• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.
  • Do you have audio editing experience and want to help out with the Famiboards Discussion Club Podcast? If so, we're looking for help and would love to have you on the team! Just let us know in the Podcast Thread if you are interested!

Discussion These were all dreamed up ages ago...we should've had ONE of them by now.

Oscillator

Moblin
Volumetric holograms
Invisibility cloaks
Handheld laser guns/Non-mechanical stun guns ("blasters"/"phasers")
Time travel
Force fields
Teleportation
Telekinesis
Mind reading
Remote viewing
Lightspeed/faster than light travel
Practical flying cars
Any-surface hoverboards
Perpetual motion machines
Uncanny humanoid robots
Practical transmutation ("replicators")
Fusion power
Hypersonic air travel
Lightsabers
Interplanetary travel
Shrinking/enlarging machines

A scant few of these are 'in the pipeline', but none are yet in peoples hands.

There's little useful ground-up innovation left in the world. Pretty much everything we use in our everyday lives was invented by 1970, and has just been iterated on since.
 
Fun to go through this list and figure out how all of these things would be used for evil.
 
I mean...we got the hyper intelligent AI

hal9000-im-sorry-dave.gif
 
You got hand held computers super charging the rise of the megacorp instead.

Turns out that writing about things that break physics doesn't make reality want to change at all
 
0
That's not how light works

That's not how light works

That's not how light works

That's not how light works

That's not how light works
Invisibility cloaks are kind of a thing actually, just currently only useable for a very narrow part of the spectrum.
 
I think the ones we'll get first, based on public news I've seen about research and projects, are the robots, fusion power, and mind reading.

A lot of these might be possible but would be at least a century away, if we make it that far.
 
0
This would allow me to see things in my mind? That's so cool.
It’s pseudoscience new age stuff that was dressed up as something potentially quantifiable for US military applications (at an immense cost in time and resources), but the history of the attempts to legitimise it is interesting
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing
The idea of remote viewing received renewed attention in the 1990s upon the declassificationof documents related to the Stargate Project, a $20 million research program sponsored by the U.S. government that attempted to determine potential military applications of psychic phenomena. The program ran from 1975 to 1995, and ended after evaluators reached the conclusion that remote viewers consistently failed to produce any actionable intelligence information
Jon Ronson did some interviews around the US military’s interest in psychic phenomena for his book ‘The Men Who Stare At Goats’ which was later turned into a film. Although I’m sure there’s more in-depth analysis, Ronson’s book is very entertaining, probably as his disarming friendly approach got some honest answers from people too old to care too much anymore.
 
Last edited:
It’s pseudoscience new age stuff that was dressed up as something potentially quantifiable for US military applications (at an immense cost in time and resources), but the history of the attempts to legitimise it is interesting
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing
ahhh so this is where the iraq war came from, they had a that's so raven vision of nukes
 
ahhh so this is where the iraq war came from, they had a that's so raven vision of nukes

‘Remote viewing’ in the sense of ‘the chance that anyone actually viewed any evidence of WMDs was pretty fucking remote’.
 
Flying cars would be amazing if people could be trusted.

And they can't be.
Flying cars would be impossible in our world today. Even if they could start vertically and would be quieter than a drone. Starting with no one wanting them flying over their house regardless of how safe they would be and ending with that we would only relocate our traffic problems to the sky.

Personally I think the future of transportation will be smaller, more efficient / environment friendly planes for up to 100-200 people in connection with high-speed middle distance+regional trains and self driving taxis. At least when I ignore the car dependency in the US.
 
Flying cars would be impossible in our world today. Even if they could start vertically and would be quieter than a drone. Starting with no one wanting them flying over their house regardless of how safe they would be and ending with that we would only relocate our traffic problems to the sky.

People don't mind planes/helicopters/hot air balloons, why would flying cars suddenly be a no-no?

I see practical flying cars as being largely, if not entirely computer driven. With a minimum height limit, maximum speed limit, automatic collision avoidance. Also only being able to take off/land from mini-airports, perhaps the size of a parking lot, located in each neighborhood.
 
People don't mind planes/helicopters/hot air balloons, why would flying cars suddenly be a no-no?

I see practical flying cars as being largely, if not entirely computer driven. With a minimum height limit, maximum speed limit, automatic collision avoidance. Also only being able to take off/land from mini-airports, perhaps the size of a parking lot, located in each neighborhood.

The standards for who can get the ability to fly a plane/helicopter over residential areas would be significantly more stringent than those of a car that the general public could get access to.

And despite that, the number of helicopter accidents that occur are higher relative to the number of hours typically flown, because that third dimension is a dangerous one.
 
That's not how light works
Well...we have volumetric hologram prototypes.
They are not projected into simple air (like the OP probably thought), but we have them.
refraction, tiny dust particles, fast moving physical light sources.
Some of them work better then others. and technically if you have a cube with 4-6 light field displays you can approximate a volumetric hologram in experience.

(But yeah, OP probably meant the straight into thin air projected, those wont be possible)

In regards to flying cars:




Going through the list...

Volumetric holograms - Kinda possible
Invisibility cloaks - kinda possible
Handheld laser guns/Non-mechanical stun guns ("blasters"/"phasers") - as it currently stands not really
Time travel - nope
Force fields - magnetic? at least now we only. the other 3 fundamental forces dont seem to be usable for somethign like that...so no
Teleportation - no
Telekinesis - no
Mind reading - ...no? we struggle to get reasonably usable and sophisticated data out of our brains as is, reading another persons brain? that's wired completly differently? no chance.
Remote viewing - ....cameras? other then that, no
Lightspeed/faster than light travel - no
Practical flying cars - see the linked video
Any-surface hoverboards - same as force fields, there is no force that universally engages, and creating a pressure that's strong enough to lift you on any surface -> a ton of heat and energy is needed
Perpetual motion machines - by definition not possible
Uncanny humanoid robots - there we can get in the future i assume..
Practical transmutation ("replicators") - nope
Fusion power - eh , maybe well figure it out
Hypersonic air travel - Even Supersonic was scraped because its kinda pointless (Condord)
Interplanetary travel - if then in the faaar future.
Shrinking/enlarging machines - nope
 
Last edited:
0


Back
Top Bottom