technologically speaking, How far are we really?

Often on this and other boards, I hear talk about the military and members of the industrial military complex having inventions and back-engineered devices that far exceed what we as common folk would consider modern.
I've heard said that we can already cross to other dimensions and that we already have plans to colonize other planets.
There's talk of holographic technology that would mimic hostile extraterrestrials and cause us to fear alien conquest to the point that we would ceed all control to the one world government that could protect us.
I wonder just how much actual far reaching technology we do possess.
I've also heard that what ever is commercially available, military technology is 40 years farther.
any thoughts?

We are where ATLANTIS left off, developmentally.Interesting times were in now we will have the Spiritual Aptitude not to erase ourselves.

[edit on 14-6-2007 by menguard]

These links might help ya out..

Wiki: Accelerating Change

In futures studies and the history of technology, accelerating change is a perceived increase in the rate of technological (and sometimes social and cultural) progress throughout history, which some claim suggests faster and more profound change in the future.

Wiki: Technological Singularity

The Technological Singularity is the hypothesized creation, usually via AI or brain-computer interfaces, of smarter-than-human entities who rapidly accelerate technological progress beyond the capability of human beings to participate meaningfully in said progress.

I think we're close to the "singularity"

IIB has some great information, here's some threads:
Beyond Conspiracy: Artificial General Intelligence (Newsletter Special)
DARPA's iXo Artificial Intelligence Control Grid

The trouble with the Singularity is that the cost of the tech advance increases with each iteration.

For example:
A modern fighter plane may be massively advanced compared to a WW2 fighter, but they cost a Billion dollars each to make.

A 5Ghz Pentium CPU requires a massively expensive factory to produce, compared to an old 4Mhz 8086 chip.
The curve upwards in tech is tempered by the curve upwards in cost in money and also Human capability.

When the Singularity idea was first brought up, it was supposed to kick in, well, about now, but I can't see it happening soon.

Originally posted by menguard
We are where ATLANTIS left off, developmentally.Interesting times were in now we will have the Spiritual Aptitude not to erase ourselves.

[edit on 14-6-2007 by menguard]

I don't agree fully with that, After all Atlanteans we capable of much more than the meer eat sleep, work, follow orders routine that much of todays general population lives by. After all they did create a star gate capable of intergalactic travel to plains never to heard of by the tounge of a simple minded civilization as we are. The likes of which is stored at the bottom of the sea under 1 of the 12 devil's triangles. Most likely to be the bramuda triangle, now in control of by the US military black ops. While we on the other hand have only mastered the skill of cooking with a microwave crystal; the Atlanteans were storing mass amounts of data, performed healing, and mass producing free energy. However I believe the answer to the original question is 7 years behind Europe, which is 7 years behind Asia, which is 7 years ahead of what they publicly announce. Unless you are counting the technology which is not of this Earth, then around 4,000 years behind the rest of the Universe. Much of which is lost in time.

LOL, did ya'll just make up all that crap on Atlantis??

I thought this was going to be a decent thread
discussion about REAL technological advancements.

emjoi,
I agree with what you say, but I believe we're
just years (single digit years) away from the singularity.
I truly don't believe the "costs" are a real issue for a
Gov't bent on getting what it wants, ya know.
Did you read the following?

Beyond Conspiracy: Artificial General Intelligence (Newsletter Special)

....Futurists such as Ray Kurzweil, who is a DARPA shill, promote this theory as a matter of fact that will occur over the next 30 years. However, Kurzweil's whitewashed version plots AGI as something which will come from the Singularity, while completely avoiding the truths about the government � Google full scale operations in reaching the goal of AGI. This is an important element because actual AGI experts, such as Dr. Ben Goertzel, who is himself a government shill, say that the Singularity will be reached through the success of achieving AGI first. The logic is simple, as once there's powerful AGI working with and combining the already present human efforts in science R&D, the rate of acceleration will already surpass LoAR from the outset.

To answer the question, how far are we,
I would say pretty damn close to something HUGE.

Well, yeah, the trick with Singularity is that the intelligence driving it has to also advance exponentially.... which means a working, self redesigning, Artificial Intelligence.

Once that is created, things will get weird.
But I'm not one for "Secret Government..." style conspiracies, so from what I see it's a tough game to actually produce an AI. Much tougher than people 20 years ago thought it would be. And we aren't anywhere near one yet.

Originally posted by parry noid

Originally posted by menguard
We are where ATLANTIS left off, developmentally.Interesting times were in now we will have the Spiritual Aptitude not to erase ourselves.

[edit on 14-6-2007 by menguard]

I don't agree fully with that, After all Atlanteans we capable of much more than the meer eat sleep, work, follow orders routine that much of todays general population lives by. After all they did create a star gate capable of intergalactic travel to plains never to heard of by the tounge of a simple minded civilization as we are. The likes of which is stored at the bottom of the sea under 1 of the 12 devil's triangles. Most likely to be the bramuda triangle, now in control of by the US military black ops. While we on the other hand have only mastered the skill of cooking with a microwave crystal; the Atlanteans were storing mass amounts of data, performed healing, and mass producing free energy. However I believe the answer to the original question is 7 years behind Europe, which is 7 years behind Asia, which is 7 years ahead of what they publicly announce. Unless you are counting the technology which is not of this Earth, then around 4,000 years behind the rest of the Universe. Much of which is lost in time.

Answer:We took a different route with technology as oppose to Earth Science, which is based on more Spiritualy inclined productivity.Do we have the same technology, yep just from a different arrival, through a different equation.

Our technology is in it's baby phase still IMO. I think science will have to re-invent itself at many points, as our understanding of the universe is still forming itself.

It would be nice to talk to some other people from other planets, to use as a measuring stick for technology. Untill we know where other civilizations were at certain points in time, it will be tough to get a grasp on just how far along we are.

Considering the fact that Egyptians were spiritually attuned AND had batteries, I'd say not very far at all. If anything, we've fallen backwards.

What the F*** is a shill? I see this word being used, but am unaware of what it means.

Well, hopefully we won't screw anything up so we can see. That's why I want to avoid WWIII

Originally posted by Mukiwa
What the F*** is a shill? I see this word being used, but am unaware of what it means.

Dictionary.com
type in "shill"


I don't how some say we haven't come
that far from past civilizations, when they
aren't even around anymore..

Atlanteans (if they were real)? Egyptians? Romans? etc..
Where are they now?... Dead, long gone.
I'm not saying present civilizations aren't
heading that way, but to deny our recent
advancements is naive.

Originally posted by emjoi
But I'm not one for "Secret Government..." style conspiracies, so from what I see it's a tough game to actually produce an AI. Much tougher than people 20 years ago thought it would be. And we aren't anywhere near one yet.

Its not really a "Secret Government" thing,
its public access, we don't hear much about it
because the media doesn't cover it.

This was one of the threads I was looking for:
DARPA AI .mil & more

I think they're closer than you think.

freddieb,

I think you actually have the wrong end of the stick.

Because of the time it takes to get major items of military equipment such as aircraft from concept to in service, much of the equipment on board is totally out of date with contemporary technology.

Somewhere in the process of designing, say a fighter, the equipment and avionics design has to be frozen (that is why current designs have this element delayed) and once that's done, you can't keep upgrading the design as advances occur.

Some years ago the Canadians wanted to update their Air Traffic Control System (a task that typically takes about 10 years from design to completion). During that period they constantly changed the requirements as technology evolved, which made more work, extended the time taken to do the job and because of the escalating cost, eventually had to complete abandonment. You have to freeze the requirements as a certain stage or the job doesn't get done.

So, you can see that with the design of a fighter - for instance Eurofighter Typhoon, which has taken around 20 years to come to fruition - that by the time it comes into service, your household computer will have far more power.

The designers attempt to take much of that into account by trying to design around capabilities that don't actually exist at the moment (but for which there is a trend). Sometimes it works, and sometimes it don't!

The Winged Wombat

[edit on 17/6/07 by The Winged Wombat]

As far as the general public is aware of we have (State of the Art):
Prototype Fusion
Genetic Engineering
Primitive Nano Technology
Magnetic Data Storage
Maglev Trains
Jets
Electric Automobiles
Primitive Space Travel
Directed Energy Weapons
Microwave Communication
OLED Displays
+more...

What I think we may have underwraps:
Anti-Grav and/or Electrostatic Engines
Quantum Computers
Atmospheric Manipulators (HAARP)

industrial military complex having inventions and back-engineered devices that far exceed what we as common folk would consider modern.
I've heard said that we can already cross to other dimensions and that we already have plans to colonize other planets.
There's talk of holographic technology that would mimic hostile extraterrestrials and cause us to fear alien conquest to the

Yet the US military get blown up daily by IEDs made from decades old tech - why do you think this is? What are the military doing with this sci-fi stuff? Why can't they even shoot a missile out of the air?

I don't agree fully with that, After all Atlanteans we capable of much more than the meer eat sleep, work, follow orders routine that much of todays general population lives by. After all they did create a star gate capable of intergalactic travel

Yet according to Plato (the only source of information on Atlanta) they were defeated by the Athenians who would have been using bronze age weapons (ie spears). Perhaps their Stargate was out-of-order that day.

We are really less advanced than we think. A Singularity is a long way off. Our most powerful supercomputers can simulate 10% of a mouse brain for 1 second!

source

No need to worry about something with the brainpower of a lobotomised mouse taking over the world.

We are probably advancing much slower than we actually think. We haven't invented anything significant, in the last 50 years. Even the internet is just an expansion of an already existing telecommunications network. We have got very good at making things smaller, faster and lighter but nobody has invented anything as revolutionary as the internal combustion engine or the computer in decades.

But the more we invent, the less that remains (Unless you have people with a very extreme imagination).

I mean, i'm sure you can think of new inventions, but wouldn't they just be modified things of existing inventions, or things that we know of already?

Try inventing something that doesn't exist, neither on fiction nor in reality.
A color, for example. Show me a color that we do not know of yet.

[edit on 18/6/07 by -0mega-]

The Greatest invention to date lies INSIDE mankind.That soul engages more pesonality traits through things/lives existing then anything known to man.

[edit on 18-6-2007 by menguard]

[edit on 18-6-2007 by menguard]

Here are other advances in technology.

LEDs

superconductivity

computer chips

fiber optics

lasers

gene-splicing therapy

cloning

night-vision equipment

Stealth technology

particle beam devices

aerospace ceramics

gravity control flight

Originally posted by parry noid

Originally posted by menguard
We are where ATLANTIS left off, developmentally.Interesting times were in now we will have the Spiritual Aptitude not to erase ourselves.

[edit on 14-6-2007 by menguard]

I don't agree fully with that, After all Atlanteans we capable of much more than the meer eat sleep, work, follow orders routine that much of todays general population lives by. After all they did create a star gate capable of intergalactic travel to plains never to heard of by the tounge of a simple minded civilization as we are. The likes of which is stored at the bottom of the sea under 1 of the 12 devil's triangles. Most likely to be the bramuda triangle, now in control of by the US military black ops. While we on the other hand have only mastered the skill of cooking with a microwave crystal; the Atlanteans were storing mass amounts of data, performed healing, and mass producing free energy. However I believe the answer to the original question is 7 years behind Europe, which is 7 years behind Asia, which is 7 years ahead of what they publicly announce. Unless you are counting the technology which is not of this Earth, then around 4,000 years behind the rest of the Universe. Much of which is lost in time.

not trying to be mean but

Are you kidding, and do you believe you what your saying?
if your answers are no and yes, respectively, then id have to disagree with your statment. This being because youd be speaking about the technology of a place that hasnt been discovered or even proven real, knowledge you cant possibly possess.