Sci-Fi Tech We Could Have Right Now (For a Price) 526
PlainBlack writes "Possibility isn't limited by technology. And it's certainly not limited by human imagination. What makes something impossible is the lack of cold, hard, cash. Wired blog takes a look at 10 science fiction technologies we could build, if they weren't so expensive. 'New York-L.A. Maglev Express - Cost: $70bn (Based on established construction costs). At $70bn, it's tantalizingly affordable by the standards of this roundup: a train that could beat airliners from one side of the country to the other. Many agree that Maglev has enormous potential. Bite-sized examples are in operation all over the world. Birmingham, England, had the first in the 1980s, though the promise of airliner-like speeds on land is still unrealized. The British system sped along at a pathetic 26MPH and was designed to get air travelers to the planes, not to outrun them.'"
Re:More to it that speed (Score:5, Insightful)
"Take me to Mexico!"
"We can't. The tracks only go as far as California"
Wish List (Score:5, Insightful)
* Cheap Nuclear Power
* Safe, Effective Diet Pill
* Cheap TV Phone (nevermind, I don't look so hot in the morning)
* Space Travel for the Mass
* Cure for Cancer
* Cure for the Common Cold
* Artificial Intelligence approaching at least Dog Level
* Appliances that Accept Voice Commands
* Independence from Oil
* 3D User Interface
* Cybernetic Implants
* Energy-beam Weapons
* Easy-to-Maintain Personal Computers
* Car Key Alternative - I hate looking for lost keys.
* Non-Lethal Weaponry for Cops
* Reliable Tires (or that fail gradually) - Tires are still based on air-filled balloon technology, making them problematic.
* Reliable Car Battery
* Scan & Download Brain to Cheat Death
(Yes, I stole some from a wiki, but then again I added most of them to begin with)
Re:Where's the Death Star? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More to it that speed (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not perfect, nor fool-proof, but it's far safer. At least you can't fall 30,000 feet.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider, we could have built seven of those NY to LA maglev trains for what Bush has spent so far blowing stuff up in Iraq. Put another way, we could have built a national long-haul maglev infrastructure and had enough left over to roll out fibre to the curb nationwide.
Nahhh, let's just kill people!
To hell with Sci-FI.... I want old tech (Score:5, Insightful)
Passenger trains between cities, silly crap like that.
For some reason here in the USA public transportation is considered evil.
Great example? Detroit, why there are no elevated trains for transportation is insane. and Most cities in the USA has far to little public transportation.
Also why a maglev from ny to LA? There are supertrains that haul ass pretty damn good. 24-36 hours from NY to LA is something that people would certianly pay for, and that's only a average of 90mph.
Re:More to it that speed (Score:4, Insightful)
If you buy the paranoia that is...
If you believe that to be true, then the terrorists have won. Air travel is already a complete nightmare. After 6+ years of security threats you'd think that they would be able to come up with better ways of moving people through controlled spaces like airports, but no... they haven't. Lame really.
The "risks" not worth the security measures. That's not freedom. That's not a society worth defending. Try living in the UK for a while, it makes you look at China and envy its liberty.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2, Insightful)
Maglev price is a joke (Score:4, Insightful)
NY-LA is 5x as long, and has the freaking Rocky Mountains in the way. How exactly do they figure the $70bil price, even if it was a conventional high speed and not an exotic maglev?
Trains need land - you want it in your back yard? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, by not waging war all over the world, the chance of being blown up, is reduced drastically. It's a win-win IMNSHO!
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm afraid you're the retarded one. By invading Iraq, we did not save Western civilization, since it was never in jeopardy. Your radical exaggeration is pure hysteria; there is no evidence that western civilization faced any threat from Saddam's Iraq whatsoever. At this point, even the Republicans are reduced to justifying it on humanitarian grounds (laughable as that is on its own terms).
And yes, it is not only non-retarded but necessaryto evaluate an investment by considering what else could be done with the cash instead. This is the economic concept of opportunity cost [wikipedia.org], which is one of the core concepts of basic microeconomics.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
No. I think it is a very valid comparison to make. The fact that Bush has led the US into a $2 trillion war ( *sarcasm* Who cares about lives right? Its the money we've lost that we REALLY care about *sarcasm*) with a country that didn't have WMDs, puts him on the list of either one of the most evil men on this planet, or one of the biggest morons. Either he knew he was lying and did it anyway, or he wasted away thousands of lives and trillions of dollars on his idiotic false accusations.
You cant blame anyone, when s/he wonders what all could have been possible with $2 trillion had we instead decided we wanted to spend it constructively. Had the American people elected someone with atleast average intelligence into the office of President, what could s/he have done with those $2 trillion? Built a transcontinental mag-lev perhaps? Lowered Taxes maybe? Paid off a good chunk of the national debt? Paid for the research of alternative energy? we'll never know. Because we've made a $2 trillion bonfire , and thrown a few thousand people in it for good measure... just to spice it up.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
Put bluntly, it isn't (justified solely on the basis of it's own merits).
You're not making a lot of sense but you seem to be claiming that either the GWOT, as you call it, is so important that it supersedes absolutely everything else or it isn't important at all. This is a false dichotomy. There is no inherent reason why the GWOT can't be of middling importance. Factual observation actually suggests that the GWOT should be of low importance (i.e. a tally of actual fatalities caused by terrorism) but emotional arguments bump it up a bit more.
Anyway, the GWOT is one of many things that the US government could spend money on and it is entirely appropriate to analyze the costs and benefits relative to other possible expenditures.
Re:Maglev price is a joke (Score:2, Insightful)
From A to B. Airplanes can go from one of the hundreds (thousands?) of airports that already exist, and the cost of building a new airport is the same whether it's 100 or 1000 miles away. Beats what, again?
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering the big lies Bush and his cronies used to sell the war, I would like to see the costs of the war declared an odious debt and taken out of their personal accounts (along with the 'lucky' hand picked recipiants of no bid contracts in Iraq). I'm only half kidding here.
If anything, the war in Iraq has been against the interests of the U.S. citizens. We have a big bill, more Arabs than ever hate us (for even better reasons than ever), no end in sight. DHS informs us that we must be more vigillent than ever against terrorism, so we certainly didn't gain safety. The oil isn't flowing, so we didn't even get (however unethical it would be) cheap fuel.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh we see it and we mind, but you seem to think that we are actually in a position to do anything about it. Protests don't do anything when they are made from a First Amendment Zone. [aclu.org] We voted our sorry excuse for an opposition party into power and they didn't stop the war. [go.com] We have attempted to legally address the the deception that paved the way for this war in the first place (see my sig) but that hasn't even appeared in our evening news on a slow news day. None of our viable candidates for the next presidency are willing to pull the troops out. [sfgate.com] You seem to suffer from the misconception that Americans actually have any control or accountability from our government.
How many million a day is it? I cant figure out where the money is going.
It's going to interests owned by the like of The Carlyle Group [wikipedia.org] and Halliburton [wikipedia.org]
Re:And that is why I think that Gates and Buffet a (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:US Could Use a Big Engineering Project (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
And for the poster above who gives the usual slashdot antiwar rant... of what use is a Maglev is some asshat blows it the hell up? Put bluntly, either the GWOT is justified on its own merits or it isn't. Silly comarisons to what else could be done instead with the cash is retarded. If you believe we are in a war for survival against an implacable foe out to destroy Western Civilization and replace it with a Caliphate then price isn't an object, only Victory will suffice; and if you don't believe we are at war then we never should have spent the first dollar.
That's a fine false dichotomy you've got there. What if I believe that Islamic terrorists are likely to cause trouble but that they lack the ability to even approach destroying western civiliation and that for every X people they might kill, we can save 10X people by spending the money on something besides war?
Of course, as it is, I don't believe Iraq was at all relevant to terrorism. By diverting our resources there we actually reduced our chances of catching a known terrorist. Further, a few simple and inexpensive precautions and procedure changes would have given us just as much (or more) security as the TSA and all the new metal detectors and xray machines have.
The reletively modest expendatures for hunting Osama down were probably justifiable.
Times change (Score:2, Insightful)
New York - Washington would be better (Score:5, Insightful)
But a maglev from Washington to New York via Baltimore and Philadelphia would be just over 200 miles, so a maglev going at 300 mph could easily do that in one hour. This would effectively tie these cities together and going between them could become an every day habit for millions. It would make the region the largest metropolitan area in the world and completely transform it.
Re:Times change (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:US Could Use a Big Engineering Project (Score:0, Insightful)
Please note that I think the days of oil are numbered and we should make serious efforts to move to other power sources, encourage telecommuting (which I am lucky enough to do), etc. But allow me to share my perspective on why public transportation sucks beyond belief, and why I won't be taking public transportation anytime soon.
- If I want to go anywhere, at any time of the day or night, I just hop in my car and go.
- If I want to entirely steer clear of bad neighborhoods, I can. I had to leave work early once and drive my car down to pick up my wife and her friend, who were stranded at a McDonald's in downtown LA after the subway dumped her at the wrong stop due to some sort of violent situation at a different stop. She was being hassled by scummy people when I got there and picked them up.
- No one will be getting into my car but me and my friends and family. What you call xenophobia, I call not getting coughed on, not listening to crying babies, not getting hassled for spare change, not having anyone try to rob me, etc. A co-worker of mine even had stories from the San Francisco public transportation system about one homeless guy peeing on someone on the public transit system.
- I don't want to be forced to walk if I don't want to. My wife and I usually walk several miles a few nights a week, just for exercise. However, she recently broke her toe, and it's now painful for her to walk very far for the next few weeks. Luckily that doesn't stop her from driving her car to work and anywhere else she wants to go.
- Everyone does already realize that cars cost a lot of money and that with public transportation you pay as you go. That's why poor people (and a few public transportation zealots) take the bus and most people who can afford to choose to drive cars. The market has spoken, you just don't agree with their choice and want to force your preference on everyone else anyway.
- I'm far less likely to get mugged with my laptop or guitar or just carrying cash in my car than I would be on a long walking journey to the bus stop, a ride on the bus with several stops and possibly transfers, and then another walk from the bus stop on the other side to wherever I'm going. And yes, I know several people who have been mugged, and none of them were in their cars while it happened.
- What if you play in a band or something? How are you supposed to move a guitar and an amp, or a full drum kit, or any large thing that you want to transport if you're riding the bus? What if it's raining?
- What if you like going all sorts of different places, and not only the places that are near a public transportation stop of some sort?
- I've had several friends who have used public transportation instead of having a car at various times over the years. The one common thread is that they all wanted me to give them a ride places on a fairly regular basis. One good friend couldn't ever come over to my house due solely to the inconvenience of taking public transportation, even though there's a bus stop up the street from my house.
Having a car is a quality of life issue. There are a lot of opportunities that are available and even convenient for me that aren't there for you. In return, I pay for the privilege. If public transportation was really so great, you wouldn't have to convince everyone how wrong they were, you'd just naturally see all sorts of smart people from various socioeconomic backgrounds riding the bus. That probably won't happen in my lifetime though.
Re:No way it only costs $70b (Score:3, Insightful)
While I agree the cost would be higher - someone will siphon off the money - you can't really compare the two projects.
The biggest difference would be that the train is above ground - so no need to reinforce the ceiling during construction, and no need to construct a ceiling at all. You also eliminate the need for ventilation, drainage and a lot of other issues you get when working underground. This would greatly increase the speed of the work and eliminate a lot of the cost. Also, you don't need to dig an entire tunnel, you would only need to excavate a few feet for the rail bed, and you don't have to haul the debris from a tunnel - you can just push it to the side. If we decided that the train was a priority, we could simply appropriate one of the Interstates and build on one side of that. Traffic would be heavier on the other 2 lanes, but it would still be usable and we now have our right-of-way and a solid, level foundation for the tracks. The work can also be done a lot faster since it can be done in parallel - you can have each team take a 20-mile section. No need to finish excavating the first part of a tunnel before you can start work on the next part.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
I really doubt the terrorists we're talking about have the ability to make an entire city go FOOM!. The only power that has EVER done that is the U.S. (and we did it TWICE for good measure).
Until the U.S. invaded, there were no terrorists of consequence in Iraq (Saddam didn't like the idea of having people who could depose him around). Terrorists thrive on chaos and anger and we turned Iraq into a fertile field filled with both.
As for terrorists bringing down western civilization, the U.K. survived over a decade of IRA bombs and barely blinked. Israel seems to still be here in spite of the much more serious problems they've had.
You guys better pray to whatever supreme being you worship that you never develop a conscience because all you people will have no honorable option but suicide if you ever develop one; and realize just how much blood (American and Iraqi) is on your hands because you have helped drag this war out for political purposes.
I must have fallen through the looking glass when I got distracted! Had my plan been followed, the war would be over already (by virtue of never getting started). There would have been no bloodshed. The war was never justified. Certainly I'm not the one who fabricated excuse after excuse to invade Iraq (again). Frankly, before Bush was even elected the first time, I predicted that he wouldn't rest until he found some excuse to go to war w/ Iraq if he became president. He performed EXACTLY as I expected/feared.
Perhaps your memory needs a refresher. Bush never said anything about terrorists in Iraq until after the invasion when the WMD rather embarrassingly didn't turn up.
Re:More to it that speed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
So, was Bush misled? I don't think so, I think it's Bush who misled.
Re:Wish List (Score:3, Insightful)
Already there, albeit not in pill form. It's called the "Don't eat more than you need, dumbass" diet and is available free of charge anywhere in the world.
Also, I'd say a diet pill is one of the hardest problems on the list, along with AI and cheating death. You'd have to find a way to cheat on the laws of thermodynamics.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
The parent didn't assert that the US is not at war, they merely questioned the justifications and framing for that war in Iraq - the one which is costing billions of dollars. While I'm sure you'd like to frame it as a war of good against evil, civilised world against backwards caliphate(!), life really isn't that simple. Wars since time immemorial have been justified on those grounds, and it's always been a lie. You have presented no evidence of this so called 'clash of civilisations' - the tenuous link you made to Iraq was refuted by the answers given in this thread. The war in Afghanistan is a very different one to the one in Iraq, started for different reasons, and attempting to portray them both (along with a possible attack on Iran) as some kind of never-ending global war on the same enemy is simply a rhetorical trick designed to deflect criticism. It's on the same level as 'You're either with us or against us'.
The best way to install tyranny is to instil widespread fear of an indefinable, ineffable enemy, ideally with a never-ending war to keep the fear real, and that's exactly what's happening in the US right now. It's time it stopped and real discussions started about what the various wars are actually for, and whether they could ever achieve those goals.
PS The silly taunts about 'lefties' and reading comprehension reveal more about you than your adversaries (imagined or real).