I’m finishing up The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed by Rapidly Advancing Technologies. It’s interesting, but more in the trivia kind of way. For a book about the singularity and future technology, it doesn’t cover very many of its subtitled ‘Rapidly Advancing Technologies.’ I would expect the gamut from quantum computing to cloning, and while the book does briefly cover those it spends most of its chapters talking about nanotechnology ‘minting’ and A.I. that could possibly control the minting process. I expected a little more diversity of coverage.
Perhaps the reason why I am most disappointed is I was looking for ideas to mine, and nano minting or self-automated A.I. controlled manufacturing has already been covered in sci-fi, and is relatively well tread territory. Off the top of my head I’m thinking of a couple Philip K. Dick short stories: Autofac and Second Variety.
Something the author Damien Broderick brings up which I thought might be good fodder for a story; The biggest threat to a future society might be boredom. If it were even remotely possible, what would people do to fill their time if the cost of living was zero and everyone had every minute of their waking life to use however they please? Would chaos erupt out of sheer boredom? Would the irrationality of some belief systems only find more fuel for violence in the absence of meaningful life? Or would everyone become a couch potato?
Aside from a few tiny nuggets, I didn’t get much out of Spike. So much for research… but then you can’t win them all. Sometimes digging only gets you dirt!
The last 50 years has been technology lead to more busyness and a faster pace of life. I don’t see technology leading to couch potato-ism for a long, long time. First we have a whole world of problems to cure.
Yeah, I should note that Spike was overly optimistic. The author couldn’t get over the idea that technology might solve all our problems in the near future. I find the idea interesting, but I don’t necessarily believe it myself. Another thing that made the book a less rewarding read.
The biggest threat to a future society might be boredom.
My husband and I have been saying this for years. Why do rich kids vandalize their own posh neighborhoods? Why do kids from “good” families do drugs more than experimentally? Why do US citizens overspend on entertainment and sports, then get depressed over their debt?
Yeah, I agree with that statement. Lots.
Eliza, sometimes I think it’s worse than that. I’ve noticed that teenagers from all types of families can be surrounded with books, movies, music, and video games–yet they’ll still just sit and stare at the wall and say “I’m bored!”
When I was a teenager, I did it too. And now I wish I could go back in a time machine and slap myself silly, and force myself to read a mountain of books for all the time I spent doing absolutely nothing, and complaining about it.
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