The single most influential discovery of mankind will be Nanotech. You can build what you need on an atom-by atom scale, creating perfect, strong, light stuff that will outperform everything that came before it. We might even see medical applications before 2030. Imagine being 30 years old for 500 years.. its very possible!
Check out these sites. They are very informative and you could spend a lifetime researching this stuff.
Written in 2001....
If we discover that matter and DNA are things we can manipulate, than what do we become?
For that matter, what have we been all along? Since we will hypothetically perform these tricks in OUR future, what should we believe NOW? If the Ancient Egyptians could gaze upon the splendors of our society they would almost definately believe that WE are Gods. This time, we will witness the progression from the old and ordinary to the new and unbelievable in one lifetime instead of countless generations. We will look back upon ourselves, and think of how primitive WE used to be.
To guide our progression into the future, two events must be understood for their powers. First, molecular computing comes to life in about four years, 2005. Secondly, many advances in molecular manipulation begin to appear around 2012. (The advances in molecular manipulation includes but is not limited to medical, industrial, and environmental advances accessable to the general public.) Even if time is stretched by financial constraints or political debate by ten years, the Event will come within our lifetimes. My estimates are conservative when compared to real numbers estimated (and generated) by the scientific communities. Most people do not know about these coming events, and if they did, would they understand the implications of the events?
Once the technologies (The Immanent New World) become commonplace, two real paths may be traced. Path X will pass through a phase of accidental experiments or focused malice. This path is the uneducated path, frought with bad information and misunderstandings of nature. Almost any nasty scenario could be devised on path X leading to the total destruction of life on Earth. On Path Y, we understand where the borders for technologies are, and protect against their misuse. Hopefully, Y will be achieved, and to arrive on that path we will need education, media coverage and investments. A middle ground of possible paths is not needed, because unless we fully appreciate Y then we will be on path X. These two paths also assume that no natural disasters (such as collision with an object in space) occur between now and then.
We may be able to become "Gods" without incident if we understand the power and capabilities of our society in the near future TODAY. If we arrive in the future on path Y, we might even be able to prevent disaster from happening in the future, natural or synthetic. Our tools will be sharp and precise to a degree of near perfection, allowing us to follow our dreams and goals like no other generation before us. This promise urges us to take action now. Technology will not wait for us to understand its power. We will have the powers soon, but everyone needs to know what those powers are if we are to survive past these events. Zeusenergy and many other sites are attempting to educate people to the point of participation in discussions and hopefully in the use of these powers.
Between the time this site started until 2050 (estimated), the world will see the biggest changes in society since the discovery of the wheel. Many people will not believe nor understand the changes that will be upon us, and the potential wonders and pitfalls that these changes will bring to humanity. Stopping these events seems unlikely, since research scientists have the blessings and funding of both the government and various manufacturers of many products. Some of these manufacturers are in the computer field, some are in pharmaceuticals, some are in communications, and others are in construction. Almost all products and services may benefit from coming technologies. Millions of dollars are being devoted to our future from various groups. It is only a matter of time until the Great Breakthrough arrives.
The most important implementations will not be the technologies themselves, but the ideas that we must come up with to restrain and contain them. Humanity will need to come up with a set of rules for the safe and effective changeover that will happen in the coming decades. The Breakthrough will not arrive without our input and understanding. Ignorance will provide us with an efficient way to destroy life on Earth. The reason for this is plain to see: If only a few people have access to a powerful technology, they might use it for whatever purpose they would like. Anyone in the World of Nanotechnology has the opportunity to be first in the race for the tiniest tools man can make. These tools could also be the end of miniaturization as we know it. Think of the wildest inventions in science fiction: many of them will become reality within our lifetimes. In 2000, man was close to this goal with molecular computing, molecular manufacturing, and molecular surgery in the spotlight as possible nanotechnology goals. All of these emerging technologies have much in common and as time goes on they may merge into an inseparable part of life. The dreams that researchers hold for our future calls for our attention.
Here is a story I wrote about a possible use of active NT:
The Smart House
A Story About Future Homes and Their Features
Jerry can’t remember how long it’s been since he had to vacuum carpets. In the 1990’s he was a janitor at a law firm. Jerry always aspired to be more than that, but without a formal education or the capital to start up a company on his own, he was stuck. He took pride in his work and loved to talk with the lawyers about their cases. The lawyers were good to Jerry, and taught him a great deal about law. Someday, Jerry thought, he too would be able to make a difference. During the first stages of the Great Breakthrough, Jerry enrolled in college majoring in law, but continued to hold menial jobs. Jerry had to spend most of his time working which left him very little time for his studies.
Today, in 2030, Jerry was reminded of his Janitorial days when he woke up this afternoon. The turkey he ate at Thanksgiving dinner made him sleepy. Jerry’s son, Troy, fell asleep on the carpet just after dinner. Jerry couldn’t help laying down with Troy, he looked so peaceful, and he was tired too. Jerry opened his eyes to a field of fibers, all exactly the same size, arranged in rows neatly packed and colored perfectly to match the curtains and trim in the room. This carpet, viewed from Jerry’s perspective, appeared strange and alien to him. Jerry did not understand how this carpet could function since he never studied the Breakthrough technologies. The sun filled the room with a warm glow, and some of the fibers were highlighted by the sun’s rays. The tiny amounts of dust that didn’t get filtered by the air conditioning system yet were also shining in the sun, falling like the tiniest snowflakes in the sun’s rays. Jerry watched as the dust landed on the fibers of the rug. He watched in fascination as the fibers absorbed the dust. Jerry had never looked this closely at the carpet before. He decided to try an experiment to see this technology in action. He got up slowly, moving carefully so he wouldn’t wake the boy. Jerry took a cup from the table and filled it with cranberry sauce. The sauce would stain the carpet, Jerry thought, after remembering a party at the law office that got out of hand, and of course the work he had to do trying to get the stain out.. He tried in vain to clean the carpet there for months after the party. The stain never came out, because it was cranberry juice from a mixed drink. Since Jerry’s home was a Post-Breakthrough home, the carpets self-clean and store the offending dirt in molecular form to be reused later for other devices. Jerry had never tested this, though.
He took the full cup of sauce back to the living room and lay back down on the carpet. The cup of cranberry sauce felt heavy in his hand, equal to half of a pre-breakthrough can of sauce. Jerry repositioned himself so he could see the fibers in action. In one quick motion, he spun the cup around. The sauce was not eager to let go of its grip on the cup, so Jerry began shaking it. The cranberry sauce began separating in small bits. The globs that hit the carpet instantly disappeared. The carpet can distinguish certain combinations of matter from others, and cranberry sauce is in the house database (HDB) as a “pest” if it happens to fall to the floor. Jerry knew he would have to change his plan if he wanted to see the carpet in action, so he squeezed the cup and in one solid chunk the sauce fell to the floor.
Apparently, this volume of sauce was too much for the carpet to handle in fiber state. The large chunk slowly sank into the carpet, but it was overloading the available decompilers. Jerry laid back down on the floor to watch the action. The floor suddenly began rising up around the chunk, startling Jerry off the floor for a moment, and quickly swallowed it! Jerry was viewing the fibers when this happened, and he saw the merging of the fibers once the house determined its new course of action. The fibers no longer existed around the bulge in the floor, but the border between where the carpet ended and the lump that raised up around the sauce was undistinguishable. A silvery-gray texture covered the lump, and within ten seconds it receded back into the floor, flattening itself to a perfect level surface at the height of the original carpet. The fibers quickly returned, Jerry watched as the portions of material around each fiber’s preprogrammed position fell to meet the rest of the floor. The floor was back to its original state, physically, but color and texture didn’t return for another five seconds.
Will Shaw aka ZeusEnergy,
Manchester, NH
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