Plan for the future

Figured I should get this one down again as well.


The essential life-changing technologies I see as being important:

The ON, Omni-Net, mesh style wireless network to replace all other forms of radio broadcasting. People themselves, via the ODs and Shells, function as nodes, broadcasting and receiving. This might be too strenuous for certain energy storage modalities, in which case we'd have them set up like coffee-shops, or IN coffee shops, most FN locations would double as ON broadcast nodes. Software radios allow for local channel hopping to insure folks get a signal. You rely on verifying checksums against other folks cached files to determine a reliability ratings for your data. In many cases you'd route via multiple paths to the same server to insure against man in the middle type of data hacks. Your critical data comes across short wave transmission, physical connection, FN, or directional transmissions and is cached locally so that you don't need to grab it across and unknown cloud. This one is important because it allows universal integration of the physical world and the data world.

The OD, Omni-Device, a single ubiquitous little lump that provides the enhancements to reality that will make things easier and weirder. Most physical devices cease to exist. News papers. DVDs. CDs. Advertisements of all sorts. Notebooks. Books. Magazines. And with them goes all the things they support. If you can download a computer game at a reasonable pace over the FN at the local FN shoppe, why do you have stores dedicated to buying and sellings games? You can interact with a real person, game adviser, over the ON, so you don't need people to help guide purchasing locally either. Books stores, CD stores the same way. You'll still need stores for physical goods of course. This also allows integration of the data world and the physical world because your data is all always with you. Appointment booking, reminders for same, cell phone, and things like shopping, prices update in the data world, display thru the OD, bus\train schedules, or even requests, your ability to work follows you around, good because some types of work will likely go away and we'll all be conducting small micro-economic transactions all the time. Another thing the OD facilitates. Since there's no physical money you and your buddy trade chits between ODs and you can do so in any number of quantities. Sub penny quantities. A single beer. A question answered. A software macro traded. A media file. CPU cycles. Almost anything. Another aspect of the OD is that of data customization. You are always at your "desktop". Your file browser view is always the same. Nobody moves the Recycle Bin\Trash Can to a weird spot. Your favorite music player is always installed. And this allows a significantly greater level of customization of function. Most computer usage is not broad and general. Instead of click here, click there, click there, you just program a single "button" to do all of that at once and then combinations of buttons strung together become your system commands.

The Shell. This is a cute acronym, but I won't go in to that. All the things a human needs to survive in the cold world reside on the human being. Ideally you include enough power and artificial muscle that it moves itself around. But otherwise you make it light enough that it's no big deal to carry it around with you. Since it's an integrated unit you can distribute the weight better than a backpack\messenger bag\purse. One purpose is violence resistance and prevention. Anti-terror packages. Like everybody has a NBC suit all the time. Everybody is wearing anti-fragmentation armor all the time. Everybody has a SOS beacon on them all the time. Incorporate NBC detectors and you have a nice mobile detection lab for early threat warning. It carries a battery and a variety of charging mechanisms. If the OD and associated hardware doesn't have audio\video then the Shell will. You can add a bunch of weird stuff in to it. Rather than produce a plastic container for each and every sugar beverage you have each suit hold a reservoir, or more than one and you fill\refill it with liquids as needed, eliminates waste. Same for a food container and utensils. If the technology hits the right points you can incorporate enhanced senses (IR, UV, telescopes, etc) enhance musculature, and transport modes (from Heelies to mag-lev to the human dragonfly flight suit).


Of course the OD is part of the Shell, the Shell as a concept is pretty comprehensive, there's not much you can't throw in there. The key concept is the carrying it with you at all times part. I like to think that even at the most basic level it would provide for instant traction, holding an injured body part in place, also to be used in cases of explosion. This would allow it to hold you sitting\standing so you can get rid of most furniture.

A lot of this is pretty minimalist stuff. Most folks will find it unattractive for that reason, but if we are not going to have a major die-off of the human race, which is pretty likely I suspect, then we are going to have to get pretty minimalist to pack more people and our associated support structures on to the planet.

So those are they, the big ones. Pretty broad and abstract of course, but it's the effects more than the tech I suspect.

Wearing a Shell also does a lot to eliminate clothing.

Nutrition is one I have not been able to put a futurist spin on. Beyond the obvious.

Currently "food" is fairly complex. Things like vitamin and mineral supps are less effective than the same things consumed as parts of food. Lots of conflicting data about food, what to eat, how much, when. Lots of secondary issues, how to provide for that food, how to grow it, what to do with the waste, how to transport it, preserve it, prepare it.

So obviously the ideal is that we "figure it out" and then move to extracting raw nutrients in the correct form and ratio, avoid damaging them in processing and transport, and then live off a paste or goo that contains all the essential stuff we need, none of what we don't, and indulge in the occasional bit of chocolate cake and beer on occasion.

Maybe we can get our EFAs and protein from krill and krill paste. Other alternatives would be micro-agriculture, rooftop gardens...for a whole city.