Phones doing a good chunk of what computers can
Burning a CD while using your computer for something else in the mean time.
Satellite navigation. In my early childhood we sometimes played a street racing video game that had an arrow pointing the direction on the screen. My mom would remark that she wished she had such an arrow when she drove a car IRL, by now she definitely got that wish.
GPS is now like mini maps in racing games.
Achieving a world record in this day and age, which I have at least one of.
I was laughed at on the playground when I got the idea for wireless charging back in the 90s.
Nikola Tesla was working on proof of concept from 1900 until JP Morgan pulled project funding in 1917.
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“Work from home” for so many jobs.
Which is only possible because of this magic technology to let you see and talk in near real time to anyone, anywhere. Used to be that if your sibling / parent / other family member wasn’t in town, you couldn’t see them in real time at any time, usually just a single / couple times a year at holidays.
Sure calling was a thing, but it’s just different when you can see someone.
Self driving cars.
We are on the early stages currently; ignore what Tesla/musk says; in 10 - 20 years full level 5 autonomy will be common place.
In the 80’s the Cray 1 supercomputer was made, now I have so much more computer power in my pocket its frankly ridiculous. And it’s runs on milliwatts rather than kilowatts.
I’m super curious how they will handle inclement weather where lanes cease to exist. And drive thrus. How will it handle a drive thru fully autonomously?
The fall of America.
Well that was just hubris.
The mortality of my parents. My mind is often stuck in the future of what ifs; but this is an inevitable event that will come sooner or later and it terrifies me. I do my best to cherish the time I’m fortunate to have with them while channeling energy into my own kids. I know it’s the natural cycle of things, but still… Life is hard man.
watching the decline is hard. I thought my dad would live forever. He’s been gone just over a year. My mom probably won’t be around much longer either. Let them tell you as many boring stories as they can.
I know that feeling and you’re not alone. It’s terrifying and I don’t know how others handle it or if everyone just keeps quiet about it or live in ignorance about that fact. Also doesn’t help that I don’t believe in an afterlive.
Everyone grieves in their own way. My mom died when I was 36. My dad died this year. It was really rough for a while when my mom died, it made my alcoholism worse, which lead to me losing my job, which made my alcoholism worse. I had horrible nightmares that I woke up screaming from for about six months. Eventually, with the help of my wife, I put my life back together.
I wasn’t close with my dad, he left when I was young. Pretty much feel the same since he died.
When it happens just do what feels natural. Your loved ones will understand. If you have kids try to explain it to them once you get a good grasp on it yourself. There aren’t any answers at the bottom of a thousand bottles of vodka though, I can promise you that much.
I’m atheist as well. My mom was a severely mentally ill alcoholic and she’s genuinely better off dead. If there was a hell, my dad would be in it, so I’m glad there isn’t. I think it’s more comforting, not less.
A cure for AIDS
Owning my own home. Most of us are just going to be renting for the rest of our lives.
I had a job at the time that let me WFH maybe once every 2-3 weeks and I thought it was crazy generous lol.
Now I’m home virtually every day.
Not to steal the other comment but yeah a swiss army knife of a device that pays for things, browses the internet without running up the phone bill (and I can browse AND talk on the phone at the same time), has games and music, is a flashlight, etc.
But most importantly a name change. I thought it was impossible or extremely hard but it wasn’t. Just write, pay $65, pay $12, send the documents to wherever, and that’s it.
In my pocket I carry a library of Alexandria, an infinite Walk-man, a camera and a camcorder with effectively infinite film, a personal navigator… You get the idea, the list goes on. 80s me would have thought this was impossible, even if I am a bit disappointed about the flying car and hoverboard situation.
WW3
I’ve realised, over time, that we got to be species number 1 through near statistically impossible odds that is only achievable by being the most brutally effective in the game of evolution.
And millions of years of nature doesn’t just go away when you’re declared the winner. It is in our nature to dominate through all means possible, else we wouldn’t be here. It’s not so much that we want war, we need it; our nature is founded on it. When there is nothing left on the planet to defeat, we turn on ourselves to scratch the itch.
The catch is the other half of our nature is focused on domination of the species. We protect each other for the greater good as much as we kill for the greater good. That’s our human nature; that’s how we got here. So after a war we feel awful and promise to never do it again, but then the itch of being number 1 reappears and there’s nothing else to scratch it with because we conquered everything else.
Our known history affirms that the end-game of evolution is a never ending cycle of masturbating to awful shit, feeling ashamed, and just doing it again once the shame is overridden by the urge. “Never again” we say, every fucking time.
Edit: That’s why I also love the self-proclaimed “lefties” camp always misappropriating the philosophical Paradox of Tolerance on here—like it’s not misappropriately used by the other camps. Ironically all just proving the paradox true. Camp vs camp. Tribe vs tribe. The itches and scratches, Oblivious to human nature doing as it does best. To progress is to win by all means possible. This is our way.
Edit Edit: And no I’m not picking on you kids specifically. Look at Tall Poppy Syndrome, Soapboxes, why communism never works, why capitalism never works; all the other ideologies we think up to break the cycle and try fast forward our evolution in vain. They all end with with someone or something taking power for a brief moment, before they’re targetted to be cut down by the nature of others trying to instill their idea, how they want it, how they insist all others will want and should have it. Power.
True. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to break the cycle. Although we are heading towards another great conflict, we are currently in an era with less hunger, more education, and less poverty throughout the world than ever before. We clearly did something right. Let’s try to do even better in the future. Lets evolve, step by step, cause that Is was are good at!
Oh, yeah. We definitely keep trying to break the cycle, else we’ll all be extinguished at some point. It won’t be broken in the near future, but over many generations of each doing their part, it will eventually evolve into something better; the old perks of the species no longer relevant or needed, eventually evolved out.
Whether or not we can survive ourselves in the meantime is a whole new hurdle in our path.
Avoiding nuclear war long enough to destroy the world with our normal economic activity.
