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04 April 2014

Friday Question What potentially nearly possible scientific achievement are you most excited about/scared of
And yes, there was supposed to be a question mark.

For me:

Excited about: Wearable gadgets that provide real time info, like Google Glasses and iterations of Fitbits. We aren't quite there, but close.

Scared about: The increasing ability of governments to monitor us constantly, including reviewing our DNA.
posted by bearwife 04 April | 13:36
bearwife - me too on both counts!

I was just telling my husband that when there's a nice looking wrist mounted device that can pair / interface with my phone, my cloud storage, the power meter on my bike, can do integrated HR monitoring (I am sick to death of uncomfortable HR straps / monitors for training) has movement and fitness tracking, has bluetooth to send music to a wireless headset AND tells me the time as a default sleep screen mode (I am lazy and my phone is always inside my wallet in a bag), they will have an all-in-one killer device that I will wait in line to buy. I want it to be comfortable, wearable and disappear into my daily routine. I hate having to always remember to bring my excess gadgets (Garmin head, heartrate strap, bla bla) to rides and races and while my phone can capture ride data (speed, distance, route) it doesn't interface with my power hub or heartrate without a bunch of klunky expensive aftermarket add-ons, and I don't like having to carry a $600 smartphone around with me on the mountain bike or in the rain anyhow. I really don't care that much to bother with the output screen on my Garmin during a race; at most I merely glance at it from time to time and it clutters up my stem / handlebars. Really if you could do all of this from a wrist strap that you could either glance at when you wanted or else send audible feed (for intervals or whatever) to a small earpiece that'd be money.

the problem, of course, with an all-encompassing "databand" type device would be the privacy concerns and hackability / security of such. It sure as hell would be convenient to use something like that as a wallet / banking and identification storage, ferinstance, but I'm not entirely confident that corporations / governments are culturally trustworthy with handling that sort of power and traceability either.

but then I go back to how damned convenient it is to just pull up my USAC app on my smartphone and show my license # and category info to the registrars at bike races (and at bigger events I don't even have to do that; we just use a barcode scanner to check in!) without having to remember to always keep their stupid little piece of plastic (that's easily lost or damaged) in my wallet in a pile stuck to two dozen other stupid little pieces of paper/plastic, so I dunno.
posted by lonefrontranger 04 April | 16:13
Yeah, much the same for me - a single, easily wearable device that lets me bring all my shit along with me without needing a tangle of cables and various attachments. The biggest barriers to this seem to be a lack of a very small, very powerful fast charging lbattery and the almost total lack of any kind of practical connectivity here outside the home or office environment.
posted by dg 04 April | 18:09
I'm actually not all that scared of governments and corporations having access to my data. It's not that I trust them - I don't. It's more that I think that battle was lost a long time ago and they already have access to the data, so I've just decided not to care any more. I'm more worried about things like identity theft (but not all that much - most aspects of my life are such a disaster that anyone's welcome to my identity), but I imagine that would actually be relatively easy to resolve (if scary for most people) - surely a tiny implant could be used to validate the data in the device so that, unless the device is in close proximity to the chip, it simply won't work. I may also be under-thinking this somewhat ;-)
posted by dg 04 April | 18:18
I'm on the fence about lab-grown meat. Plus side: cruelty-free, sort of, until we develop a molecular-level ethics anyway. Minus side: even less reason to care about the environment and food self-sufficiency.

I'm really interested in what's going to happen once we can really analyze people's DNA, even at a really young age, to see written there much of their individual health future. What would you do at age 16 if you learned you were 90% likely to get a serious cancer by 50?
posted by Miko 04 April | 21:59
Live life like a diamond ring.
posted by Hugh Janus 05 April | 07:00
I'd like to believe that's what people would do and that they were that mature and accepting of the vagaries of fate, but in fact I think they would hysterically begin trying to turn the physical universe inside out in order to discover ways to implant themselves with new/different DNA to increase their longevity.
posted by Miko 05 April | 09:11
It's more that I think that battle was lost a long time ago and they already have access to the data, so I've just decided not to care any more.

yeah that pretty much sums it up for me, too. And what Miko said.

truly my biggest concern with going the route of "databands" or wearable tech and things like DNA analysis and genetic manipulation, of course, is that it hold the potential to even further widen gaps in the whole socioeconomic / culture divide, so there's that.
posted by lonefrontranger 05 April | 10:43
With regards to analysing peoples DNA I wonder whether the extremely rich are already having their own DNA analysed and the DNA of their offspring doctored.
posted by jouke 05 April | 11:17
Nanotech. It could be the greatest thing humankind ever created or it could end the world
posted by Splunge 05 April | 11:26
...but in fact I think they would hysterically begin trying to turn the physical universe inside out in order to discover ways to implant themselves with new/different DNA to increase their longevity.

Oh yeah, people, yeah, that's probably what they'd do.

For me, just knowing when this shit would end so I could plan accordingly might put a better shine on things. I reckon I'd try to pack a lot more life into what I have left instead of thinking, why bother planning for the future when you know it's a whim of fate whether you'll even finish breakfast today?

But yeah, that's a me-specific answer, not a rumination on humanity's future.

I think quantum stuff is pretty slick, like quantum computers and whatnot, but I don't understand it very well. There's a lot of future packed inside them quantums.

A college friend with whom I traveled in Japan is now a professor who was part of the JHU/Space Telescope Science Institute's 2011 Nobel Prize-winning High-z Supernova Search Team, which discovered that the rate of the universe's expansion is not constant but in fact accelerating, propelled by enigmatic, theoretical Dark Energy. That's exciting to me.

What scares me? I'm scared science will fiddle while Rome burns, spending money and energy making men's dicks bigger and harder than ever while preventable and thoughtless energy consumption, over-fishing, and warming oceans conspire to eradicate biodiversity. Time and again we destroy what we have yet to discover.

I know it's not a zero-sum game, but I don't want to be a 90-year old man with the cock of a teenager, eating jellyfish and pretending it's bacalao.

I'm afraid of big old dicks.
posted by Hugh Janus 05 April | 11:29
Drone brains, or the artificial intelligence that keeps a drone from crashing into shit. The schema is two parts: awareness and avoidance. Awareness is sensing its environment, other drones, birds, jets, the ground, overhead wires, etc. Avoidance is choosing its detour and its return to its original flight plan.

Awareness includes tracking moving objects and determining their probable destination in the drone's sphere of perception. This is best modelled using field equations similar to those used by Einstein to describe spacetime, especially for tracking birds whose flight paths are random enough to cause hairpulling among software engineers. Parallax is the biggest problem in that another object flying directly at you does not appear to be moving at all, thus requiring the marriage of a radar depth field to a visual spectrum analysis.

When I consider what scares me, I don't pay attention to intended usage like government snooping. That has been done by cops on foot for centuries. Generally, any technology has the potential to piss off somebody. What I consider instead are the unintended consequences like automobile exhaust or lung cancer from smoking, but not so much catastrophic instances like a nuclear plant meltdown. Things that concern me are the vulnerability of our food supply to mass poisoning, or the unknown side effects of new fad pharamceuticals that escape detection during trials, particularly those that present themselves only after extended ingestion.

posted by Ardiril 05 April | 12:31
Goddess, I loved writing white papers.
posted by Ardiril 05 April | 12:48
The one real-world, near-term development I'm most concerned with is the coming Internet of Things™ that seems utterly inevitable to be crammed down our throats. I'm really not interested in my fridge being connected to the net. My biggest concern is that, as the IoT movement grows, it will become less and less possible to buy a major appliance that isn't wired. Worse, I fear coming to point where your appliances simply won't work unless they can phone home. And, honestly, all the justifications for IoT all seem to sound like a lot of Marketing/Geek woo.

/grumpyoldfart
posted by Thorzdad 05 April | 12:59
Regarding the Internetting of Things, the digitization of money has had a huge impact on my life, especially in that I rarely carry any cash at all. A cell phone and a debit card have replaced any need, including most emergencies. As a consequence, I have nothing to give beggars.
posted by Ardiril 05 April | 13:11
Excited: nanotech, especially WRT medical procedures. Both my parents had strokes, & it would be great if there was an injectible nano something that would go &auger out the blockage when stroke symptoms first present. Or even somethingthat just hangs out in our rterial subways keeping an eye on things & keeping them clear.

Scared: nanotech, especially WRT medical procedures. Yeah so as usual if the Evil Ones surrepticiously slip a nano auger thing into you without your knowledge & can somehow program it from outside to munch away at the wrong things? That would seriously nightmarishly suck.

Drones seem like more of a nuisance than anything, to me. I could see anti drones of some form evolve, or some kind of hacky type recreation swiping everyone's Amazon deliveries. But mostly it just seems like more air pollution. Annoying buzzy air pollution.
posted by chewatadistance 05 April | 15:37
I don't want to be a 90-year old man with the cock of a teenager, eating jellyfish and pretending it's bacalao.

OMG, Can I quote you? Every time someone tells us how great insect eating is going to be in the future?

I rarely carry any cash at all. A cell phone and a debit card have replaced any need, including most emergencies. As a consequence, I have nothing to give beggars.

Yeah, I hear you. What's happened to cash is weird. But stockpiling cash doesn't make sense at all, either. If the electronic grid and its credit systems failed, it's not like the value of paper money would be unaffected. Or even recognized.
posted by Miko 05 April | 22:54
Jack Name -- "Pure Terror" || Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen tour New York City together

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