Posted by Kromey at 12:57pm Dec 8 '10I'm doing two.
Transporter
A la Star Trek. We are getting close to this one being a reality. It would make the TSA irrelevant, which of course makes the world a much, much better place. But also think of how much more traveling you could/would do if the high price of airline tickets and long, cramped hours of flight were no longer necessary! Want to spend the day on the beaches of Hawaii and then watch the stars over the African Serengeti that night? But have to be at work the next morning? Done and done! (Okay, might have to also invent a time machine to make this particular example work, but you get the idea...)
Or, you could take your date out for the most authentic Italian cuisine anywhere -- in Italy!
[private], naturally, would make frequent trips to Antarctica to play with the penguins. :-P
But also think of the humanitarian uses: Foods and medicine could be brought to the poor with virtually no transport costs. With that overhead gone, the money that would have shipped it can now instead be used to supply even more humanitarian goods. And in times of war/genocide, refugees could be quickly and safely evacuated from the area to safe areas all over the world.
Of course, there are some frightening non-humanitarian uses, such as transporting a big ol' bomb directly into the support structure of any building anywhere in the world, or entire armies suddenly appearing out of nowhere inside a nation's capital. But if we let the fear of mis-use of a new technology stop us, we would never advance at all!
And number 2:
Replicator
Again a la Star Trek. And again we're fairly close. All it is is breaking down the composite elements of raw materials and re-forming them into new molecules. No doubt the first through fiftieth generations of this technology would produce little more than tasteless, textureless (or, downright disgusting) paste, but nonetheless devices like these could completely solve world hunger, while also eventually making farms obsolete and thus eliminating their environmental impact.
They could also eventually be used to fabricate more advanced materials, such as carbon fiber nanotubes to make building a space elevator a reality, or tritium to make cheap, clean fusion power a reality.
Again, naturally, there are less beneficial uses, such as giving nations like North Korea or Iran cheap and easy access to weapons-grade uranium, or a (relatively) safe means of mass-producing biological agents, but again fear of misuse blah blah blah...
Transporter
A la Star Trek. We are getting close to this one being a reality. It would make the TSA irrelevant, which of course makes the world a much, much better place. But also think of how much more traveling you could/would do if the high price of airline tickets and long, cramped hours of flight were no longer necessary! Want to spend the day on the beaches of Hawaii and then watch the stars over the African Serengeti that night? But have to be at work the next morning? Done and done! (Okay, might have to also invent a time machine to make this particular example work, but you get the idea...)
Or, you could take your date out for the most authentic Italian cuisine anywhere -- in Italy!
[private], naturally, would make frequent trips to Antarctica to play with the penguins. :-P
But also think of the humanitarian uses: Foods and medicine could be brought to the poor with virtually no transport costs. With that overhead gone, the money that would have shipped it can now instead be used to supply even more humanitarian goods. And in times of war/genocide, refugees could be quickly and safely evacuated from the area to safe areas all over the world.
Of course, there are some frightening non-humanitarian uses, such as transporting a big ol' bomb directly into the support structure of any building anywhere in the world, or entire armies suddenly appearing out of nowhere inside a nation's capital. But if we let the fear of mis-use of a new technology stop us, we would never advance at all!
And number 2:
Replicator
Again a la Star Trek. And again we're fairly close. All it is is breaking down the composite elements of raw materials and re-forming them into new molecules. No doubt the first through fiftieth generations of this technology would produce little more than tasteless, textureless (or, downright disgusting) paste, but nonetheless devices like these could completely solve world hunger, while also eventually making farms obsolete and thus eliminating their environmental impact.
They could also eventually be used to fabricate more advanced materials, such as carbon fiber nanotubes to make building a space elevator a reality, or tritium to make cheap, clean fusion power a reality.
Again, naturally, there are less beneficial uses, such as giving nations like North Korea or Iran cheap and easy access to weapons-grade uranium, or a (relatively) safe means of mass-producing biological agents, but again fear of misuse blah blah blah...
Can I do two? - Kromey