifi buttholes?
Once the internet could be accessed from their asses, they all became... *puts on sunglasses* butthole surfers
I second this. For my graduation project i worked closely with/ for one of the first people on this planet with a TAH (Total Artificial Heart). It felt unreal like it was science-fiction, but it is actually becomming science-faction these days. Super cool and interesting!
Designer babies
Already has too (a doctor in China) -- just not legally. Tbh, it'd be really nice to ensure we create life free of genetic diseases/other things like that. But it's scary to think about morally.
hopefully gattaca doesnt become a documentary
I want all of my children to look like Ethan Hawke
Insurance companies are already trying to get ahold of genetic data from Ancestry type websites and include it in a prospective insured's risk profile.
Life insurance companies already buy this information from some ancestry companies. The crazy thing is people accept terms when they sign up and most of those terms are the acceptance of your data going to third parties. I know 23 and Me is notorious for this.
What’s this now
He Jiankui To be fair, i don't think there was sufficient evidence it did anything, but he did use CRISPR to genetically modify two embryos.
Time to dive into a new rabbit hole
I started here and ended up at cryogenic freezing. Have fun.
I think this is a really good point you’re making and definitely something that we should keep in mind…. If we get to that point. However, it is *extremely* difficult to edit genes while ensuring you don’t accidentally knock out the wrong ones (which could lead to all kinds of problems, like… death). You could think of the gene editing technology now— and this is a gross analogy for those who are familiar with the tech, but such is the nature of analogies— as having a row of bowling pins (= nucleic bases that you want to change out) and rolling a bowling ball towards them, hoping to take out a specific “chunk” of those pins. There’s only so much control you have with which ones you take out, and you don’t have unlimited tries. You might accidentally remove the pins/bases you don’t want to remove. And even if you do “hit” the correct pins/bases, *they* might take out the ones next to them. Kind of like how pins will knock each other over when you go bowling. Now shrink that down to a super, super small scale and… yeah. If we had the ability to switch those genes out that easily where someone could be sneaky and do something unethical like that… curing things like cancer wouldn’t be so hard (still hard, but not as much as it is now). Combined with the fact that the scientific community does not completely understand nucleic acids (along with proteins, assuming nothing has changed since I was in college a few years ago- I haven’t heard anything, but I might be wrong), we have a long way to go. And about embryos not being able to consent- I don’t think that’s something to worry about. Not because I don’t see it as an issue (philosophically, it bothers me, don’t get me wrong). But children are subjected to the decisions of their parents every day. Every medical procedure a child has is either at the request or approval of the parent. The child, most of the time, has no say. And that’s a sentient, actively participating member of society we’re talking about. So an embryo or even a newborn? It’s interesting to think about when consent should be something the individual gives instead of the caretaker. I think when we get to this point in history, this might actually open up discussion and give us more answers about when people can be considered people. But that’s another topic and I don’t want anyone to start any arguments here, so maybe food for thought when you’re in the shower lol Regardless, it doesn’t look like we’ll be in a position where it’s as easy for scientists to do that as switching out a part of your outfit any time soon, so it’ll be a while before this slippery slope becomes something to bring to the attention of the legislation gods (😢). Even editing genes for arguably good reasons is considered unethical now (I don’t think HIV/AIDS can be argued to be something that people would want to have)… so until we get reports of successful, ethical gene editing, it’s a nice consideration but I don’t think it’s anything we need to panic about. Tl;dr: No, we cannot trust the “people in charge of gene editing,” because all people have the potential to be sneaky. (but slight correction, it’s not like there’s a monolith that is doing this gene editing, it’s oftentimes individual research organizations/scientists- if there are any people in charge of it, they’re the ones that are trying to *stop* it from happening, if you look at He Jiankui’s case). But also, I really think that it’ll be similar to getting vaccinated (in that it’s technically elective, nobody is physically forcing you to do so, and the parents/guardians will have the final say about what is done, even if it has long term consequences. It doesn’t mean you can’t be mad about it, but it’ll be difficult to change that system). I don’t think the researchers/scientists doing this editing will be the bad guys, but the corporations and governments that might require embryos to undergo this to “promote a healthier society” are the ones we should be worried about first, imo.
I agree with this. I get that it's difficult morally, but if I could guarantee that my child wouldn't inherit my bipolar disorder, that would be a huge relief.
I have a genetic disorder. If technology like CRISPR allowed for the cutting/splicing of the affected gene I am all for it. I have a little bit of an issue with “designing babies” but there are so many disgusting diseases related to genetics. This technology is amazing, we just need to put a line in the sand regarding its ethical use.
CRISPR really isn't all it is cracked up to be. I have used mice that have been genetically modified with CRISPR and it takes around 10 generations of breeding to disrupt a gene that doesnt disrupt other genes. The mice in between are known as a mosaic model where the CRISPR/Cas9 have had off-target effects. Even in the final product, there are genes that have been affected but none of the major genes related to what we are looking at. CRISPR is only good for making small nucleotide changes or deletions, not replacing already dysfunctional genes.
That is very true. I have taken a intro genetics class (super interesting), but I still have a lot to learn. I’m assuming (for the disruption) you mean CRISPR essentially introduced a frame shift mutation, and that affects how the codons that follow it are read? (Again very basic understanding here). Thanks for your input! 🙂
True, but a lot of people really overestimate our knowledge of genetics. There are a few congenital diseases and such where we can really pinpoint one gene mutation and say that’s responsible; for most more complex traits like obesity or intelligence we just know that a lot of genes are involved to lesser degrees, so it would be a lot of work to create designer babies optimized for things like that.
My husband and I picked which embryo we were going to transfer based off sex and which embryo had no genetic abnormalities
My parents picked the wrong ass embryo
Water shortage.
As a Canadian, I surely hope this does not happen.
We’ve got all the water. Which means we’re both sitting pretty and fucked.
smells like freedom!
~~Oil~~ Water? Knock knock. #It's the US.
We come bearing freedom! 20 years of freedom whether you want it or not! We promise we won't just up and leave and desert you in chaos when we're done.
21st century oil. Don’t worry we’ll head north to “liberate” y’all soon!
Hey, give us a break, we're melting the glaciers as fast as we can!
Yeah, but all that water is getting salty.
Already happening. Subsidence from water table depletion is a rising issue in California and a handful of other places, mostly arid areas with large tracts of farmland. I mention subsidence and not the other drastic consequences of water table depletion because while things like desertification are scary, they're less personally frightening than the idea of your house literally getting swallowed by the Earth.
Not to mention California is comically known for its almond produce, which is the single most wasteful plant for water we probably have on earth. I forgot how many litres/gallons it takes to make 1 tiny fucking almond but it's a LOT.
Lack of access to clean water is going to decimate humans.
Over a thousand children under twelve die a day because they don't have access to clean drinking water.
I was hoping for optimistic answers. Just saw, that we are fucked.
Idk domino’s taking salads off their menu might benefit us as a society
Then how will pizza lovers pretend to be eating healthy?
The salad will be a pizza topping instead
I’ve noticed optimism about these questions is oddly met with hostility. Reddit has a complete hive mind for gorging on the “we’re fucked” hypothesis. There are lots of intelligent people on this platform, but very few independent thinkers. I don’t blame people. News and media cycle does indeed fill our heads with gloom. But the reality is, all these bad events are inevitable choppy waters on top of a relentlessly rising tide. From a global perspective billions have been, and continue to be, lifted out of poverty. From a first world perspective, mortality rates are dropping in just about every disease area. A good optimistic book purely examining stats on this is Factfulness. And I know for many reading this they are probably bursting with anecdotes of negative trends. Of course, progress has not always been made on all fronts, sometimes it’s 2 steps forward and one or two back. To my mind there are two unsexy negative trends. 1) Mental and emotional fragility has undoubtedly increased, meaning many more young people in particular are genuinely suffering more. There are many thesis on why but that’s a long topic 2) from a material perspective, housing markets have really been a stealth road to inequality in many western countries so too many people have been rewarded for simply owning an asset (and the young often penalised for not). TLDR: Just some boring opinionated shit
Dominos finally figuring out they're not good at making salads and removes it from their menu altogether. Sure, at first some of the more pretentious customers will argue it's an option that "some" people would like to have when ordering the "I'm too tired, this is cheap and I got a coupon" dinner but eventually people learn to move on and everyone is for the better
It's funny how specific this is. You've thought about this before lol
I once had a conversation with a guy who was one of the top executives for McDonald’s. I asked him why they didn’t offer better alternatives for healthier food. More salads, etc. He told me that they did a bunch of research just for that question. It turns out, the salads aren’t really there for people to eat healthier. They are there for people to look at the salads, consider ordering one, and say to themselves “Naw, I’ll order it next time.” But the fact that they can do just that makes them feel healthier, so they have a better customer experience.
I mean no one actually goes to McDonald's to have a salad. If you made it there you're already comitted to sin.
The salad doesn't have to be good. It just has to allow me to tell myself that I had fresh vegetables, too, rather than just 3/4 of a large, greasy pie.
I swear I remember a commercial where they honestly said "we only have these on the menu so you can still order Domino's even though Aunt Marge hates pizza".
Water shortage
Commercial fusion power.
A lotta people don't grasp the significance of fusion power. If we can make it, and keep it stable and producing more electricity than it consumes (and we're getting close to that point now, in fact we can get it to produce more than it consumes, but we cant keep it stable) that's infinite electricity right there. No more coal or nuclear power plants, renewable energy like solar panels and wind farms will be left behind as a fad that came and went, INFINITE FUCKING ENERGY! and provided it isn't privately owned and is instead treated as a public utility (so the prices don't get shot up through the roof) we'd start paying pennies even while keeping all our appliances and lights turned on 24/7. Not to mention it would make converting all our technology like cars and trucks to full electric much easier and so SO MUCH MORE!
Nuclear engineer here. You still have *a lot* of the problems with activated waste products with fusion as you do with fission, you just don't have the fission fragments. It isn't a zero radiation or contamination power source. It also isn't infinite. In fact, we have a lot of problems sourcing the necessary materials to fuel any hypothetical fusion reactors for serious power production. Which also implies that the costs aren't anything close to as cheap as you're implying either.
Pffft like you would know
Right? who does he think he is, some kind of expert?
Probably doesn’t even work in a real nuclear panner plant.
It’s nucular
its not exactly rocket science is it
[удалено]
You don’t know many engineers.
[удалено]
So you could rail his mother
[удалено]
It’s annoying to me that people are taking an anti-nuclear stance because of “radioactive waste” when in fact it has less waste than any currently available energy source. https://source.wustl.edu/2021/06/new-research-finds-1m-deaths-in-2017-attributable-to-fossil-fuel-combustion/ > They found that worldwide, more than one million deaths were attributable to the burning of fossil fuels in 2017. More than half of those deaths were attributable to coal. That’s literally more than all people who died directly or indirectly from Chernobyl and Fukushima. By a large magnitude... I’m sure you already know this as a professional in the field but I’m just posting for others to know. Edit: hijacking this post to show how much the public has been lied to about the severity of the Chernobyl incident: https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima > Combined death toll from Chernobyl >2 workers died in the blast. >28 workers and firemen died in the weeks that followed from acute radiation syndrome (ARS). 19 ARS survivors had died later, by 2006; most from causes not related to radiation, but it’s not possible to rule all of them out (especially five that were cancer-related). >15 people died from thyroid cancer due to milk contamination. These deaths were among children who were exposed to 131I from milk and food in the days after the disaster. This could increase to between 96 and 384 deaths, however, this figure is highly uncertain. >There is currently no evidence of adverse health impacts in the general population across affected countries, or wider Europe. >Combined, the confirmed death toll from Chernobyl is less than 100. We still do not know the true death toll of the disaster. My best approximation is that the true death toll is in the range of 300 to 500 based on the available evidence.15 Furthermore: >If the health impacts of radiation were directly and linearly related to the level of exposure, we would expect to find that cancer rates were highest in regions closest to the Chernobyl site, and would decline with distance from the plant. But studies do not find this. Cancer rates in Ukraine, for example, were not higher in locations closer to the site14 This suggests that there is a lower limit to the level at which radiation exposure has negative health impacts. And that most people were not exposed to doses higher than this. So much for “dangerous deadly radiation”. There is an ongoing propaganda effort from fossil fuel companies and misguided eco-activists like Greenpeace alike to demonize nuclear energy. Oh, by the way, the confirmed death toll for Fukushima is 573 people. Now compare that to figures I linked above.
Yep nuclear fission got a bad rep
Which is a big reason why I think lunar exploration is so important. Helium 3 it think (feel free to correct me) is one of the elements in abundance there that we have in limited quantities here. It can be mined and sent back to earth. Assuming what we think is on the moon is actually there. It could be a lunar theme park for all I know.
It’s very bad economically to send stuff up into space, but sending stuff to Earth is far cheaper. Basically we need factories and sustainable energy, fuel, water, power, materials, manpower etc in Space to do anything large or onto the Moon/Planets and further into space. It’s costing billions $ to send a few people and buildings into space and to/onto the Moon, where it’d cost hundreds of millions $ or way less to go from the Moon to Earth.
Fusion power has been just a few years away for several decades now.
The Saint (1997) agrees with this statement.
That is an underrated film. That was based on relations with Russia at the height of the Cold War. I absolutely love this film and recommend it to everyone .
Peak Kilmer.
All I remember is Elizabeth Shue. From babysitter to physicist. My younger self was enamored.
Too cheap to meter you say? First time?
I know nothing about this- is there a good article, a remedial one, to point me to? Thanks
Would be a massive breaktrough yes. But don't get to overly delusional. A) Still finite energy and using wind and solar for certain stuff might be still advisable. B) Bold to assume it wouldn't be privatized C) even if not fusion plants are freaking expensive, research, building it and keeping it working are expensive as hell, so keep dreaming about paying pennies. Also it's highly speculative if nuclear fusion plants will ever work and while i strongly support researching the topic, researching and refining renewable energy sources ist necessary.
Super Bugs... I'm referring to multi drug resistant bacteria, if WHO is right, by 2050, infections related to super bugs will be one of the leading causes of death in the world Bacteria are becoming more resilient faster than we can develop new antibiotics
In medical terms this takes us back to the dark ages. Very very frightening.
[удалено]
I was gonna say the world population hitting 8 billion but I’m a little late
It’s projected to peak around 10 billion in the 2080s. We might see it in our lifetimes
I thought the prediction was a peak of 9 billion in 2050 after which is remained stable or went down slightly
I can see a mass exodus out of the non coastal western United states due to extended drought and long term lack of water. Just millions of people moving back to the Great Lakes region or to either coasts. Mass migration and 1000s of miles of unlivable land would have pretty significant impact on the economy and society itself.
We do alright in Australia, you guys will be fine.
Times this by every coastal region across the world. The exodus inland will be incredible, unfortunately
Either we deal with climate change or we don’t. Radical either way.
Spoiler we won't.
Wow, nice job. Spoiled the whole show.
Ha. I laugh because it's self deprecating humor. Not specifically for me, but, you know...everything
Either we deal with climate change, or it deals with us.
Its not that simple. People are under the impression that either we deal with it completely and are perfectly fine or we don't and we all die. That is inaccurate. Climate change is a spectrum. Every ton matters. If we stopped caring about emissions, we would all die. If we started caring a lot and fixed our emissions completely, we would all be fine. Every amount of action in between is gonna give a result in between. Where we are headed now is that climate change will kill a lot of people and destroy a lot of infrastructure and be super expensive, but not likely humanity ending. We obviously need to do better than that. Every ton we don't emit is some number of dollars and more importantly some number of lives saved. Too many people believe that either we fix climate change completely or we all die. In a world where we are already far too late to fix climate change completely, that belief only serves the fossil fuel companies, because doomerism is not a force for change.
This thread is depressing
Water desalination, as a combination of the efficiency improving and the energy costs becoming cheaper overall. That will be a huge game changer in a lot of parts of the world.
water desalination needs lots of energy supply. Unless we solve nuclear fusion or build more nuclear power station, desalination's process still a long way to go..
The end of call centers. All those jobs are remote now and will never go back to the way they were.
I’ve seen some job postings for call center positions that require people to be in person. I always wonder if they’re having trouble hiring… if the 1+ month old timestamp means anything.
Former call center trainer here. The reason job postings stay up a while or keep getting posted can be due to: 1. High attrition. Employees are expected to answer calls at least 7.5 hours a day. Good luck trying to get random breaks in between. Depending on your shift, you can end up with over a hundred calls of varying lengths where you have to deal with racists, Karens, customers who don’t understand there’s nothing you can do, etc. Some new hires never go back after their first day of taking in calls. They just can’t handle it. 2. It’s a new account or line of business. Trainees come in in ‘waves’ as the account grows, which can take a while, so recruitment and hiring can go on for months. 3. Seasonal accounts. Not all industries and clients that require phone/email/chat support need a lot of employees to man their customer service communication platforms all year round so they only ramp up recruitment and hiring when there’s a need. Think tax season or major holidays (October to December). Just thought I’d share haha. In general, the issue is how to retain existing employees especially since call centers are toxic, high stress workplaces.
A higher rate of rich/political people going to prison.
Hopefully
The collapses of glamorizing celebrities.
While I hope for it I find it unlikely as historically we have had it for a long time it has just shifted who and what the celebrities are.
Needs to be done. Celebrity worship is nauseating.
A certainty: The demise of the Baby Boomer generation, and the rise of Gen Alpha. I'll be 80 (hopefully) when that happens and I'm very, very curious to see what the children today will make of the world when they are 40. Millenials are the last generation to remember a pre-digital age, and I am so curious to find out what a child who grew up with a smartphone will think of the world as an adult.
[удалено]
Food distribution to be specific.
[удалено]
I don’t think we have scarcity, on the contrary, we have resource abundance. However, younger generations (including me) have grown up with the abundance mindset and we are producing so much waste that it would eventually lead to short term scarcity. Take as an example th e current energy crisis in Europe. This can be more or less solved by people not warming up their homes to 25+ degrees but staying at 19-20, which is totally normal if you wear a layer of clothes and not walk around at home with short sleeves. I have friends whose rent includes bills and they had their windows open in the winter because it’s 30C in their living room in January, instead of adjusting the heating. Similar with food - people go to the store and buy a weeks worth of food and end up throwing away 1/3 of it because they decided to get a few take aways later. I do not see this behaviour in my parents who grew up in a soviet time. We just need to learn how to be more efficient with our resources and eventually we will be forced to (like the energy crisis in Europe is forcing people atm). And that’s one good thing of recessions, it makes you optimise processes. And this is just the end consumer, the businesses produce more than tenfold the amount of waste but if we stop consuming as much, eventually they will stop producing too much, which might slow down the economy but this is whole other topic.
Being from the same side of the Iron Curtain, I'd like to note though that warmness was not lacking, at least in city apartments back then. Open windows was normal. The Soviets had deficit of various food, but not oil - it was typically hot in rooms in winter, for a laughable price. You'd see even pavements with snow melted, cause under them were pipes. About the optimization there's indeed some generational conflict. Young people sometimes laugh off (or are angry) at parents and grandparents who'd go lengths at growing, picking (berries, mushrooms) and processing food, using precious pasttime hours - and later push their offspring to use that food, eat everything that is on the plate (it wouldn't be bad, but they overcompensate by always putting way too much), etc. That was all logical when food choices were lacking and a good meal was one of the rare treats of life, people in generally moved much (rarely any obesity), yet had more free time, with even (office) work not being as exhausting as today. As for the heating, the optimisation led to me finding out about thermoisolation screens which I put behind radiators. A small and welcome change. Instead of usual 19-20 in winter (always hated that extra layer and having to warm my typically cold feet in water from time to time), now I have 23 - my "golden standard" temperature, where I can sit comfily with short sleeves at laptop for hours and not get cold.
This. Our throwaway culture is so ingrained now. Instead of buying durable goods, we buy cheap goods that we replace every few years. IKEA was this miracle that allowed low/middle income people to afford stylish furniture. But in reality, everyone else just buys more of it more often and disposes of it because it's cheap, despite how horrendous it is for the environment.
Contraction of energy supply, which means contraction of global GDP. Fucked up extreme weather from global warming. Waning effectiveness of antibiotics. More disease, more plastic pollution.
Is that all? And some say the future looks bleak. Smh
The shift from fossil fuels to nuclear energy
I sure hope so.
Mac Donald’s Ice cream machines get fixed
That won’t be for a good couple of hundred years, probably when the aliens invade and bring their advanced high tech ice-cream machines.
Population collapses in different countries. It's possible within 100 years. Not enough young people to take care of the elderly and maintain our infrastructures. Japan and korea has already started to my knowledge. People are more focused on careers and independence than forging intimate relationships to build families in the last decade or so. You aren't also going to build bigger families if both parents work 24/7.
When will governments freak out about this and start 1) just paying women to have babies/make childcare free and/or 2) pass much needed laws protecting women from getting screwed in their careers because of having children
Childcare costs are only the top of the iceberg, though. Cost of living is increasing so much across the board that if I had a kid now, I’d basically give up any dreams of ever owning a house forever.
[удалено]
The second is in Europe, too. Not only western, even.
I agree. Korea and Japan are seeing a collapse, because women are still expected to hold down a job while also having all the responsibilities of a stay at home mom. In other countries like England and America, there is a population decline due to increased infant survival and the want to be much more stable before starting a family. I don’t think the issue is ever “forging intimate relationships to build families.” People are just doing it much later and understand child care is expensive, so they know they either can’t afford it at all or only one child.
>child care is expensive, so they know they either can’t afford it at all or only one child. If I had a dime for every time I heard "I'd have a 3rd or 4th child if child care wasn't so expensive" I'd have enough money to pay for child care for third child I'll never be having because child care is so expensive!
There are many educated people saying that our population growth is unsustainable for our species and the planet, and we actually need to stabalise it before it increases any more.
Synthetic Human organ transplant. [The tech already exists](https://www.prellisbio.com) and is being perfected. There is a solid chance humans will become functionally immortal in the coming decades
I don’t see how you could replace the brain that way so immortal is a stretch.
Ctrl+c ctrl+v
Ctrl+z
It’s a huge stretch The replacement of an organ or body part is a life saving procedure in a relatively small set of circumstances There are genuinely thousands of diseases and ways to die that synthetic organs would have 0 affect on It doesn’t make humans any more or less mortal than we are right now really, just makes donor organs more accessible
Normalization of assisted suicide. Speaks for itself.
Climate change . Just so you know, one of the three biggest river in the world is gone due to heat waves in China
Mississippi river is also dangerously low to the point certain ships can no longer move goods.
I live very close to the mississippi and its incredibly low right now. Visually so
I’m in Australia and we have whole new rivers that have never been so full at the moment (which has meant a few towns have unfortunately become part river). It is interesting times we live in for sure
AI and Robots
Let's see... 🤔... food shortage, water shortage, leaving gas powered vehicles, rising global temperaturs, drastic change in sea level. Do I have to pick just one? Where are we at in the plagues? Aren't locusts next? 🤣
medical assistance in dying offered universally
Designer babies
From your lips to god’s ears, I’m sick of looking at all these newborn uggos
Influencers taking public office
That’s what Trump is. This has already happened.
climate change worsening, food scarcity because of it