Things that could change the world overnight

[irishScott]

How? Ok- your printer legally required to connect to the Internet for a one time encrypted file and is otherwise a brick. Oh you could crack the say 1024 bit encryption then try to reverse engineer things, but your printer reports back for a check and clearance file match before it will work.

By the time they get around to anything that invasive 3D printers will be too widespread for it to be effective. Granted I'm sure they'll try something like that, and I'm equally sure they'll fail.

Honestly I'm surprised they haven't tried to make an FFL mandatory for owning one, given that we can print simple guns now, and the tech is only getting more advanced.

 

[piasabird]

Free way to generate power! Just think of all those batteries.

 

[piasabird]

Warp Drive.

 

[JEDIYoda]

one lone nuclear weapon going off in one of our big cities would change the US forever....
trust me...we would recall all our troops.....we would have serious isues providing medical care to the victims...it would totally disrupt our economy and our way of life and the way we as a nation views the rest of the world......

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Fun ideas all but some may never happen or if so it would be by inconceivable means.

So after some thought about whats feasible with current understanding I chose Von Neuman machines. Now THATS a 3D printing machine.

Think about it- launch some at a good sized asteroid and let them loose. It's not unreasonable to imagine them using solar power for their activities, tearing the big rock apart for self replication while returning refined materials to us. I think we're going to have to develop robotics and self reliant AI to provide sufficient raw material for a long term sustainable global economy.

 

[randomrogue]

What about Tesla's free energy? I was never really sure if it was real or not but it certainly should have or would change the world.

 

[Doppel]

What about Tesla's free energy? I was never really sure if it was real or not but it certainly should have or would change the world.

It wasn't real. Remember, nothing's free in Waterworld.

 

[OGOC]

unless you need teleportation booths and they suck a lot of energy.

Mine works ok on 220v.

The real problem is, how does that saying go... time travel is too important to use only for money, but too dangerous to use for anything else.

 

[Jodell88]

Bionics and androids

 

[DrPizza]

As a kid I remember our solar panels being unable to heat the pool. They broke all the time and were terrible. Today if you live in a sunny climate solar panels will pay for themselves in only a couple years since even with AC and Heat on you'll generate more electricity than you consume in your entire home. Add a couple more years to the ROI if you remove the $10,000 tax credit if it makes you more comfortable.

The argument of moving pollution from coal to nuclear and how there's always a cost to generate the electricity that you use for your "clean" electric car can be made but just looking at how solar power has changed in the last 10 years should make you think twice about what is possible. In California we use solar power to run our homes. In Northern Europe they use geothermal. Something as simple as a tiny delta in the temp of the earth and your home is enough to give you a lot of heat during the winter. Look at how efficient Iceland and Sweden are at utilizing it.

I think the argument that any of these new ideas will use a lot of energy is certainly valid but I also think it will be temporary and subsidized.

But, you took the point of view that transportation via teleportation would require less energy (which would reduce use of fossil fuels.) I merely countered that you have no way to know that it would, in fact, save energy. Because of the decrease in time/labor costs, there's a very reasonable expectation that even if it did require more energy, it could still save money.

Using the conditions you applied after making that claim - that even if it needed more energy, we'd get the energy from somewhere else - completely invalidates your initial claim - because it wouldn't decrease use of fossil fuels if you've already moved off them and onto alternative fuel sources.

Incidentally, while residences may easily cover most of their energy needs with solar, residential energy consumption is only a very small fraction (I think it's between 10 and 15%) of the total energy consumption in the U.S. Industries use a lot of energy. Look at how much energy an aluminum plant uses. There's a smelting plant either built, or being built/planned over in India that has it's own power plant: I think it's 1.2 GIGAwatts.

 

[woolfe9998]

Incidentally, while residences may easily cover most of their energy needs with solar, residential energy consumption is only a very small fraction (I think it's between 10 and 15%) of the total energy consumption in the U.S. Industries use a lot of energy. Look at how much energy an aluminum plant uses. There's a smelting plant either built, or being built/planned over in India that has it's own power plant: I think it's 1.2 GIGAwatts.

Factories can be supplied with solar via a centralized grid model.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

1.2 GIGAwatts.

:hmm:
If only we had the last 0.01








:sneaky:

 

[Vaux]

What the hell is a gigawatt?

 

[Sonikku]

It will never happen. Even if it did happen, it still wouldn't. If anyone came close to inventing such a thing Big oil and Saudi Princes would be gunning for his head.

 

[disappoint]

What the hell is a gigawatt?

Well if you pronounce it Jiggawatts, then it is an unobtainable amount of watts invented by Jim Ignatowski from Taxi.

If you pronounce it Gigawatts then it is 1000 times more than Megawatts.

Kilowatt: 1000 watts : 10^3
Megawatt: 1 million watts : 10^6
Gigawatt: 1 billion watts : 10^9
Terawatt: 1 trillion watts : 10^12

btw 1 Gigawatt is equivalent to about 1.34 million horsepower. I'll leave the 0 to 60 time calculation as an exercise for the reader. (don't you hate when they do that?) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix

 

[Murloc]

Well if you pronounce it Jiggawatts, then it is an unobtainable amount of watts invented by Jim Ignatowski from Taxi.

If you pronounce it Gigawatts then it is 1000 times more than Megawatts.

I thought it was jigawatts in English too, since in back to the future it's 1.21 jigawatts and not gigawatts.
Wikipedia gives both pronunciations.

 

[Juddog]

In terms of practicality, to me the big alterations could be any of the following:

* Being able to read a brains' thoughts completely and record to computer. Not only would this open up completely communication between humans, but it would also open up a much deeper understanding of how the mind works, and allow a mind-based science to form. In addition, if anybody was communicating with aliens / extra-dimensional entities, etc., this could be recorded as well, opening up humans to a wealth of knowledge about the universe that we don't have access to as a closed species.

* Thought transfer via technology - similar to the first point, being able to transmit thoughts via wifi and such would open up the equivalent of telepathy for the masses. This would mark humanity's rise to the next level of potential.

* Regrowth / printing of organs - creating matrices of organs, implanting stem cells on them, then placing them within the body to let the cells determine the organ function. This would lead to near immortality in terms of organ failures, etc., and eventually would lead to post-humanism (growing functions into people which never existed before).

 

[lilrayray69]

A cure for cancer.

It would change the lives of a lot of people, including myself.

 

[smackababy]

A cure for cancer.

It would change the lives of a lot of people, including myself.

The problem is the most likely scenario for a "cure" to cancer would be increased resistance of cells to mutations. A problem could be this stifles, if not eliminates, human evolution.

Our best option would have to be something, possibly a virus, that can target cells containing only the mutated cancer cells. I don't even know if we are sure if the mutations happen and don't manifest in tumors or if the mutations always equal a tumor.

 

[lilrayray69]

The problem is the most likely scenario for a "cure" to cancer would be increased resistance of cells to mutations. A problem could be this stifles, if not eliminates, human evolution.

Our best option would have to be something, possibly a virus, that can target cells containing only the mutated cancer cells. I don't even know if we are sure if the mutations happen and don't manifest in tumors or if the mutations always equal a tumor.

Immunotherapy cancer vaccines look promising

 

[Murloc]

A cure for cancer.

it would be a nice thing to have but it wouldn't really change the world. There are many other horrible illnesses.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Immunotherapy cancer vaccines look promising

 

[disappoint]

I thought it was jigawatts in English too, since in back to the future it's 1.21 jigawatts and not gigawatts.
Wikipedia gives both pronunciations.

Giga is a prefix used for a lot of units of measure. Do you pronounce GHz as jiggahertz? How about jiggabytes or jigga electron volts?

 

[waggy]

unlimited free energy

anti-gravity units

FTL travel

 

[Dr. Zaus]

unlimited free energy

anti-gravity units

FTL travel

FTL would get us off this little rock and maybe even save humanity from itself.