Don't worry, I meant the former and not the latter.
All that proves is you don't need to know the mid-Atlantic currents to reach the New World. Island-hopping made it inevitable that Europeans would – just as Asians had – reach North America.
That isn't Enceladus, it's a bedsheet pressed up against the glass door of a front-load washer.
"Tornoto"? Really?
Star Wars, and Lucas, are pretty much dead to me at this point.
Just because it's realistic doesn't mean it's photogenic or interesting. Think back to the dawn of the Internet Movies and Hacker Movies: lots of people reading stuff off a screen so the audience can follow along. Just dreadful. Nobody wants to watch that.
By the 23rd century they should have neural links that allows mind-to-mind and mind-to-group communication, obviating text and voice entirely – but again, we wouldn't sit through 45 minutes of that (or is it 40 now? damn commercials).
My money is on periodic wormholes, a la Sliders.
My money is also on "it's be terrible" because the V remake is atrocious.
This is the horrible fate of Foxconn slav— er, employees, who, after a 20 hour shift, fall into the works.
(Not sure why that's all mashed into one paragraph. Looks like io9's buggy.)
All it takes is a handful of people wanting to do something for it to take off. Or the right idea taking root in the ministry of education/industry/etc.
As for making people want something, that's the easiest thing of all – and it's something the marketers of technology excel at. Hell, in under 50 years the marketing industry perfected the art, and now has most of the Western world buying things we don't even need, or are actually bad for us.
Japan: Forever Alone ; _ ;
Wow, unstarred?
And "warned"? When was I warned? I didn't get an email or private message of any kind. #dontbethatguy
Technology sells itself to those who can afford it, in markets where it's allowed. Technology also tends to rapidly become obsolete when the fad moves on or the company behind it decides it's time for everyone to upgrade and cuts off support. There are many barriers between modern technology's ability to uplift a population and the population itself, but the greatest of all is money.
Sure, let's develop waterless toilets and earthquake-proof huts – it'll make us feel good, and help a few hundred people – but don't think for a second the populations that would benefit most from these things will be getting them in significant numbers any time soon, or by any means other than charities.
Social changes don't need to be implemented across billions of people simultaneously, or forced on people at the end of a gun as some here seem to thing. Take the Gulu Walk for example, it developed out of a specific need for kids in a specific region to avoid being kidnapped by warlords. Think of the local food movement: all it requires is passing local laws which allow it to happen – whether it's raising chickens and bees in an urban setting, converting sections of parks into community gardens, or putting local produce ahead of transoceanic imports. All of it is happening right now, and it didn't take a dictatorship or $500 in parts assembled by factory slaves.
How much is io9 being paid to promote this movie? I swear every day there's a new THE NEXT SPIDER-MAN MOVIE IS THE MOST AWESOME MOVIE EVAR headline here.
I suppose – if we were talking about populations without formal education systems, business standards and practices, governments, etc.
Moving to where the job is, or working closer to home, are pretty simple social changes people already do. But pointing out that bicycles aren't good for moving thousands of people hundreds of kilometres is tad disingenuous. (But there are better technological solutions to hundreds of cars with one, maybe two, people in them, making the same journey 10 times a week. Trains. Buses. Teleconferencing. Et cetera.)
And again, I have no interest discussing your eco-paranoia.
Moving masses of people 100 km isn't a new problem or one that hasn't already been solved a number of ways. I don't know what you're trying to say, why you're bringing neo-Luddites into this, or framing social change as "scuttling technological civilization".
Who said anything about forcing anyone to do anything? I'm not interested in debating your strawmen.
You're contradicting yourself. Bikes are more affordable than cars (or a sedan's-worth of slaves), they're technology, they solve lots of problems, yet North America wants nothing to do with them and only a handful of European cities seem to have integrated them into their transit planning/broader lifestyle.
Grinding your anti-Green axe doesn't help this discussion – there are more problems in the world than just environmental (real and imagined).
Why limit possible solutions to technology – expensive, patent-entangled, slave-manufactured, inaccessible-to-the-people-and-places-that-would-benefit-most technology – when behavioural, lifestyle, and social changes can also yield remarkable solutions and be easier to implement?
From what I've seen it prepares the young to believe they are the centre of the universe, special for the most mundane reasons, the exception to the rules, and entitled to everything without any effort needed.
GET OFF MY LAWN!
