[LINK] U.S. Views of Technology and the Future

Gunnar_Zarncke

"U.S. Views of Technology and the Future - Science in the next 50 years" by the Pew Research Center

This report emerges from the Pew Research Center’s efforts to understand public attitudes about a variety of scientific and technological changes being discussed today. The time horizons of these technological advances span from today’s realities—for instance, the growing prevalence of drones—to more speculative matters such as the possibility of human control of the weather.

This is interesting esp. in comparison to the recent posts on forecasting which focussed on expert forecasts.

What I found most notable was the public opinion on their use of future technology:

% who would do the following if possible...

50% ride in a driverless car

26% use brain implant to improve memory or mental capacity

20% eat meat grown in a lab

Don't they know Eutopia is Scary? I'd guess if these technologies really become available and are reliable only the elderly will be inable to overcome their preconceptions. And everybody will eat artificial meat if it is cheaper, more healthy and tastes the same (and the testers say confirm this).

I just found this on slashdot:

"U.S. Views of Technology and the Future - Science in the next 50 years" by the Pew Research Center

This report emerges from the Pew Research Center’s efforts to understand public attitudes about a variety of scientific and technological changes being discussed today. The time horizons of these technological advances span from today’s realities—for instance, the growing prevalence of drones—to more speculative matters such as the possibility of human control of the weather.

This is interesting esp. in comparison to the recent posts on forecasting which focussed on expert forecasts.

What I found most notable was the public opinion on their use of future technology:

% who would do the following if possible...

50% ride in a driverless car

26% use brain implant to improve memory or mental capacity

20% eat meat grown in a lab

And everybody will eat artificial meat if it is cheaper, more healthy and tastes the same (and the testers say confirm this).

Not 'cheaper' and I pretty much fail to see how that can ever happen.

Also, most people don't think technology will deliver eutopia. Why should it?

Beyond Meat seems to be more healthy, tastes the same and promises to be cheaper (18x) than meat. Any they successfully did this to egg products already. I mean I don't think that it will look like a genuine body piece - most people don't already buy that anyway.

7Pfft12y

I guess in the long term it should be cheaper for the same reason that vegetables are more energy efficient than meat: it takes less energy to grow just a muscle than to also grow a surrounding cow that runs around frolicking for several years.