There are tons of awesome inventions in sci fi movies and books. Things like faster than light travel, force fields and bionic implants. There are also some things that, on the surface, seem like they would make life easier and simpler. This is a list of sci fi inventions that seem great, but are really more trouble then they are worth.
Flying Cars
Imagine being stuck in traffic. It sucks right? Now imagine that you could flip a switch, and suddenly your car would begin to rise into the air. You fly over all those suckers stuck in traffic, gloating. Now that you’re flying, imagine running into a tree. Next, imagine getting into a fender bender with another flying car and plummeting toward your death in a flaming heap of twisted metal.
Flying cars would undoubtedly solve a number of problems. The only thing is, they would create a whole new world of problems. To keep from running into every single power line and radio tower we would need to create laws dictating where you could drive. Kind of like creating flying roads. Of course, as soon as you get enough flying cars, you get a traffic jam on the skyways, thus negating the purpose of having a flying car.
Cryogenic freezing
Cryogenic freezing actually exists today. Every year, dozens of people elect to be frozen in the hope that medical advances will progress to the point where they can be thawed and cured of their diseases. Despite obvious risks and expenses, this process has been around for decades.
Now, let’s assume that medical science advances to the point where it is possible to thaw the frozen bodies and heal any diseases which might have occurred. Suddenly, you can just go freeze yourself and thaw yourself at some point in the future. The question is then, what happens to the population when people who would have otherwise died, are brought to life in the future? Talk about overpopulation.
Artificial Intelligence
Movies and literature are chock full of robots. It’s quite possibly one of the most cliché objects in sci fi media. Despite this, robots are very real today and AI is not far off. Wouldn’t it be great though, to have a servant who will do anything you ask? Or perhaps a lover who never ages? What about a machine that completely supplants all menial laborers?
The answer is no, it would not be great. AI is a common theme in sci fi and usually it causes more problems than solutions. If you don’t believe me, think about the facts. The current trend is that every two years processors double in speed, halve in size and halve in price. Assuming this trend continues, in 20 years you’ll be able to purchase a computer the size of a postage stamp that’s smarter than the human brain, for about $1. Now who’s the superior species?
Prediction of the future
Wouldn’t it be great to stop murders before they happened? How about wars? What about knowing next week’s lotto numbers? Worthwhile goals, all of them. And entirely within reach with a time viewing machine. Imagine how many problems would be solved. No more war, famine or pestilence. The complete utilitarian society, right?
Wrong. So let’s say, hypothetically speaking, that the US has a time viewing machine; this machine then predicts that China is going to attack Los Angeles. To prevent this from happening, the US issues a preemptive strike, thus starting a war in which China launches a missile headed straight for California. Thus becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is true of any major man made catastrophe.
Teleportation Device
Imagine a world where you can travel to New Zealand on Saturday, then stop over in Denmark for quick visit on Sunday, before you have to be to work on Monday. No longer do we have to use precious fossil fuel to travel. Terrorism in travel is a thing of the past. Until a terrorist teleports a bomb into the White House.
First, let’s assume that there is some sort of safety protocol in place to prevent things like that from happening. Technically, a teleporter breaks down all of the atoms in your body and sends them to the destination, where they are then reconstructed. The only problem with this is the actual transmission of the atoms. That’s where information age comes in. It makes far more sense to just transmit the blueprints of your atomic structure to a reconstruction device. Essentially, a teleporter is just a fax machine. The problem arises in the early use of such devices. Have you ever made a copy of a copy of a copy? Even using the highest quality copy machine, the quality degenerates rapidly. At first, it might not be noticeable. What are a few atoms from a hair? Or a fingernail? Or your heart? We’re not sure what even the smallest change in your atomic structure would do.
Nanobots
Cancer has been cured! The human lifespan numbers in the centuries. All degenerative diseases have ceased to exist. Major injuries heal within seconds. Recreational drug use no longer has any negative effects. Hangovers are a thing of the past.
Nanobots have cured the world. These self replicating robots are now injected into everyone as a natural immunization. To describe the horrors of these machines, here’s a quote from Eric Drexler’s book Engines of Creation:
Imagine such a replicator floating in a bottle of chemicals, making copies of itself….the first replicator assembles a copy in one thousand seconds, the two replicators then build two more in the next thousand seconds, the four build another four, and the eight build another eight. At the end of ten hours, there are not thirty-six new replicators, but over 68 billion. In less than a day, they would weigh a ton; in less than two days, they would outweigh the Earth; in another four hours, they would exceed the mass of the Sun and all the planets combined – if the bottle of chemicals hadn’t run dry long before.
Part of the appeal of nanobots is that only a few need be injected and they can replicate in the human body. This also describes the danger. To put it succinctly: We are the Borg. Lower your shields. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance if futile!
Weather Control
Welcome to the future. Global hunger has been solved. The world community lives in utopian tranquility without hurricanes, tornadoes or floods. The human race can now turn its gaze to more worthwhile things like space travel and beer.
The problem with weather control arises when we unleash specific weather on delicate ecosystems which cannot exist except under certain conditions. If this hurdle is overcome there is no reason we shouldn’t have a weather control device. Until it breaks. Then a world lulled into complacency by good weather is suddenly thrown into a natural disaster. Or, in a worst case scenario, a hostile foreign power takes over our weather control devices and unleashes storms of unimaginable power and magnitude against us.
Genetic Engineering
Perfect humans. Engineered from before birth to be the best of the best. What could be better than having the perfect child, with no possible risk of inherited flaws? All without the use of those messy nanobots. I think the movie Gattaca (1997) says it best:
We want to give your child the best possible start. Believe me, we have enough imperfection built in already. Your child doesn’t need any more additional burdens. Keep in mind, this child is still you. Simply, the best, of you. You could conceive naturally a thousand times and never get such a result.
The danger arises not from any physical aspect of genetic engineering, but rather the social aspects. When you begin to breed perfect humans, you create an entirely new social class. Bringing discrimination to new levels, the class you belong to will not be determined by social status, income or the color of your skin, rather, the build of your genes.
Holodecks
After a stressful day at work, what could be more relaxing than coming home and relaxing in a nice peaceful meadow? Perhaps going for a relaxing drive in your flying car? With a holodeck, you can go anywhere, be anyone, or do anything. With the way vide ogames are heading, holodecks are not too far off. Imagine that you can have anything you want. Any fantasy you have is possible. And there is the danger.
It’s the perfect drug. Why would anyone bother going dealing with their crappy wife and kids when they have the perfect life in the holodeck? Why would anyone bother dealing with reality? You want to be Emperor of Rome? Sure! You want to be Blackbeard the Pirate? Why not? You want to have sex with Marilyn Monroe? Whatever you want is possible with the holodeck. It’s been jokingly put forth that the holodeck would be the world’s last invention. The thing is; it would be. Why bother inventing anything else when you’ve already invented the perfect world?
Replicators
Replicators are the solution to nearly every problem the world has. Imagine no more world hunger. No longer is there any energy crisis. Never again will there be a shortage of medical supplies. The perfect world where you can have anything you want.
Until the complete and utter collapse of society. You see, the replicator would make work obsolete. There would be no need for money. As a matter of fact, you would only need one large replicator and you could replicate another one. You could make anything from fresh pizza to a molecule-for-molecule exact reproduction of the Hope Diamond. The last day of the world will come when anybody can make anything.
Bonus: Time Travel
Though not actually possible, time travel would create incalculable problems. Imagine going back in time and you meet a nice girl and take her out and things happen and you go back to your time and nine months later, she gives birth to your father. You kind of have to ask yourself, “What?”
The slightest change in the past would create ripples into the future. Only you would know about those ripples, because to everyone else, that’s just the way history turned out. Then let’s say you go into the future and copy the blueprints for some fantastic machine like a replicator. You bring it back to your time and invent it and somewhere along the line some knave steals your blueprints. Oh wait! That knave was you! It just doesn’t work.
passerBy, who commented earlier this month, is completely right. Furthermore, a lot of the things you have listed as, ah, ‘Should Have Not Be Invented’ actually do exist – unless that was what you were intending to list? I’m sorry, but this article is rather unclear and frequently jumps between ‘Should Not BE Invented’ and ‘Should Not HAVE BEEN Invented’, so frankly I’m not sure whether you’re bashing science or bashing sci-fi. Do please decide.
Whichever route you were intending to take, you appear to be a little out of date with what you have listed anyway; a car that can fly, as well as travel on land and water, has been created in prototype form,and albeit the case that it isn’t currently in mass production, it is nevertheless in development, and certainly a possibility for the future.
Either way, I struggle to sympathise with your qualms about flying cars due to the fact that you’re listing all of the problems people highlighted about the first aircraft. And since then, air travel has really ‘taken off’ (sorry). On top of that, if you were assuming you could simply perform a vertical take-off in your future flying car, and go joyriding through the clouds, you’d be wrong there, too – if anything, control of the use of flying cars would be even more rigidly maintained than with our current transport, making the act of lifting your car up and out of a traffic jam no different from driving onto the pavement to get past a red light.
Moving on. Yes, cryogenically freezing people is already possible. The issue you have brought against, however, is rather feeble. There are over seven billion people on this planet, and the number of people who have been/will be frozen is ridiculously small (research it, I believe it is under a hundred however I do not know the figure)…meaning that in comparison to the number of people being born every day, those being unfrozen is neither here nor there. Aside from this, your logic is flawed in the suggestion that the population would increase anyway. Unless you are expecting frozen people to reproduce like bacteria, the number of people will stay the same – a frozen person who is alive but frozen is still a person, so still counts towards the population. They won’t be frozen and counted as one less person, so when they thaw neither will they be counted as one more. Think.
Next, artificial intelligence. This paragraph made me want to cry. I can’t even analyse it. ‘Robots are very real today and AI is not far off’ … No, just no, seriously? Do you have a phone? Boom, AI. Hell, three years ago we used lego robots which we programmed (because AI existed then, too) to behave like woodlice. In high school. It wasn’t even a good school. Go buy an iPhone and ask Siri to explain, I’m sure she’ll manage better than me. No, better still, go here: http://www.jabberwacky.com/ …as an example of just one of the many, many AI chatbots on the interwebs. For free. Developed by spotty basement dwellers for bored surfers to mess with. Hardly scary sci-fi stuff.
‘Prediction of the Future’? Seriously? OK, I’m not even going there. I just can’t. Ughghghghgasgdfd
Teleportation, like the flying cars, has been done. It’s still at the very early stages of development, teleporting only a few particles at a time. It’s been done though – that’s the point.
Nanobots was a bit of a daft choice, to be honest. Because you know what a nanobot is? It’s a small robot. A nano robot. A- you get the picture. You are applying a lot of assumptions to this. You assume that they haven’t already been created (…they have) and that they would self replicate (depends on the design) and that they would be for medical use (again, depends on the design).
Weather control will never be an issue because nobody will believe in it, just like that weird global heating thing that, despite scientists internationally spending their time and money on researching, somehow doesn’t apply to quite everyone, even though we all live on the same planet. Bathe in my sarcasm, go on. I apologise, author, as this particular jibe is not meant for you, but for some of your readers, You know who your are.
Research into genetic engineering is in full swing, and with good reason – sure, there is the possibility that model babies can be created BUT the benefit of the chance to stamp out genetically inherited diseases outweighs that risk – a risk that, incidentally, could be ridiculously easily made illegal. Furthermore, that’s just considering genetic engineering in humans,from within. Selective breeding is a form of genetic engineering that’s been in use by farmers since the agricultural revolution – we’re talking about something that’s been going on for hundreds of years. It’s hardly something futuristic to rave about.
‘Holodecks’ is your own fantasy of what already exists, under a different name: augmented reality. Presently, this is mostly used on a small scale, e.g. with 3D images that can only appear by viewing them through a camera. Research it – you can print some off free online to try out. It’s really interesting.
Replicators. Ah. Truly the most facepalm worthy line in this article is your statement that ‘you would only need one large replicator and you could replicate another one’. …You seem to be implying that if you build it large enough, it could replicate itself. Nah bro. That said, this is probably the most selfless suggestion you’ve mentioned yet, as it would have the largest benefit in things like solving world hunger.
Either way, unless your life is solely made up of work, eat, sleep, repeat, the invention of replicators would not result in the end of civilisation. Throughout time, we have developed technology with one purpose: to make life faster, stronger, EASIER. Perhaps certain jobs would become less necessary (factory work) but surely you are aware of how society works? We must all rely on each other to provide the services we need – replicators alone would not, for example, make redundant bus drivers, train drivers, pilots, chefs, caterers, waiters and waitresses, cleaners, hotel staff, artists, poets, writers, photographers, scientists, researchers, archaeologists, mathematicians, historians, librarians, architects, engineers… in fact, pretty much everybody would still have to work to get their jobs done. Plus, we would still need money. Think about it: if I replicate a gold ring, I will own twice the value of that gold ring. Wrong. Gold is valuable because there is so little of it in the world – replicate it, and suddenly it becomes less valuable. You end up no richer than you began. Then there’s the cost of creating the machine, plus developing it – look at Nokia. Everyone thinks fondly of their old Nokia bricks from ten years ago. You know why? We don’t have them anymore. They worked, but we improved them anyway. We kept going, kept developing, kept making life easier. Technology improves our lives, and makes them more comfortable/easier, but not outright richer. There is still poverty in the world.
Time travel: your reasoning for a loop in time – a paradox in which you steal your own creation, causing it to have no true beginning or end – is amusingly sound, yet you pass it off as simply not working. That, my friend, was the part that worked. Because if time travel was possible, that would be an entirely plausible situation. Either way, we can certainly dream of police boxes and DeLoreans. I know I do.
I apologise for how much of a bitch I’ve been. Bad day, nothing personal. My intent in sending you this is not rooted in malice, but in the hope that you might look further into some of the things you tried to talk about. I particularly recommend augmented reality – it’s fantastic.
Personally, I’m still, still (ugh, why it’s a bad day) in secondary school. All I want is to hurry up and become a physicist, perhaps invent some stuff, shenanigans. Hmm. Good luck in wherever you decide to take your life; I hope it goes well for you.
There WAY too much misinformation and pop culture in this post. If you’re being a troll, I tip my hat. Otherwise, please go get an education