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Futuristic possibilities that were purposely phrased to make them more unlikely

Saturday, November 24, 2012 7:51

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(Before It's News)

From NextBigFuture.com

Tom Murphy is a physicist at UCSD who is pessimistic about technology and in particular radical future technology for space and energy

He phrases a survey to make bias a survey of future technologies to skew towards longer times to fulfill them.

For each question, choices are (and the numbers will play a role):

No Opinion
likely within 50 years
likely within 500 years
likely within 5000 years
likely to happen for humans eventually
unlikely to happen for humans
less 1% likely to ever happen, or impossible

WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE LIKELIHOOD THAT HUMANS CAN.
1. Have widespread personal transport that can replace the task of driving with a fully-automated piloting system (auto-pilot)?

Within six months it seems likely that the first Sky City skyscraper will be built in Changsha. It will be 220 stories tall and have 104 elevators and have 17400 people in apartments but also have retail stores and offices, so that people could frequently commute inside the building.

China Times – On October 30, 2012, at the National Urban Public Transport Working Conference, 14 cities were rated as the first batch of test sites for “Bus City” construction in China, among which were Changsha, Chongqing, Jinan, Wuhan, Kunming and Dalian. This means that the public transportation industry of Changsha City will enter a fast track of development.

As a “Bus City”, it will be constructed to support a comprehensive passenger transport hub, intelligent transportation system, and a public service information system, as well as to encourage, update, and put to use new energy buses and develop supporting service facilities. The goal is, after 5 years of hard work, for urban busline speed to see significant improvement, and for townspeople to be able get to any bus stop by walking less than 500m and transfer from one bus to another in no more than 5 minutes. Buses will then carry 50% of all road users.

It is conceivable that within 5 years that there could be ten or more Sky Cities in Changsha's downtown and an enhanced intelligent transportation system. The need for cars would be eliminated for 500,000 people in one Chinese city and in perhaps 13 others.

Would it be fully automated. The elevators would be automated. Some of the transporation could be. People mover walkways. Automated systems on rails but with a driver in the system just in case. The systems could be enhanced with google driving systems.