#technological progress

[punishedsaints]

[grayrazor]

Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out in 1977. Flight 19 went missing in the Bermuda Triangle in 1945.

If you did a story like that in 2026, it would have the science team find a squadron of planes that disappeared in 1994.

[catandgirlcomic]

History's revenge.

[stromuprisahat]

War by its very nature destroys far more economic value than it creates through innovation. Most economic historians are in agreement here. Truth be told, it’s actually pretty obvious. So why do we think we need violence and death in order to create something new? Sir Henry Tizard was chief scientific advisor to the UK’s Air Ministry and Ministry of Aircraft Production in World War II. As such, he played an important role in the development of everything from radars to jet engines to nuclear power. Sir Tizard’s conclusion, as given in a 1948 speech, was that, with the possible exception of a few specific branches, war didn’t advance science in the slightest. On the whole, he felt that in wartime conditions “the advance of knowledge is slowed.” You blow the world into smithereens, but then succeed in mass-producing penicillin from the devastation. Of course the mass distribution of penicillin was a blessing, but there is no law of nature that states that good can only come of evil in this way. That you must kill six million people to get the Internet—an immense human sacrifice to the gods of technology, who in return reward you with Velcro and radar. Necessity is the mother of invention, the saying goes, but it also helps if she has money. War—or the threat thereof—tends to mobilize states to throw all they have at innovation. Where would we now be had we invested as much into doing something about the climate emergency as we did into the Cold War? Presumably a bit further along the way to a solution. Yet somehow we are mired in this idea that human ingenuity requires some degree of blood and death to kick into action.

Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in an Economy Built for Men (Katrine Marçal)

[andrew-echoes]

This is how French illustrators imagined future technologies in 1924

I've found this picture on the internet and it made me reflect on the contrast between the past and the present. Beck then, people fantasized about the futur, just like we do today but the technology they imagined was very different. In this image, people are connecting with others via massive, strange equipment. In the background there is also what looks like an electric car.

I was born in 1990 and during my childhood there were no mobile phones, computers or electric scooters. I got my first mobile phone in 2006 as a gift from my mom. It only had MMS and SMS with no internet and the camera quality was poor but at the time it felt incredible because we didn't have the advanced gadgets we do now.

Technology has been advancing rapidly. Every year we see new models of phones, better cameras and the internet becoming more powerful. Now, we can not only talk to each other and post on social media but also do countless other things.

Today, we imagine colonizing other planets and people can create images using AI, just as illustrators did 100 years ago with their drawing skills. But now it's simple as typing a few worda and a machine created the picture.

Our descendants 100 or 200 years from now might look at our current creations while sitting on Mars. They'll probably feel surprised and smile, wondering how we could live without the technologies they have in their time.

And what do you think about this?

.

[captaingimpy]

Ghosts in the Machine: The Dead Internet Theory, Cyberpsychosis, and the Decline of Critical Thought

The world of Cyberpunk 2077 has a haunting concept at its core: cyberpsychosis—the mental degradation caused by signal overload and overreliance on cybernetic augmentations. While this may seem like a dystopian exaggeration, the parallels to our own world are striking. In fact, one need only look at the Dead Internet Theory and society’s increasing trust in AI to see how this fiction reflects…

Ghosts in the Machine: The Dead Internet Theory, Cyberpsychosis, and the Decline of Critical Thought

[catofadifferentcolor]

Terrible Fic Ideas #13: Harry Potter, but make it Tudor

As anyone who knows me will tell you, I'm fascinated by domestic history. It's part of why I tend to rewatch Victorian Farm, Tudor Monastery Farm, and the like at least once a year, and why I'm currently reading Judith Flanders' brilliant Inside the Victorian Home.

All of which, naturally, made me wonder: what if the wizarding world really was that backwards? Or more accurately: what if the wizarding world doesn't just look backwards? What if almost everything about it failed to move past, say, the year 1500?

aka the Tudor Style fic

Bear with me:

If you go back and read the accounts of just what it took to maintain a household even as late as 1899, it quickly becomes very clear that magic in place of a small army of servants and/or farm laborers is not only exceptionally efficient, it is possibly the only way to maintain the level of aspiration the guidebooks of the time suggest.

Contrariwise, there is very little that modern technology can do re: housekeeping and/or farm labor can do that magic can do substantially better. (For one example, any muggle has the means to handle any vermin problem that may occur in their home, whereas pre-1900 magic might be the only way to not have a vermin problem.)

Ergo, given the separation between wizards and muggles, its not inconceivable for wizards to believe they truly have it better - and, indeed, are better, because they don't spend half their life living in their own filth &c.

So just imagine what an HP that followed this logic might be like:

Much of the early years at Hogwarts are spent teaching children household and/or farming charms - things students would really have needed to survive even 100 years ago - or things that help build up skills needed to do household charms. As a consequence, the average Third Year student knows spells to black a stove, separate coals from cinders, chop vegetables, keep knives sharp, do the washing, and keep soot and ash in the chimney, but knows very little of magical theory, or indeed how to do much of anything with magic that can't be done as quickly and just as well with modern technology.

In fact, in this universe Third Year is when OWLs are held and is school leaving age for most. After all, only those with means have use for the magical theory and advanced studies that come after, much as how a very small percentage attended university in the Middle Ages.

As a result, most muggleborns and muggle-raised witches and wizards leave Hogwarts after Third Year and return to the muggle world. There's just nothing in it for them, and with how insular everything is only a handful ever realize there's more to magic than enchanting your brooms to sweep themselves. This does not help the opinion most purebloods have of muggles or muggleborns.

I really don't have much, or anything, of a plot beyond this. Mostly I just want to see an HP that, for all anyone in it is concerned, hasn't moved beyond the early Tudor period.

Perhaps that's all the plot would be: Harry reconciling himself to this strange new old world he's found himself in, wherein no one has ever heard of the Church of England (wizards practice a curious syncretism of Catholicism and Celtic paganism, complete with monasteries and the wheel of the year) and still think plagues strike the muggle world with considerable regularity. The Hogwarts Express remains a painful bone of contention between traditionalists and modernists, with most on both sides absolutely certain it's only magic keeping the muggle invention traveling faster than 20 mph and not exploding at any given moment.

In this world, Hermione and her ilk try to explain that the muggle world has advanced - you don't need spells to keep the heat from the fireplaces circulating throughout the room, central heating is a thing; I can just buy my own cheese, I've never seen a cow in my life; &c - but they are very firmly shot down each time, with some professors going so far as to give them detention for telling tales. Only the most stubborn stay even through Third Year to get to the good stuff.

Harry's not overly fond of more cleaning either, but it's better than the Dursleys, and admittedly with his rich Potter background he's shunted into some of the more interesting classes as well - the ones purebloods with house elves to do the cleaning get to take.

The only reason Weasleys do all seven years is because Mrs Weasley has aspirations for her children, even if they rarely follow it.

Voldemort in this universe is a little less I hate muggles than he is I hate that muggles have advanced beyond what magic can do, and therefore I fear them, though he plays into the first to get followers. There're no Horcruxes, just a Voldemort that advocates complete separation of wizarding and muggle, with muggleborns not being allowed to return to their parents after discovering magic - indeed, being taken away from their parents and raised by wizards after the first expression of accidental magic. He also advocates magical research that will keep wizards ahead of the muggles, which his opponents consider Dark or unnecessary or both.

Dumbledore in this universe is the mirror of Voldemort - he too sees that the muggles are clearly outpacing wizards, but his way of handling this is to make the wizarding world seem unthreatening to muggles. He wants to adapt on the surface - Yule to Christmas - and bide their time until the muggles are no longer a threat, either from successful reintegration or superior magics or the inevitable muggle plague that regresses their society. (In his world, there is no doubt wizards will come out ahead, because they've been at this for millennia whereas muggles only just figured out how not to live in their own filth. The average wizard is superior to the average muggle in every way, &c.)

...Okay, I guess there is some plot, but only in as much as failure to notably advance changes the shape of Voldemort's goals.

Bonuses include: 1) coming to terms with Tudor/Victorian clothing, most notably Hermione ranting at how is she supposed to do anything in a thousand skirts, corset, and heels? to which an adult or older student replies, why would a witch need to do anything? Possibly with the addition of physical exertion is dangerous for young women. 2) Harry taking the top of the class in household charms. 3) Ron letting slip that they learn things like magical theory in upper years after Hermione gets frustrated at it's lack, and instead of SPEW Hermione tries to advocate for teaching anything but household magic before most muggleborns drop out. (Nearly everyone in power thinks she's acting above her station, and what kind of witch fails to realize that household spells are the most useful and important magic separating them from muggles anyway?)

That's really all I have - an HP with a culture that's not so much evolved separately as stalled out of lack of need to evolve, and a plotless exploration of those cultural differences. Or maybe a plot concerned with now that we're faced with the need to evolve, how do we do it?

As always, if anyone choses to adopt, please let me know.

More HP Ideas | More Terrible Fic Ideas

[aifyit]

The DARK SIDE of AI : Can we trust Self-Driving Cars?

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Self-driving cars have been hailed as the future of transportation, promising safer roads and more efficient travel. They use artificial intelligence (AI) to navigate roads and make decisions on behalf of the driver, leading many to believe that they will revolutionize the way we commute. However, as with any technology, there is a dark side to AI-powered self-driving cars that must be…

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