How Close are we to the end of the tech tree?

How Close are we to the end of the tech tree?

  • 10%

    Votes: 6 60.0%

  • 25%

    Votes: 2 20.0%

  • 50%

    Votes: 1 10.0%

  • 75%

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 90%

    Votes: 1 10.0%

  • 95%

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 99%

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    10
J

JagerIV

Well-known member
An important thing to consider for thinking about the future is how far we are from "peak" technology. How much room is there for further improvement? How different is the future likely to be? Are there many more technological revolutions in the future, or mostly just small, incremental improvements?

For example, if your setting uses internal combustion engines, by our current understanding of physics were already pretty close to the theoretical limits: a heat engine operating within a certain temperature range have pretty hard limits on what it can do, and were pretty close to the limits of what that technology can do. Likewise with a lot of other well developed Newtonian machines: there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of room for improvements.

Then there are technologies like Computers that still have a lot of room for improvements, but we seem to be fairly far through in seeing a lot of the extent of its revolutionary improvements.

Then we have things like Quantum computing, which its very hard to tell whether or not it will be revolutionary or mostly represent an incremental improvement.

A complicating factor of course in all this is that everything is connected, which means that last 1% of technology discovered could radically change everything else. For example, if the only practical outcome of Quantum computing is that most modern security codes are null and void, electric keys being made breakable at will radically changes all the logic of the Internet as it exists if secure connections are not viable. And killing things like online banking has a whole bunch of other nock on effects.

So, how close to the "end of the tech tree" do you think we are right now?
 
For what it's worth, it feels like a lot of people believe we're towards the end of the tech tree right now.
 
Even in a world at peace and economic stability, as unlikely as that is, there will almost always be scientists and engineers trying to find a way to make things more convenient, cheaper and accessible

Hell, finding that a sexbot costs a few thousand would piss some people off on the basis that its still a few thousand when they’ll want it to cost so much less
 
We haven't even really started on it yet. A percent or two (if that) really.

Seriously, give it a few centuries are today will basically be considered prehistory. Once we have self sustaining populations off of Earth and a self sustaining & redundant infrastructure base off planet (both are possible within decades of now, not centuries); humanity becomes virtually impossible to render extinct and everything changes.
 
JagerIV said:
For example, if your setting uses internal combustion engines, by our current understanding of physics were already pretty close to the theoretical limits: a heat engine operating within a certain temperature range have pretty hard limits on what it can do, and were pretty close to the limits of what that technology can do. Likewise with a lot of other well developed Newtonian machines: there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of room for improvements.
Click to expand...
As you said, some things are connected. Not a whole lot, but with material science advances, well, while we can't get more energy out of a given amount of fuel due to said thermodynamic issues, it's possible to have an smaller and lighter engine do the burning through the same fuel pretty efficiently.

Likewise, that's a moot point. It's like living in the 1400's and saying that swords aren't going to get much better in the future than they are now. Which technically would be correct...
But in general terms, meaningless.
As such, while internal combustion engines may not be getting much better, other alternatives that are hardly viable or don't exist yet may well improve/show up. For example we know for a fact that the "nuclear technology" branch of our tree has plenty of stuff on it left mostly unexplored, for cost/engineering/lack of necessity reasons. Future events and even minor "optimization" advances in other areas may change the calculation on many of these things.

Another branch that is barely opened is sci fi grade biotechnology - it's just about replicating what biology already does, with more control for tweaking/modifying/improving/replacing pieces of it, it's no question whether what we want is made possible by laws of the universe, it's just a question of how. Plenty of people theorize that a biotech revolution will be the next big thing after the information technology revolution.
 
Add "1/∞ " as an option and I'll vote for it. Godel's Incompleteness theorem guarantees that the laws of physics are uncountable. The laws of physics are not only infinite, but the largest form of infinite that we have been able to prove to be valid.
 
Interestingly, there are precedents for futuristic technologies being imagined or anticipated centuries before they become a reality. Leonardo de Vinci and Francis Bacon both predicted aircraft, for example.

And someone in the late classical period imagined paddle-wheel ships:
images
 
Scottty said:
Interestingly, there are precedents for futuristic technologies being imagined or anticipated centuries before they become a reality. Leonardo de Vinci and Francis Bacon both predicted aircraft, for example.

And someone in the late classical period imagined paddle-wheel ships:
images
Click to expand...
Which is neat and all, but such things are really only relevant in hindsight; there is no shortage of people predicting what fantastical technology we might invent in the future.
 
Frankly, I'd worry less about reaching the top of the tech tree, than about modern civilization losing the ability to climb higher up the tree due to loss of the things that make such progress possible.
 
Say, in the first place IRL who even believes technological innovation is stopping or slowing down?

Because I’m betting they’re a bunch of environmentalist-champagne-socialist douchebags who essentially say that advancements in tech won’t come or help the environment and that advances in technology only benefit the rich and stuff

That said, for environmentalists, to a degree I can see where they are coming from

People forget that our digital devices whilst taking up less and less physical space and don’t need trees for their pages, still take up constant energy

The internet and those data storage housing all run near 24/7 and need power to work and getting the material to make those digital storages requires mining

Being green isn’t easy, but we can try maximizing the fuel we use. Like not needing a butthole because we use up all the food as energy and somehow using the waste as an extra energy store....yes its a weird idea but efficient body
 
CarlManvers2019 said:
Being green isn’t easy, but we can try maximizing the fuel we use. Like not needing a butthole because we use up all the food as energy and somehow using the waste as an extra energy store....yes its a weird idea but efficient body
Click to expand...

That's not green, that's flat-out transhumanist. Do you want to upload your mind to a robot body that's powered by total conversion of matter to energy?

Not good for the environment.
 
Scottty said:
That's not green, that's flat-out transhumanist. Do you want to upload your mind to a robot body that's powered by total conversion of matter to energy?

Not good for the environment.
Click to expand...

I was thinking more genetic modification that sort of manages this: Body Supremacy

And if we ever become cyborgs, I expect them to be extremely energy efficient, maybe using nanotechnology that absorbs sunlight like a plant in order to survive
 
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