[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

I don't really believe in growing meat in a lab. Why would you want to grow meat when you have yeast?

Vegan chefs manage to make good meat replacements with tofu. You might need to introduce a few new genes into yeast but with a bit of work I would think that you can also do good meat replacements with it.

Maybe algee instead of yeast, but I don't see the point in using multicellular organisms if you want to grow something to eat in a lab.

The real problem is that people are unwilling to give up meat. That's why growing it in labs is important. It would cut down on animal suffering, pollution and makes farmland available for other things.

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

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

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