Do you ever just look around in amazement of our technology?

Yeah, I'm kind of a downer on this aspect. Sorry. I'm pretty liberal, but I have little hope that government has the answer for this one. I don't think there is a solution that comes from the techno malaise I see coming. Imagine authentic-feeling virtual sex. Imagine mapping the human mind to the extent that we can simulate a climax or a heroin high by flipping a switch. I look at the legalization of drugs (which I fully support) and the infotainment industry, reality tv and Netflix and youtube, steroids and corn syrup....it's all becoming easier and easier to get a cheap thrill with less and less effort. Doesn't it feel like to you that the WALL-E fatso lifestyle is practically inevitable?

At the same time, I think we live in the most amazing time in world history. I think it was Clinton who pointed out that an average schmoe with a smart phone in Africa has access to more information than the President of the US did in 1992.

I see Google Glass, and I'm amazed at the implications it could have in both reducing corruption and making it easy for me to remember that one guy's name. I love this shit!

But I also wonder if the reason we've never seen aliens is because every advanced species inevitably avoids destruction, only to invent the Holodeck. Once you have that, people just stop trying....

 

Some of the most awesome technology is the kind we can't see with the naked eye: nanotechnology!

 

I'm actually kind of excited from a geek standpoint, at work I have a tentative experiment planned using carbon nanotubes. I have to admit, I just want to look at them under the microscope. At the earliest, the experiment is three weeks away and may not happen at all depending on a few things between now and then.

 

If the Blazers ever improve, we'll see admiring threads like this on the main board.

 

Technology is a tool. It's who controls it and how it's used. This is not a new discussion at all. There were similar discussions about what the telephone could do. Or literacy. Technology enables people in widely dispersed areas to get together and talk Blazers. It enables people to locate old friends. It also enables people to dig into my life in a way I would rather they not (which is why I did not use given name or DOB on Facebook and finally closed my account).

Look at drones - it has been pointed out they can find lost hikers quicker and more safely than human search teams. They can also spy on us in our homes and killl remotely. Same technology. Different use.

 

Nature and technology combine in video of the sun

 

Who would have thought it would be cheaper to call someone in India and have them answer your problems. Isn't technology bizarre!

 

Darpa making real cool stuff that is scary as hell and will most likely one day devour us all.

[video]http://youtu.be/mdYSStF4fqc[/video]

 

and if you want a less scary one, here is a robot dancing. It makes me smile.

[video]http://youtu.be/2laujomh0JY[/video]

 

[video=youtube;TLk9jZBsg_k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLk9jZBsg_k[/video]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLk9jZBsg_k