Soonish

Soonish is a humourous take on the technology we can expect to see in the near future. It focuses on "almost there" technologies (like fusion) and describes how close (or far away) we are from seeing them in our lives. The book is made to be easily accessible and includes plenty of brief cartoons illustrating the points. Each of the sections contains a description of the current state as well as where we will be going and concerns we may have. Each technology appears to be thoroughly researched via literature review as well as personal interviews with key contributors. In addition, the final chapter includes shorter summaries of technologies didn't quite make the cut for the book.
While the focus is on the "optimistic" side of new technology development, the ethical and pessimistic side also comes in play. Programmable matter sounds great when we talk about assembling the tool we need right when we need it. However, if a hacker could cause the matter to suddenly transform into a destructive weapon, we could be in big trouble. Similarly, what if that new "smart limb" could be controlled by an external party. Robotic construction could eliminate many of the good blue collar jobs, leading to greater income inequality. Synthetic biology could result enable all sorts of terrorism opportunities. And interfacing a brain with a computer? Well, it does not take much effort to think of the negative possibilities there. This book would be a great source for all sorts of science fiction scenarios.
Some of the technologies described in the book will probably never become a significant part of our lives, while others will gradually seep into general acceptance. However, guessing which ones will make it is a difficult task. Lets just hope we don't cause a disaster by rushing too fast into the "wrong" technologies.

Physics of the Future

This book would make a great source of inspiration for science fiction novels. There are chapters here about energy from space, nuclear fusion, nanobots and all sorts of technology. The author even peppers the book with actual science fiction allusions. (Star Trek - money? What's that. Nanobots can make everything. However, an emotionless android would not be capable of being a good crew member. Honey I shrunk the Kids? Nope, physics would be totally different at the small level. Terminator? AI research is probably a long way off from getting a senscient computer.)

The book's fault is that it seems to be extremely optimistic towards the progress of science. It does acknowledge the "caveman principle" that we may like contact and physical stuff. Some inventions like the paperless office are doomed to fail because of this. (Or are they? Offices do seem to be getting more and more paperless. It is just not a sudden thing.) Face to face visits are still needed for all the personal contact. However, even beyond these there is the cost of the "Technology". Even if we could create technology to eliminate all our work, would we? If nanobots could produce anything for nothing, accumulation of "stuff" might be simple. But what about property? That is still scarce. We seem to be drowning in too much affluence. We could make automatic cars, but what about the roads? Where would we park all the cars? Reducing pollution might be a nice goal, but what about all the other impacts of cars? And what if medicine could cure just about every disease automatically through little chips. Would we simply become computers? Maybe our destiny is to design the new computers that will be our robotic progeny? Or perhaps a terrorist will use some of it to wipe out most of the earth, and send the world back into a dark age. Or we may even go the way of the dinosaurs.

I want to check out Jules Verne's Paris of the 20th century. I wonder how accurately his view of the future sounded. The problem with future predictions is that it never really goes forward linearly. Some new idea may disrupt the entire train of research. Or a physically inferior form of technology may get a huge amount of money behind it and inflict itself upon the market. Looking at what science can logically be able to do may be a good start. (I didn't realize we actually had fusion now, just not practical fusion.) However, things are never that linear in real life.

He also talks about the phases that things go through. At one time books were precious commodities. Then the price came down where everybody could afford them. Then everyone could afford a library. And now paper is a number one source of trash and books are often more about "fashion statements". He predicts computer chips will follow the same path. They will become embedded everywhere and eventually become a source of much trash. However, he predicts Moore's law will eventually collapse, bringing down much of Silicon Valley with it. (Ah, there is an issue. Silicon Valley has become more of an "innovation" and software hub than a chip producing location. Less rapid increases in processing may change some of the focus on computing, but probably wont be vary disastrous on the area as a whole. Even recently, focus has downshifted to the less powerful mobile devices. If hardware innovation slows, we can expect a lot more in the software innovation front.)

Discussion of economics also gets a little fuzzy. According to the author, all economic bubbles were caused by technological innovation. The previous generation's bubbles were forgotten and thus a new bubble. The bubble happens when the financiers of the new technology have more money than they know what to do with. The actual use of it happens later. The 19th century panics were caused by railroad money. However, the railroad was eventually expanded, providing the benefit. The real estate bubble was caused by internet money needing a place to go. This explanation makes sense on the surface, but seems a little too simplistic in practice.

This book does provide a good overview of technologies that are on the cusp of widespread commercialization. It has, perhaps, a little too much faith in its scientific predictive powers (especially when it veers into the social realm.) However, it still provides lots of fodder for futuristic immaginations.

The World Without Us

[July 2009] The book starts with a scenario where humans are suddenly removed from the earth, and then details how "mankind's" world will revert back to nature. Basic descriptions of how a typical suburban house will gradually be subsumed by local vegetation give way to more detailed descriptions of places such as Manhattan and Houston. The author also takes us down to other places including a abandoned resort in Cyprus and a lost Mayan civilization. In parallel, he describes the 'past world' before humans, including details of how even the 'pre-civilation' humans made significant changes to the native environment.

The tails of the post-human state of nature are all interesting, though at times the author tends to dwell too much on areas that excite him. However, the biggest downfall of the book is the conclusion where he describes what we should "do about it" and brings out groups like the voluntary human extinction movement. While some of the conclusions and "plans" can be interesting, they move off the main thesis and are not as well supported as the core argument.

The Door Into Summer

The Door Into Summer was written in 1957 and set in 1970 and 2000. As such, it provides an interesting view of how much was predicted "wrong". About the future. We don't have zero-gravity entertainment, self lighting cigarettes, or widespread robot servants. We also haven't licked the common cold or had a large "cold war" holocaust. However, we do have newspapers that can be read electronically on a tablet (alas, those were more 2010 than 2000.) Computer Aided Design was somewhat foreshadowed, though it was more advanced than what was predicted in the novel. Changes in retail, telecommunications and computers were all significantly underestimated.

The story centers around Dan, a genius engineer who builds all sorts of great household gadgets in 1970. Alas, he does not pay attention to business, and his partners manage to swindle him out of the company. He initial decides to undergo a 30 years "deep sleep" to escape the problems, but then changes his mind and decides to visit his old partners. Things go sour, and they decide to dispose of him in a different facility - causing him to lose most of his money. Down on his luck, he takes odd jobs, brushes up on engineering, and eventually goes back to the company he originally founded. He also discovers that some of the patents for a competitor were filed by him and that a professor in Denver knows something about time travel. He travels back to 1970, fixes things up, and then returns to a happier 2001, marrying the girl of his dreams and living happily ever after. The story is fun and fast moving. The time travel part, while key to the ultimate resolution is not the centerpiece of the novel. (Though it does spend some time trying to go through the paradoxes of time travel.)

Glass Bead Game

Castalia is an "intellectual utopia" that exists here on earth a few hundred years from now. The intellectual "elect" get to spend their life studying whatever they so desire. (Many often teach - perhaps this is why the government is willing to fund them.) One of the things they do is play a "Glass Bead Game", a sort of high powered pan-intellectual event. (We hear a lot about it, but don't see many of the details.)

The novel has a few sections. It starts with a justification of the novel, which sets up the values of the futuristic society. This society is an intellectual Utopia where educational elite play the "Glass Bead Game" as a great intellectual exercise. It then proceeds to the main story, the biography of Joseph Knecht from early childhood to his rise as the glass bead master. Then, it fairly seemlessly transitions to the "well known" history of the master as he left the position and the entire "Order". After this section ends with his death, the final section of "posthumous writings of Knecht" begins. This section seems to be the author's dumping ground of earlier approaches for the story. These poems and stories contain some of the same themes as the main novel (and even have the same character), yet carry them out in different means. Did Hesse just dump his original drafts here?

It is always interesting to see "future" situations rooted so firmly in the past. In this novel's future, the Catholic church still maintains a primary position in the intellectual lives of the world. The European countries still exist pretty much as they have. But, there is also the intellectual hermit colony that the novel focuses.

Hesse's ideal world is influenced by both western and eastern thought. It also displays a high level of intellectual bigotry. The arts and creativity are heavily muted. The great masters of the past are respected, but little new output is created. The study of "music", however, is very important, and served as the root of the new "enlightenment." (Despite all the time passed, it seems the intellegencia from 17th-19th century Europe remains the focus of most people's intellectual pursuits.)

The Castalians seem to be real intellectual bigots. They look down on others (even when they say they don't). They are also highly obsessed with their own little trivialities, while not willing to respect those of others. Things like crossword puzzles were viewed as huge time wasters in the past. However, their glass bead game is viewed as a great intellectual endeavor. While they try to be "nice" to the rest of the world, they have set themselves so far apart from it, that they really cannot relate. They have created what is essentially an intellectual religion.

The setting of most of the book could easily be a medieval monastery. Women and modern technology are almost entirely absent through the main portion of the book. Near the end, the author apparently realized this and introduces a few women and has Joseph take off in a car. (For a novel that is supposed to take place in the future, this is seriously rooted in the past. World-building is not one of Hesse's strong points.) He also has him exit the "order" which has become too intellecutual snobbish and unfulfilling. (Perhaps he realized that readers would become disgusted with his intellectual bigots and would need an alternative.) While the ending of the story does do something to help improve the book, the "posthumous writings" destroys the goodwill. The character is just too perfect to be believable, while the events are too contrived, and don't seem to be in any "real" world.