Here’s a question I’ve been enjoyably chewing on for the past couple of days: What do you think will (plausibly) be discovered or invented in your lifetime that will amaze you the most?
My runner-up is something that’s imminent. The digital storage problem is almost solved. We are approaching a point at which the digital storage of practically infinite amounts of information will be trivially inexpensive. (No moving parts, either.)
This pudgy writer-type who remembers worshiping at the altar of the 256K Apple /// with a 5MB hard drive finds that rather incredible.
Far and away, my winner is that I think we’ll discover extraterrestrial microorganisms in my lifetime, perhaps on Titan or Europa. As much exploration as we’re doing, and at the granular levels at which we’re doing it, it feels inevitable. That will be almost as exciting as discovering intelligent life, because if the microorganisms are out there, the higher organisms almost certainly are (somewhere).
What’s yours? What will we discover or invent in your lifetime that will make you think/say “this changes everything”?
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So, does no one have an answer to this because we cannot fathom what in this day and age could be created/discovered? Or, is it just me, who lives so far in the sci fi world that sometimes I am not surprised when it happens in real life?