The future is here to eat or how we perceive progress: for the 5th anniversary of the pessimistic post Bashny.Net

Stumbled upon a popular at the time the post, which is just 5 years old: «The future is not here, or that stops progress» . Contents of this post right now seems particularly interesting as indicative slice thinking community at the end of the last decade, which can be compared with the present day and analyze - why, users thought so that they do not notice, and, most importantly, what can we conclude about our current perception of the future and progress,

So, in the court in 2009 - and few people even know how to spell a word, this figure in Italian. iPad has not even announced. The ongoing global economic crisis (although the bottom has already passed), and in addition to it yet and swine flu. Yet already sold netbooks, actively distribute and beg invites to Google Wave, among smartphone geeks especially revered Nokia N900 and few people could have imagined that soon navernetsya not only project Maemo, but the whole of Nokia. Green Robot already battling with an apple for the market, and has already loomed as a concept smartphone platform app store, but few people even realize how devastating it would be for an established mobile zoo. Internet and IT in general already quite developed, social networks are gaining wide audience with games about farmers - the hottest topic at the moment - but still no one is laykaet. And about the birds to pigs nobody knows. Moreover, still almost unknown things like Crowdfunding "smart watches" fitness trackers and services for health, MOOC and other educational dvizhuha. Something somewhere heard about SpaceX, all "private space", "Internet of things», Tesla (still in doubt), 3D-printers, neurointerfaces, and for references to "smart home" Habré is still possible to grab a minus ... Everywhere sound mantra "modernization" and "Royce vperd", and along with Habré is gaining popularity with Trendclub kotochasami from the movie "Back to the Future", although his popularity without sponsorship will not last very long. Well, I hope many still remember this time of crazy.

And habrayuzeru Garyan come to mind pessimistic thoughts that all sad, because, you know, we still have not inserted into the head connectors and do not go on flying machines, and not because the progress to such has not yet reached, and ostensibly because of the fact that we are all terrible conservatives afraid of the new and do not want to learn it, and so, they say, are doomed for a long time to crawl on the earth and all that. Well, in general, by themselves, these thoughts are not unique, interesting examples, which the author in 2009 illustrates this:

1) The so-called flying car Moller Skycar. To my surprise, I discovered that the first read about him on the membrane and in the journal "Why?» № 7 for the year 1991, just forgot about it. Moller in the course of trying to put my baby "on the wing" for 40 years, and so far is not very, although PR nemeryannom. Author same post for some reason decided that stupid people do not want to buy a workable flying car for $ 60k penny because of its conservatism.

2) OCZ NIA - remember this? One of the first elementary neurointerface, still quite buggy. And not particularly popular year after issue - one that gives more pessimism of the author. Later there will be Emotiv EPOC, NeuroSky - more interesting toys for geeks, though now, 5 years later, they have not yet become something of the same everyday like a mouse. But many of them probably have heard or even held in their hands. In short, this technology is still at a very early stage of domestic distribution and to the "inflection point" it away.

3) Video calling - in this case mobile phones (including smartphones and already with 1 and 2 android). Namely, the popularity of its low compared with normal voice or text general mobile communication. Like, fiction head and share how people will regularly at full chat on videophones and people bitch conservatives - do not want.

What can I say to that? Even in 2009 I saw this phenomenon in the opposite way: people are not conservatives, and vice versa - it's fiction in the past had a limited vision of the future, as they are repelled by the then their values ​​and needs. From our point of view it is not the future, but merely an amusing, is not particularly well-honed extrapolation of the past. When this begins not regulated evident, "future" is transformed into a retro, though -futurizm.

Further, the author presents two very funny by today's standards Example:

4) Reader with screen e-ink (which doplanshetnuyu era in fact represented the transition from paper to electronic books) - is, on one glamorous site at that time conducted a survey and a significant portion of users with great skepticism expressed about the idea of ​​buying such a device. But this survey, and what happened in reality, we all see on the tablet market and the trend towards an increase in the phone. And although paper books still in pocheteu hipsters prospects of electronic already do not cause any doubts.

This example shows that conservatism exists mainly in the minds and tend to evaporate as practical development of certain technologies.

5) Touch Screen (in this case, the author mentioned it in passing on the example of the type of table Surface - remember when the word is synonymous with expensive, cumbersome and cool solutions rather than with expensive, but goofy tablets under WinRT?). Let me remind you that the tablet as such did not exist yet. By the way, even after the announcement of the first iPad on the same Habre fierce debate who is the general need and why :).

So who in this case conservatives?

I'll show you why I think that the more conservative in retrofuturistichnyh templates (ie, the idea that the future - it's flying machines, videophones, continuous 3D and all that) than in the pursuit of real people to the convenience and solve practical problems, and then that the future of 2.0 bears little resemblance to the future 1.0, does not make it any less future.

Have you ever wondered why some in the middle of the 20th century, the future began to massively represent yourself that way? What cars will fly Phones - show the image, and color and preferably three-dimensional, the food will be in tablets (although this applies to just over early attempts forecasts) and so on? At the same time, few paid attention to the science fiction of IT and mobile communications. Even advanced futurists rarely described something similar to our current Internet, and it was like a huge media library is already created by someone content, but imagine something similar to our social network and what happens in them, they could not .

The reason is that all these visions of the future were essentially an extrapolation of the then people's needs with the then psychology, with particular experience in the use of certain technologies. It is most convenient to explain the example of a videophone.

For a man last phone was still quite rare, expensive and not very good opportunity to communicate with another person (especially from other cities or countries), especially when viewed from our time. Today, we can do it, no matter where we are, if there is a mobile connection. But a man of the 20th century, in principle, such an experience was absent. For him, were familiar only two kinds of communication:

1) real. Need to physically go to the person to address him properly and talk (in European culture - usually while watching him in the eye and not much else). From idea to actual contact will take some time, depending on where the person is;

2) phone. Have to physically come to the phone and wait for connections. Again, before contact can pass the time - people may not be available where the phone is.

That is, in any case, it was necessary for communication somewhere to come and spend time, and sometimes money. In the real world turned out to be so expensive contact is often more productive, primarily due to the visual possibilities. All human culture was initially imprisoned just under a comprehensive resource-intensive communication with neverbalika. When there was a phone, it seemed miserable and uncomfortable. But not uncomfortable due to the fact that it is impossible to carry around, and due to the fact that the interlocutor is not visible! Because the experience of mobile humanity absent in principle, but the experience of "full contact", on the contrary, dominated! And when this experience added experience of distance, but only voice communications, the Futurists in their dreams wanted to combine it - that is, that the contact and complete, and the remote!

They even had no idea that, in practice, with the development of telecommunication, it will be perceived less as a substitute for "full contact", and begin to develop their own culture, voice communication, and especially with the transition to mobility - first as radiotrubok, and then full-fledged cellular - this culture will increasingly distance themselves from the "Real", pick up the popularity of such asynchronous, so quiet and convenient form of communication, as SMS (although the most expensive in terms of bytes!), and by the time the technology will make possible and video - mobile and penny! - It just takes a separate niche as the "real" because for a large part of the task will be enough text or voice. And most importantly, for us in the 21st century it will be quite comfortable!

In principle, they could understand. Try to imagine a world where everyone has the ability to instantly start a thread-level telepathic thoughts at high speed. For example, when programmers discuss the architecture of a software, how fast can be an exchange of ideas and their development. And in this world, people use this opportunity to the left and to the right as we can shock. Well, for example, translate what is happening in their head during sex for money in the network (or for free, and get the money for the two-way communication :)). Or not for money but for the huskies or some more exotic services, looking from our perspective delusional nowhere. In general, something like this for them in the past would look like our present world of mobile communications, broadband Internet, social networks and Skype. Imagine the intellectual effort required to even imagine a world in those years. Not to mention the fact that this kind of fiction would be difficult to understand, boring, unpopular or offensive to "traditional values" of those years. It is much easier to imagine a videophone or fax on every corner: «McFly, YOU ARE FIRED!»

Who is conservative? 14-year-old lirushnitsa vekashnitsa that sends 90 SMS per day, calling 9 dudes and even before one undresses in Skype for WebMoney, or rather the one who thought that it would be exclusively for stationary videophone discuss homework? :)

1.0 The future - it's about what we wanted yesterday.

2.0 The future - it's about what we want tomorrow. It is difficult to imagine, but it has much more in common with the real tomorrow.

Anticipate the future in understanding 2.0 can those who can ignore the needs of today and yesterday and did not think of them as if they are always such. In this I fundamentally disagree with the author of 2009, who claimed that the future make those needs that already existed in the past. Although the base layer can be reduced to one of several general categories (or even two such "material" and "immaterial"), in this case it is important to take some form of their evolution. Will there be a need for communication manifested in the form of "full contact" or on separate channels of text and voice; what needs to be met in the future neurointerface, 3D-printing, Crowdfunding, or the same flying cars.

Example conservatism fiction and futurists of the past in relation to the videophone and mobile communication - not the only one. Even more revealing is the evolution of longevity and reproductive behavior in science fiction, socio-economic and just relations and how these things are often presented by the authors of the 20th century.

It would seem that the task of science fiction - to explore a variety of scenarios for the development of technology as anything radically. In the sci-fi works people fly on a variety of ships between stars and galaxies, travel through time to an alternate dimension, and so on. E., Faced with what you want exotic distortions physics. But they behave as if chronically stuck in some 1950s. In the western fiction is covered including the socio-economic relations in the Soviet they evolve toward communism, but more depth psychology remains the same. Perhaps only Lema managed to overclock a fantastic imagination to something more interesting, though, and he - a man of his time.

In particular, when the whole tendency to describe arbitrarily intricate expansion of mankind in space, science fiction writers of the 20th century for some reason reluctant to describe such a banal direction, as the increase in life expectancy. Often they have immortal or very long-lived characters are hostile or "alien" character, often emphasized against "ordinary" people. The same goes for modified people, mutants, cyborgs, people with power and intelligence t. D. If the science fiction on some aspect of the exhibit, constructive criticism or others, or ignore. With regard to the Futurists, visionaries, illustrative example, which describes one of the most radical of the last century futurists FM-2030 - when he was at a conference of the same choicest Futurists radicals somewhere in 1960 asked which of them would like to live in times longer then climbed a few single hand. However, by the 80th of already more (in the relevant sector). But in fiction only recently, in the 21st century, began to appear works that sverhdolgozhitelstvo and other significant changes man served in a constructive way, and not necessarily in the "mentor", when more advanced ultimatum dragged behind a lagging, and more complex. I have some ideas why this started happening right now, but that's a separate issue.

In this same topic be concluded that there are probably some predictable bugs in the perception of expected future most people tied to their current lifestyle, practical experience, biological, social and technological realities that guide their thoughts about the future in some areas (video, 3D), whereas the reality is moving with the times in other (mobile, sms). And that can, in principle, to anticipate this reality to a greater extent than most people, if you know how to abstract, to think comprehensively and identify the sources of the current needs and potential drivers of their evolution. And where do the deep space and ultradolgoletie, I will tell the next time.

In conclusion recommend read comments 5 years ago (better mobile version , there UFOs are not closed :)) and wonder pessimism community and mass delusion (compared to today), and at the same time to remember how much we have all new appeared during these 5 years.

See you in the future!

Source: geektimes.ru/post/242154/