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Possible Dreams

We're rapidly killing the Earth, but there's also a lot of great work taking place. We're close to realising some very cool technology and discoveries. I'd love to see significant progress on the UN's seventeen Sustainable Development Goals, but here are a few others I want to call us out on:

I want to live long enough to see humans translate Linear A, discover extraterrestrial life, invent super-intelligent AI.

I want to test out an exoskeleton that multiplies my strength and speed. I want to see working theories of consciousness and quantum gravity.


I want to see ubiquitous robots and universal 3D printers, and a cure for cancer and dementia.


I want to see the resolution of dark matter and high-res images of exoplanets. I want to see humans return to the moon (go China!) and the utilisation of the lunar ice to make rocket fuel.


I want to see human on Mars and the affordable mass human spaceflight (hopefully awesome spaceplanes).


I want to witness the beginning of colonisation of Solar System, quantum computing and flying cars.


Let's see an ice-penetrating probe landing on Europa and plumbing the sub-ice ocean.


And industrial production of carbon nanotubes, hopefully leading to a space elevator, and space stations around the Earth and moon, and Lagrange points, with rotating artificial-gravity sections.


Seriously let's see open-source biotech, augmentation of human intelligence, cheap photovoltaic solar cells and programmable matter.


This is an absolute must: the cleaning-up of the oceans. Let's build biodegradable robots that will into every corner of the seven seas, and digest the crap the Baby Boomers have tossed into them.

 

And why can't we control machinery by thought, fly across the world in hypersonic aircraft (or Elon's rockets)?

 

I want every country spanned by power grids dominated by renewable energy.


Finally, let's build computers that design their next generation. Some pundits are preaching fear of the technological singularity, but I say let's bring it on. Super-smart AI can solve the environmental problems, if it wants to. And it won't replace us - we will imperceptibly merge with it.


And here are a few (impossible) personal dreams of mine, nurtured since childhood:


Gold and silver bullion kept in a vault with a massively thick steel door - hey I like shiny things!


A private spacecraft, like the Rocinante, that follows my voice commands.


Any self-driving electric car - goodbye traffic lights!


To go to Mars as part of the first generation to create a new world - hey it's a dream!


My own personal flying car (ideally supersonic).


An underground bunker in the desert, filled with years of supplies, and perhaps also with weapons and ammunition to keep the bastards at bay. I'm in the UK, so we never get to own guns!


Are there any dreams you've nurtured, regardless of their seeming impossibility? Drop me a message.