Poll: What's the next disruption?

[wabmester]

What's the Next Big Thing? You know, the big productivity enhancement that will save us from the fate of the Roman Empire.

Personally, I'm pretty happy with what I have, but teleportation would be nice to have.

 

[d]

if we knew, it wouldn't be quite as "disruptive"

 

[kramer]

This is an interesting article about research into bringing superhuman capabilities to soldiers. (Be More Than You Can Be)

One interesting new device developed at Stanford fits like a glove on your hand and gives you superhuman endurance and the ability to tolerate extreme hot or cold outside temperatures. The author of the article tried it with great success.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/bemore.html

Taking this a step further, in 30 years you may be able to wear a light glove (or underwear!!) that gives you resistance to cold and hot temperatures and dramatically increases your endurance. Such an invention could even change worldwide migration patterns (in much the same way that the invention of cheap air conditioning has encouraged much of the southwestward migration in the US over the past half century).

In fact, I was talking with my friend from Singapore about this, and he mentioned that years ago their former Prime Minister had wistfully hoped for some sort of super-cooling underwear to help them deal with their hot climate

However, in 30 years folks on the ER board will whine about the hedonically adjusted CPI numbers, saying how can the average family be expected to deal with super-cooling-underwear inflation since they are an absolute necessity for daily life.

Kramer

Within six weeks, Cao was doing 180 pull-ups a session. Six weeks after that, he went from 180 to more than 600. Soon, Stanford’s football trainers asked to borrow a few Gloves to cool down players in the weight room and to fight muscle cramps.

In 2001, Heller went to Darpa. The agency saw the potential of the Glove for training recruits; the Stanford researchers received their first funding in 2003 and got $3 million.

In trying to figure out why the Glove worked so well, its inventors ended up challenging conventional scientific wisdom on fatigue. Muscles don’t wear out because they use up stored sugars, the researchers said. Instead, muscles tire because they get too hot, and sweating is just a backup cooling system for the lattices of blood vessels in the hands and feet. The Glove, in other words, overclocks the heat exchange system. “It’s like giving a Honda the radiator of a Mack truck,” Heller says. After four months of using it himself, Heller did 1,000 push-ups on his 60th birthday in April 2003. Soon after, troops from Special Operations Command were trying out the Glove, too.

 

[d]

However, in 30 years folks on the ER board will whine about the hedonically adjusted CPI numbers, saying how can the average family be expected to deal with super-cooling-underwear inflation since they are an absolute necessity for daily life.

... don't let CFB know about this!

 

[wabmester]

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/bemore.html

Wow, talk about productivity gains. Overclocked humans. Now couple that with a cure for sleep, and we're really getting somewhere.

But those future workers will need fuel. No votes for in vitro meat?

 

[teejayevans]

What's the Next Big Thing? You know, the big productivity enhancement that will save us from the fate of the Roman Empire.

Personally, I'm pretty happy with what I have, but teleportation would be nice to have.

Actually, it wouldn't..in order to teleport, you convert current mass->energy->mass,
this is like copying a file, destroying the original, in this case, the original is you, your
copy will live on, but you will be dead.
Tom

 

[CybrMike]

Anybody seen "The Prestige". A cool teleportation trick in there.

 

[yakers]

What's the Next Big Thing? that will save us from the fate of the Roman Empire.

Nothing, we will follow the pattern even if it takes centuries, no empire or political system lasts 'forever'.

As to new technology it would probably be in the bio area; cheap food, prolonged life. But the population may drop significantly too.

And maybe telepathy. We are understanding more about the brain and communications every day.

 

[Life_is_Good]

My crystal ball says.....

MicroNanotechnology so small that robotics will be injected into the human body with instructions to fight specific illnesses and diseases. Look to Biotech!

 

[kumquat]

I have spoken to the 'intelligent designer' and he is about to reveal the secrets of how to build a fusion reactor to generate unlimited clean next-to-free electricity.