Speculating about the next fifty years

[CrazyKB]

The way I look at the broad situation is that a subject can be converted into a big picture. The big picture is then divided up into hundreds of tiny mosaic squares which taken together show the big picture. People then learn everything there is to learn about 1 tiny little square, awarded a degree, and pronounced to be experts with a good paycheck and plenty of benefits.

The problem is at least two fold. One, because they only know what is in their tiny square, they have no idea how the information in their one square interacts with the rest of the squares. At the very least, that is called consequences of actions, something most people choose to ignore. The second problem is that with the rapid collection and advancement of information about a particular square, people now need to recompile their understanding of the information in their square every other year. If they don't reexamine what they thought was true and what was false, then their information base is outdated, which outdates their "degree" or whatever it is that determines their standing in their particular field of expertise.

Philosophers used to take on the responsibility of explaining how everything people did ended up, putting all the little squares back into one big picture, blending the good, the bad, and the ugly into a final result. People no longer want to hear anything that contradicts what they believe to be true or false, holding to the idea that everyone is entitled to form their own set of laws to live by based on what they consider to be acceptable. It used to be everyone was entitled to their own opinion instead of their own set of laws, but that has been upended by the popularity and exposure that social media and self publishing can provide for anyone.

The bottom line is that one has to do all their own research, using multiple sources because it has become perfectly acceptable to present half the facts so long as all the presented facts are true. Its called, oh no, back to school again. Anything which might detract from the perfect picture presented by half the facts can be left out. The old school interpretation of the half the facts story presentation is called lying. Now its just called framing the issue, usually accompanied by some kid of payola, though some do work for free.

Freedom of speech and expression appear to be in a precarious position today I believe that media, some anyway, always presented 'half truths' that supported their claims, it's just gotten worse with the ubiquitous nature of media (social media included).

 

[Vertigo]

Commodore was one brand of computer. IBM and Apple pretty much ruled the personal computer industry. Radio shack had a personal computer. The IBM computers were quickly copied by other computer manufacturing companies. The computer's modem dialed a different phone number for each "web site" you wanted to visit. You could also dial into individual computers. Some of the phone numbers belonged to companies that connected the modem to a collection of sites, all under one roof. That was how AOL got to be huge, it was in effect, the first facebook. There was one service, called Compuserve, which did have a popular science fiction/fantasy forum on it. The computing power for the Compuserve network was provided by the computers powering the H & R Block tax preparation corporation. Their computers had nothing to do outside of the tax preparation season which only lasted a couple of months.

IBM were actually quite late to the game but ended up dominating it (for a while) purely because of their size. The First IBM PC didn't appear until 1981 (I started programming them a couple of years later). Prior to that there were a number of other "personal computers" available; the Apple II appeared 4 years earlier in 1977. The Acorn BBC microcomputer appeared the same year as the IBM PC also late to the game. The Sinclair ZX80 (an old favourite) preceded IBM by a year.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Freedom of speech and expression appear to be in a precarious position today I believe that media, some anyway, always presented 'half truths' that supported their claims, it's just gotten worse with the ubiquitous nature of media (social media included).

I think it's more a case that these days people can choose what they want to believe, and find evidence/support online to back it up.

 

[Harpo]

I think it's more a case that these days people can choose what they want to believe, and find evidence/support online to back it up.

Ah, those pesky meddling Ignorance Hypothesists

 

[Toby Frost]

Well, here's what the Onion thought would happen in 2137. Warning - contains swearing, black comedy, political satire and giant man-eating beetles invading Vermonty and the Burgerking Freezone.

 

[BAYLOR]

In 50 years , things will be basically the same only with more advanced technology,

 

[CrazyKB]

I think it's more a case that these days people can choose what they want to believe, and find evidence/support online to back it up.

People have always believed what they do, using 'selective evidence' to support those beliefs, cognitive biases aren't relegated to modernity. However, what we choose to believe diffentily has changed with the inception of the internet, there's an almost unlimited supply of horsesh.. on the internet.

 

[CrazyKB]

IBM were actually quite late to the game but ended up dominating it (for a while) purely because of their size. The First IBM PC didn't appear until 1981 (I started programming them a couple of years later). Prior to that there were a number of other "personal computers" available; the Apple II appeared 4 years earlier in 1977. The Acorn BBC microcomputer appeared the same year as the IBM PC also late to the game. The Sinclair ZX80 (an old favourite) preceded IBM by a year.

If I remember correctly, didn't Bill Gates tell his former employer, Macintosh, to focus on selling not only their computers but also their software, so other companies could use it (expanding the market for Macintosh). The idea didn't gain traction with the company, which lead to Gates creating Microsoft? I'm not a computer expert by any stretch of the imagination, however Windows did revolutionize personal computers, albeit full of bugs (and all the Memes that followed).

 

[CrazyKB]

For decades, my sister prepared photo albums of trips and important events. She has a large stack of them. Now she is disassembling them and sending them to a company to scan them.

The most sentimental of things (of objects) photos, records, "letters and papers" are becoming electronic. One can readily argue that these are physically smaller things, but they are also emotionally large objects. As sentimental objects no longer need a physical presence, the less sentimental items may eventually need less of a physical presence as well.

The young people I know seem to be less sentimental about family heirlooms than my generation or my parents' generation. This current generation seems more ready to put objects they no longer use for sale online.

The average size of new homes built in the US hit a peak in 2015 and is trending smaller. In 2021 the average size was smaller than 2007. Roughly down 10% from the peak.

This isn't the current generation buying. The average size of rental apartments has been on a downward trend for 10 years.

My parents bought furnishings to fill the house they had. I have too. I have a guest room. So now I have a second bed and a second dresser. A dresser that contains spare sheets for that second bed.

As living spaces trend smaller, the desire to purchase stuff to fill and decorate those spaces will decrease with the space provided.

The trend is there. But lets not get too far ahead of ourselves. 50 years is two more generations. It won't be Star Trek sparseness but maybe that generation will be less a generation of hoarders than the last couple of generations have been.

It's no different than purchasing music. Most people born in the age of digital music don't care about tangible media. However, that's because they grew up at a time when physical media wasn't important. I would head down to the record store as a teen looking for new music by my favorite artists and be tickled pink when I saw a new release, "Slayer has a new album dude!!". That makes sense, because my generation was a few years away from personal internet, kids today don't care as much about physical media because everything is online now.

However, I don't believe we'll ever lose our love for 'old/rare objects'. Also, many young people still see the value in collecting times deemed important (collector's items).

One thing I can't get used to is E-books, I love the whole experience of purchasing a new book, everything from looking through it, smelling it and displaying it after I've read it. Even Picard was seen reading physical books as he drank his Earl Grey tea.

 

[Vertigo]

If I remember correctly, didn't Bill Gates tell his former employer, Macintosh, to focus on selling not only their computers but also their software, so other companies could use it (expanding the market for Macintosh). The idea didn't gain traction with the company, which lead to Gates creating Microsoft? I'm not a computer expert by any stretch of the imagination, however Windows did revolutionize personal computers, albeit full of bugs (and all the Memes that followed).

I'm not sure about the Macintosh side of the story but remember that Microsoft were around for many years before Windows first appeared. The story went that IBM approached Bill Gates for an operating system for their new planned PC and he told them he was in the business of software languages (he was famous for creating the first implementation of BASIC small enough to go on a microcomputer) and that they would do better going to Digital Research, the authors of CP/M, the dominant microprocessor operating system at the time. However DR were uncomfortable dealing with IBM and the conditions they wanted to impose so the deal wasn't done and they returned to Bill Gates. Who then went to a another software developer who had developed a small microprocessor operating system and bought it from him. This was MSDOS which Gates then licensed to IBM or maybe sold. Either way it was at a price point that wasn't going to make Gates rich but he'd already figured the IBM PC would get copied and he would be waiting with an operating system ready to go. And so Microsoft was born...and Gates' fortune!

It was quite a few years later that Windows would appear, copied from Apple's windows OS which was, in turn, copied from Xerox PARC who couldn't see much use for this gimmicky windows and mouse stuff. Consequently when, years ago, Apple started muttering about suing Microsoft for copying their technology it all went very quiet when Xerox started saying "well in that case...."

At least that was how I understood the history at the time.

 

[Omits]

...My prediction is that China's increasing demand for resources...

China will likely hold the west to ransom esp. rare earth metals (maybe they have other resources too in that context). That will cause tensions. The US will not likely stand-by on that! Europe is weaker and likely suffer as a result.

 

[Harpo]

China will likely hold the west to ransom esp. rare earth metals (maybe they have other resources too in that context). That will cause tensions. The US will not likely stand-by on that! Europe is weaker and likely suffer as a result.

And two months later, you started a thread which will grow to be bigger and better than this one

 

[psikeyhackr]

IBM were actually quite late to the game but ended up dominating it (for a while) purely because of their size. The First IBM PC didn't appear until 1981 (I started programming them a couple of years later). Prior to that there were a number of other "personal computers" available; the Apple II appeared 4 years earlier in 1977. The Acorn BBC microcomputer appeared the same year as the IBM PC also late to the game. The Sinclair ZX80 (an old favourite) preceded IBM by a year.

I was working for IBM at the time. I think the PC was one of the most horrible design mistakes in history.

Ever heard of a Passive Backplane?

With that design the CPU and memory are on a daughter board and can be upgraded without replacing a motherboard to upgrade the machine.

I do not doubt that tens of millions of computers have been trashed because they were too difficult to upgrade. I dumpster dived for a computer in the late 90s. The only thing really wrong with it was a dead 100 megabyte hard drive. But it was a measly 486 33 megahertz. I replaced the motherboard with a 300 mhz Pentium. It had a great case that would have cost $250 new and the power supply worked.

We have trashed billions in e-waste. The term did not even exist back then.