this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
104 points (99.1% liked)

Asklemmy

44153 readers
1171 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy πŸ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 92 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Bluetooth that works. The ability to email large files. Low cost broadband. The right to repair. Not lose the ownership of digital media.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago

Digital media just kills me. Back in the CD and DVD days I sent back a bunch of discs that were too scrarched to use and i would get coupons to replace them. Often times the publishers included an extra one just because they didn't want you to pirate stuff. Buying physical media meant you licensed it even when you physically couldn't so they were compelled to solve the problem.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago

Also printers that work

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 57 points 2 months ago (1 children)
  • open source software that pays for contributions
  • privacy laws that protect people against corporations
  • living wage
  • end of sexism and mysoginy
  • global democracy
[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

This one hits different

[–] [email protected] 52 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago

#FUCKcars

Land of the freeβ„’.

You're free to choose anything you want as long as the shareholders benefit.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not backsliding into feudalism?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

You don't like the extra steps we added?

[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Not a particular technology, but I really had a little bit of hope that we’d be able to tackle climate change like we tackled ozone depletion due to CFCs/HCFCs/HFCs with the Montreal Protocol.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yes what the fuck happened? As a planet, we came together to end CFCs but now everyone just shrugs and says, "nah"

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

One problem is a bit easier then the other. No one's economy is entirely based around CFCs and CFCs have excellent alternatives.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 months ago (1 children)

From the perspective of a kid in the 70s, I thought for sure some level of space colonization, whether it be a Moon colony or O'Neill type settlements. Along with that would be moving industry into space to tap unlimited resources and allow the Earth to heal.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

more international cooperation for global benefit. instead we have more profit taking from everyone

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Something, anything in the freaking moon.

Why haven't we been back there in, like, 50 years? That mission was done with computers that were less powerful than my stupid phone.

Anything, a telescope, a transmitter of I-don't-know-what shit, a lunar farm, a Coca-Cola or Disney advertising, ANYTHING!

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 months ago

Universal Healthcare.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I grew up in the '80s. I was expecting either nuclear annihilation or cities on the moon.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Advanced cybernetics. From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel.

It's saddening to see the slow slow progress of cybernetics.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago (6 children)

First we sent small animals into space: a dog, then monkeys.

After that: people.

And then we stopped. I expected that we would have sent cows, horses, maybe even hippos or elephants by now.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (4 children)

A blue whale would be impressive.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (3 children)

The one thing I feel deprived of, is the proper sci fi aesthetic in our devices.

The beeps, the switches, the UI. All forsaken for an asinine black mirror .

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago

I'm more concerned with the things we had a few years ago that are now gone, and the new fascist hand me downs that are popping up everywhere.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Honestly thought I'd see more phones, with desktop modes, replace laptops in day to day life.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Fully automated luxury communism

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

I thought surely by now autocorrect would not still be horribly wrong in its predictions

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Laptops with good build quality, I mean the type of build quality Thinkpads used to have

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I'm just mad as hell at how many things seem to have topped out in the 1940's. My car is basically the same. Five wheels and I chase an explosion around. Air travel is basically the same. Big aluminum tube that's expensive size as hell. TV is basically the same. Tune in, sit on ass, watch.

You look at how life changed between 1900-1945, and how life changed since then, and we've really stagnated.

That's not to say it's all the same, phones are amazing, but they don't change my life fundamentally, a day without my phone is very much the same as a day with my phone.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

I think we've still made amazing progress, just in different areas. For example, communication. In the 40s, if you were in the US and needed to contact someone in, say, Australia, the options would either be to send a letter and wait maybe weeks or months for a response, or possibly a prohibitively expensive phone call.

Nowadays you could click two buttons and have a six-hour HD video conversation if you wanted to, essentially for free. And you could send them documents, videos, money, whatever you want basically instantly. Heck, if you really wanted to you could both create realistic 3D avatars and hang out in VR if that's your thing lol

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Still waiting for my personal jetpack and/or flying car

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

Most people can't be trusted operating a ground-dwelling vehicle, I'm fine with not having flying ones yet.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

A more civilized, earth friendly, peaceful world working for the common good.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

The utilization of global powers to collaborate and defeat climate change before the doom clock hits zero.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

The Bell Riots.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The virtual reality you used to see in movies or on TV where you would put on a helmet and actually enter it and have full movement capabilities. Something like that one episode of Batman The Animated Series where Commissioner Gordon goes into the Riddler's computer and gets trapped or just about any other cliche, dumb way they portrayed VR back then.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] targetx 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

I recently played HL2 again and it's still awesome.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Fiber to the Home Internet connectivity that was paid for 30 years ago.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Wisecracking robots who drink alcohol.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

High speed rail.

It's insane Amtrak is the best we got. You should be able to go from Orlando to New York in hours, cheaply.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Universal Healthcare

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Flying cars and hover boards

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Antigravity looked like the clear favourite for scientists, but then they all went into astronomy and the age of the universe.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

A functional healthcare system.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Private jet packs, flying cars, robot butlers, implantable cybernetic upgrades, a cure for baldness, affordable and safe space flight, free healthcare, a future that doesn't look like the love child of Idiocracy and Demolition Man.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Providing for the needs of all.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Hoverboards, RePet and a hangover cure

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

I don't remember ever expecting much.

load more comments
view more: next β€Ί