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Where can I find ideas for sci fi futuristic tech?
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... on the final day of humanity, a massive resurgence of nostalgia was observed. In the final hours before the fate of all humanity and the universe was sealed, many familiar images and experience of the past emerged. At the final minute, the last strand of the future coiled back as the last batch of the past intersected the present. The fate of the universe is finally sealed: A world where literally there is no more future as the past and present permeated and merged completely...
There seemed to be a lot of resurgence in the recent 10 years in addition to the technological advancements, such as vinyl records, many continuity reboots and other old cultures
and as far I l knew, they are doing well after coming back
but it is also intriguing. Are our whole species becoming more nostalgic?
@Secret Yes and no. We may be more nostalgic than we were a few decades ago but levels of nostalgia go in cycles, humans have been more nostalgic than this in the past.
@Gryphon I don't know if I can find anything to show human nostalgia as a whole although I reckon the increase in human nostalgia now is mainly Western and I can probably find source for nostalgia increasing in the developed world in the past.
During the industrial revolution you got a lot of nostalgic art and literature. A similar thing happened after world war 2.
Most of that took the form of people longing for the 'unspoiled' countryside of their youth so you have a lot of paintings like this one.
@AndyD273 The article defines a dark age as an era where new things are less desirable than stability (or same-ness). I don't think that humanity is homogenous enough anymore to have a true global dark age. There's too many very smart people who realize the value of out-competeing those countries that decide they want a dark age.
> So figuring out the future of collective sentiment isn’t the whole answer, but it is a big part of it.
There are some really interesting stuff in that lengthy article, i wish I can read faster
it also reminds me of the time travel setting I try to do in my scifi,which basically will mean near perfect modelling of a society across all scales of development and structure
@AndyD273 I would hazard a guess that it could be turned into a blade, but I'd have to check to see if the steel is hard enough...otherwise it could certainly be used for other stuff.
> This is not so much preservation of knowledge for its own sake, or even control of a strategic technology for its abstract potential. This is preparing for a particular path-dependent steering around anticipated collapse events. A loading of the dice of history, in this case with nuclear capability.
That kind of planning takes a LOOOOOOOOOOONG time, but it almost always turn out to be a batman gambit when pulled off
@Green Depending on how conspiracy minded you are, either A) They want to keep them from getting damaged because they are valuable/important, or B) they want to control and track who has access to them in order to slow ideas from getting out into the world.
@Secret I've wondered about this. What books would be required to bootstrap civilization after a breakdown like we've been talking about. I'd love to make it a WB question but I'm not sure how to make it not "too broad".
I am not sure, I am still pretty new to this historician analysis worldview and thus my comments so far are mostly analytic and involving murmurs of complex systems dynamics
But I suspect you will need a repository that contains most of the key technologies before the fall in order for the civilization to recover. Otherwise (assuming we are not being wiped out in the meantime), the society will soon discover and rediscover a way to a better age again
Emergence does gives you some idea on how to think about the notion of consciousness at the scale of entire societies. In a sense, this is what I think to be the physical manifestation of the sentimental superstate: A complex system due to all the interactions in the society and its environment, accounting for various individual histories and other things
But of course, if mind does have a nonphysical form, then we are talking about something more interesting: Imagine being able to speak to the whole society, or a developing city as if it is an individual entity
this is communication at a scale that we don't normally imagine nor consider
The internet have some potential to do that due to the lack of geophysical restrictions, but so far the efficiency of such is very bad
> Second, psychohistory is not a science of pure prediction. It has predictive potential because it actively attempts to shape history by constructing polities that can hold and evolve germs of sentiment superstates. It is the Seldon Plan rather than the Seldon Prophesies (an underrated innovation on Asimov’s part, given the popularity of prophecies as a plot device in such stories).
Politics, when used properly and without all that corruption that often tagged along with it, is really philosophy and ideology being expanded to the scale to be able to affect the trajectory of the development of the society
Problem is, we humans are greedy selfish bastards, so things... go ... wrong...
More selfishly speaking: I will betray and ally as we see fit to our plans and we will try our best to take advantage of any situation (still working on that)
@Green I am also glad it opens me up to a new worldview, which will be useful as part of my purpose of life
@Secret Not everyone does that. A few do but the majority are willing to get opportunities pass by because those chances don't fit their world narrative.
@Secret from the same site, there's this excellent piece of writing on organizational structures. It's one of my favorite pieces in the last two or three months. ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/…
@Green I think it's something that is worth paying attention to, because unfortunately it's impossible to avoid society in this day and age. I wouldn't necessarily changing any behaviors just based on the whims of society but it's a good thing to keep tabs in.
My interactions with the society is an interesting one: Most people found me having ideals very similar to the limiting ideals that they all look for
Thus in a sense, I end up having some chirsma
Meanwhile, I basically consider this response of theirs as a protecting coating
because it seems obvious they are mezmerised or confused about my personality, which means it provide me some room to breath and think about how to plan my future before they figure it out, find me uninteresting and then start assaulting me like predators do
@sphennings Fair. A more nuanced view would be "Be aware of societal norms just enough to comply with them then don't comply when it does not suit you."
The society to me as a relationship is currently like an alien being confused about something they have never seen before, thus despite their predative nature, they have not start feasting because they are comprehening on what to do with it
so yeah, I have a rather subliminally cynical view about society and humanity in general, including myself, lol
@Secret I've taken to assuming that any adult animal (bipedal or quadripedal) is going to be an a**hole to one degree or another. There is no such thing as "tame".
@sphennings I mean, I am clear on what I want in my life and mostly on the plans and steps how to achieve my goals, but what I worry are the predators destroying my dreams and then consume my soul, so to speak
"If you ever run around thinking What might those people around me think about me right now? remember: they are probably too occupied asking themselves the same question to care about you."
@Secret This seems to be a common trait of people who come to WB. I think this way and I seem to remember @sphennings describing this mode of thinking too.
@Green As long as I have a quiet place to retreat to afterwards I can be quite the extrovert. I considered into getting into anthropology or linguistics in college.
If it wasn't for the limited amount of time I have I'd quite like regularly getting a beer with strangers and hearing about their perspective on life.
I'm also only masquerading as a normal adult at the best of times so it's quite easy to weird people out and not everyone likes constant deep thinking questions.
@Bellerophon I'm not sure that's true. I'm very aware that I don't care to work at really granular levels of detail. But the world has many examples of people who love to get into the nitty gritty minuteau. Proof would be how many comic book lovers will contradict you if you state "No one can beat Superman." and they respond "Well, actually in <COMIC> <Issue>, we see that Ultra-MegaMan beat Superman handily".
@Secret As a function of being human you are already projecting yourself in many different ways depending on social context. Think about how you talk to your professors differently to your close friend.
'shallow' people are not as common encounters for me, because conversation tend to quickly go silent in minutes
@sphennings Well, that is true, but the difference is not very strong. Probably because professors in australia are less hierarchial e.g. prefer you to address them by their first name and pretty much act like a casual friend in most cases
And more broadly, I found it interesting that despite the different people I talked to, the breath and depth of topics are very similar. I am still not very sure what distinguish between relationshisp between me and close friends vs other people, except maybe that close friends have a very low probability to betray our relationships
I suspect whatever that distinction is, is something more emotional rather than language based
Perhaps a reasonable question to ask you guys is:
How do you find talking to your close friend differ from other people?
@Green That's true. Though if I am being a pedant I said it was a common trait so just because a subset of people don't have the trait doesn't mean it isn't common.
@Secret With friends I have a bunch of contextual history to reference. I'm more likely to mess with friends since I know their boundaries, what is and isn't ok. I know what my friends find interesting so I'm more likely to rapidly segue the conversation if I remember there's a thing that's right up their alley. I'm more cagey about some of my interests with strangers. I'm more likely to use names with friends and relational signifiers with strangers.
@Secret For instance when I was invited by my partner attend a Christmas service I kept my mouth shut about my atheism for a couple hours, dressed nice, sung a few songs, and had a good time.
that's interesting, cause in my case, there are some occassional discussion about opposite worldviews and then we get to learn about the other's worldview even if we don't agree in the end. Anything else you mentioned above in parties applies though
@Secret Another example of the difference between friends and strangers is when I talk to my friends I will correct any tiny mistakes with their grammar. If I was talking to a stranger I probably wouldn't.
For me, I don't even bother to correct the grammar of anyone who talks to me unless it is important
and sometimes, I got so used to it that my brain sometimes autocorrects it and I often failed to notice the grammatical problem
the autocorrection also lead to bad things like mishearing what the other person is saying, though, causing inconvenient moments where I have to told my friends or the stranger to repeat it
I only do it as a form of joke which is the difference between friends and strangers: with friends there are jokes and rituals you do whereas with strangers there aren't.
Guess I have to look deeper in my own friendships to discover what those rituals are, I am so far pretty clueless about my own friendships vs stranger to the level of conference delegates
meanwhile, for total strangers (random people meet outside of any social context, e.g. in the streets), I don't even talk to them unless they talk first, and I will be on high alert on what they are up to
@Secret I watch out for people who look like they're lost and ask them if they need help. Other times, people will ask me for help about where to go. Not sure why they pick me to ask over someone else.
Can a lack of diseases in the medieval world lead to overpopulation?
In the middle and dark ages, it was necessary for a couple to have as many children as possible, because many children died before reaching adult age. This was mostly due to rampant disease and lack of medical knowledge. In an ...
worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/a/5732/17720 If this was asked as a question would the people here close it? I feel it is a good enough question but I can't shake a feeling that I am wrong and it is opinion based.
@Bellerophon It's answerable but not specific. Any reason to create a reason people have ever had or will have for creating a religion is a valid answer to the question and there is no good mechanism to compare them. I've even read stories where religions were created by accident.
@Secespitus I saw your answer earlier and upvoted, but didn't say anything. Thank you; it's quite good. Same goes for @sphennings; the parietal eye is quite a good idea for a starting point.
@sphennings Quite true. I forgot that the visual cortex have to be enlarged. Although at least it supports my assumption that such a system would be way to complex to have arisen suddenly on more complex life forms, rather than simpler ones.
@HDE226868 Further, it's likely than far more creatures on this planet have fore and aft eye sets than a single species. That's such a basic structure that it feels like it should be really old (to me). Along the lines of the age of five digits for creatures on earth.
> I'm assuming that this sort of adaptation occurs in many other creatures in this world that would otherwise have normal binocular vision. An extra set of eyes requires a more complicated system of nerves and muscles, and it seems likely that this evolved quite slowly over time. Therefore, I'd bet that more than one species has evolved with this sort of property.
And I'd say a double bladed axe barely counts... Since both blades are far removed from the wielder. I'd suggest they are closer to double edged than double bladed... But I'm not an authority.
Also naturally there is Spear Master - alas it's not half that good
@sphennings There seems to be a bunch of fun pole-arm feats - alas that's three feats compared to the one in fifth edition (yet iirc you get a feat every level in 4e, don't you?)
@Bellerophon Are you going for some sort of Medieval Star Wars?
@dot_Sp0T Sure. I can't carry a pole arm with me to work. It's hard to fit them in my car. They're not useful if I need to defend myself on the subway.
@dot_Sp0T Luckily I don't need to defend myself on a regular basis.
@dot_Sp0T There are lots of restrictions on bladed weapons in the US. It varies a lot by state. Massachusetts tends to be pretty restrictive about such things.
I think for most people if they're needing to engage in violence something has gone wrong. Even a mugger would rather intimidate me into handing over my wallet than get in a fight.
Polearms can be pretty awesome in 5e. I'd generally agree with you on 4e too...as a role playing game it was lame, though if you view it as a board game its not half bad.
@sphennings Sure, but when there was the conference on where to put the prime meridian it was going to be in Paris until the USA decided the French were getting too cocky about having the international standards for measurement so basically made it get put in Greenwich.
@Bellerophon If you know of a writeup of the politics that went into the decision to settle on Greenwich as the standard prime meridian. I'd find that fascinating to read up on.
@dot_Sp0T That could be difficult in the US since there was a large government push for citizens to create individual fallout shelters during the cold war. Even with the cold war being over there are now a lot of "preppers" who are funding the creation of their own survival shelters on private land.
@dot_Sp0T There's still a smattering of fall-out shelter signs on buildings around Boston. So easily hundreds still in the city. By now, I'd guess most of them have been repurposed into something else.
This question is due to the nearly-successful effort to close the following question.
Where can I find ideas for sci fi futuristic tech?
This question is strongly related to the following. It differs in that a specific question and the current actions of VTCers are involved. Therefore, this...
I have 3 accounts (stack overflow, 3d printing and world building), but worldbuilding isn't coming up and my profile says i have only 2 accounts Why?
The Factory Floor
The Factory Floor