5
Amazing New Inventions (That Will Doom Humanity)
By:
Science is like heroin: It'll give
you some of the best and worst times of your life, and occasionally they will
be the exact same thing (sure, that body high is amazing, but you'll have to
live with the shame of that indecent exposure arrest at the Red Robin for the
rest of your life). Here are five inventions that will most likely
revolutionize the modern way of life, right before they flush it down the
toilet.
#5
Flame Drills
A man named Jared
Potter has recently developed a pair of flame drills that operate at
temperatures of 3200 and 7200 degrees, respectively. That's hot enough to
pretty well burn through anything, but rather than mounting them on the front
of a spike-treaded tank and driving it into the UN to deliver his list of
demands, Potter has instead opted to turn the fury of his psycho-drills on the
very planet itself. At such high temperatures, the drills are capable of boring
through the Earth's crust without ever actually touching the rock itself, thus
eliminating the need for replacement drill bits, equipment maintenance and rock
cooties.
How This Will Change the World:
If we're able to
cheaply and efficiently burrow deeper into the Earth's crust than ever before,
we can tap past the earth's crust to the chewy center, where a sea of molten
rock lies waiting to power the flying cars of the future. The chief downside to
using all that glowing hot earth juice as an energy source has always been
location: If you don't live in a Dr. Evil style volcano base, it just doesn't
do you much good. But with these new flame drills, geothermal shafts can be dug
anywhere, just like tapping a well. A spurting well of unceasing Hellfire,
sure, but a well nonetheless. This could cleanly solve all the world's energy
needs and, what's better, we could look fucking hardcore while doing it.
"Just harvesting some fuel."
How This Will End The World:
What part of
superheated hydrogen drill boring into the Earth's core didn't set off an alarm
with you? The whole idea reeks of barely veiled supervillainy, but even
assuming that Potter has the best of intentions and is not, in fact, hiding a
Cobra Commander mask in his back pocket, tapping a geothermal well where there
is not already a natural vent brings a few risks along with it: volcanic
eruptions, searing magma, earthquakes and crustal instability, to name a few. A
volcano's only job is to provide an avenue for magma to exit through - but
dramatic eruptions are only caused when that vent is blocked long enough to
build up significant pressure. So if anything blocks, interrupts or otherwise
interferes with the vent, then you have all the criteria for a volcano. Where's
the nearest power plant to your house? Two miles? Five? Now, where's the
nearest volcano? Yeah, well, pretty soon you're only going to need to know the
one answer.
#4
Warp Drive
A lot of thought is
being poured into new methods of space travel, and what scientists across the
globe are discovering is that Star Trek is awesome, so fuck
it: We're just going to do
that. The term "warp travel"
generally refers to a sort of jury-rigged workaround for the physical speed
limit set by Einstein's Theory of Relativity, wherein one would propel space
itself around a ship rather than power the ship through space. It's basically
just exploiting a technical loophole in the universe, allowing us to travel at
warp speeds by virtue of being total dicks to physics.
Take that, Physics, take it all!
How This Will Change The World:
The great thing is
that interstellar travel could very well be a possibility, as the fundamentals
of a warp drive are being nailed down by some of the brightest minds in the
world right now. Truly feasible interstellar travel could well traverse that
last great step for humanity: The creation of a global society. There are countless
divides between people that allow us to morally separate ourselves from one
another. But interstellar travel could not only bring about the usual benefits
science fiction promises us, (namely some of that sweet green alien strange) but also the
end of all internal Earth conflict. If there are suddenly a billion other
accessible galaxies teeming with life, the "us vs. them" mentality
gets scaled up accordingly. Now instead of mere interspecies fighting, it's
Earth vs. Everybody Else (hey, let's not fool ourselves here: We're always
going to bomb the shit out of somebody; interstellar travel just means you're
less likely to be related to them).
How This Will End The World:
The bad news is that
it could cause a black hole every time you put key to ignition. A group of
scientists in Italy say that the chief design principle of a working warp drive
would also be its fatal flaw: A warp
engine would work by creating a massive "bubble" of distorting energy
behind the ship, but the energy output is so enormous that if it
were to run out--like say, when you slow down, park or just run out of gas--the
bubble would inevitably collapse on itself, thereby generating massive,
sun-like temperatures before folding and creating a black hole. But hey, you've
still got that engine! You can run away from it at warp
speed!
...Unlike the solar
system you're launching from.
"Boy, space sure was fun. Whelp, time to go."
So sure, you may be
able to travel to new galaxies and meet fascinating alien civilizations, but
you'll be burning those bridges right behind you--along with the rest of their
entire planet. We guess as long as you don't give a shit about the sanctity of
alien life, and never plan on returning home, you can burn your way through the
universe with your jerk-drive all you want. Jerk.
#3
Artificial Brain
Artificial
Intelligence is a staple of science fiction thrillers--from HAL 9000 to Wargames. The second we established
the concept of AI, we pretty much knew that it would hate us with an undying
passion. Perhaps we just have collective self-esteem issues; no sci-fi
masterpiece depicts an AI that, upon coming online and searching its database
in an effort to better understand mankind, responds by shouting, "You guys
are awesome! We should get nachos!"
So clearly, creating
conventional AI sounds risky; we're naturally assuming hatred and villainy will
be an unintentional byproduct. But what happens if you instead simulate a human
brain, with the same moral equilibrium, emotions and reactions we possess?
It's not that
far-fetched: Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project, claims
that scientists will most likely perfect the artificial human brain in the next
decade. They've already got the first elements of an artificial rat brain
nailed down which, incidentally, might explain why the Internet keeps hissing
at us and scurrying into the corner.
How This Will Change The World:
At his presentation
at the TED Global Conference, Markram spoke of such virtues as the ability to
solve philosophical questions that have been plaguing mankind (or at least
former psychology majors who couldn't hack the bio requirements) for centuries,
a greater understanding of how to treat mental impairments and even the elimination
of pharmaceutical drug experimentation on humans. It makes sense, doesn't it?
If there's an accurate simulacrum of a human brain on your laptop that's
perfectly capable of telling you that these virtual blue pills cause it to see
screaming and have trapped it in a shame cube, why bother putting actual test
subjects through the same torture?
How This Will End The World:
People are emotional,
unpredictable and capable of great cruelty. Now take away all physical pleasure
and/or consequences and find out how it reacts.
If you can't imagine
such horrors, don't worry because we've already started doing that: It's called
the Internet.
Thanks to the web, we
don't connect with each other physically as often as we used to and, as a side
effect, we've seen an increase
in rage, frustration and loneliness. Apparently, physical proximity
is the only thing keeping empathy alive. Of course, this version of a virtual
brain wouldn't possess the same worrying super-intelligence that we've been
worrying about in our sci-fi, but really, is that comforting? After all, it's
rarely the learned scholars who kill you for a hot dog and act surprised when
they get the death penalty.
#2
Love/Anti-Love Pill
An American
neuroscientist named Larry Young, of the Emory University School of Medicine,
is operating under the theory that love is a chemical state like any other, and
can be controlled as such. His research into prairie voles has shown that lifelong mating can be triggered,
prolonged or even blocked by altering the level of certain chemicals in their
brains. By injecting various levels of oxytocin intoa female prairie vole's
brain, Young was able to get the animal--a notoriously, fiercely monogamous
creature--to immediately drop her current
lifelong mate and bond, just as permanently, to the nearest male instead. In
addition to officially using science for the saddest thing ever (crushing the
hearts of adorable rodents), Young has also stumbled onto something potentially
world-changing, because oxytocin has already shown similar effects in human
patients.
How This Will Change The World:
How much tragedy has
been caused by irreparable heartbreak? How many suicides were triggered by the
lasting pain of shattered or just unrequited love? What if you could just turn
off the heartbreak with a pill? Or, conversely, what if you could hook up with
the first person you see, roll on down to the neighborhood Walgreen's for your
love-pills, and then experience the same euphoria as Romeo and Juliet, no
matter what your prior feelings? Control over one of our strongest emotions
could eliminate half of the world's untimely deaths, from lover's quarrels to
suicides, thus changing the very face of society. Also, emo bands would
probably shut up, so that's a clear win.
How This Will End The World:
From an objective
standpoint, love kind of sucks. Taking a pre-emptive pill to shut it down
rather than risk experiencing heartache in the first place seems pretty
tempting. The reason most people find love is that they seek it; they crave the
experience even when there's no one there to experience it with. But if the
whole need could be done away with from the start, maybe we could finally get
some shit done. You want to get
ahead at work? Well, having a family takes up valuable time, doesn't it?
Anti-love pill. You want to watch the big game, but it's the mandated Sunday
afternoon snuggle? Anti-love pill. Your kid's got a big game coming up that a
good parent should really attend, but you kind of want to live a life of
ceaseless adventure where every night is a guilt-free fuck-party? Anti-love
pill!
Sure, a life actively
avoiding love sounds lonely, but that's
only from the standpoint of a person who is still capable of
experiencing it.
Who needs a loving, stable family unit or, for that matter, procreation in
general, when World of Warcraft just released the
long-awaited Ice Elf Orgy Expansion Pack?
#1
Computer Assisted Memory
Computer assisted
memory is a recent goal, in that the very idea itself didn't crop up until we
started pretty much practicing it anyway. We started uploading family photos to
Flickr and burning our home movies to DVD and now that we've pretty much
started doing it already, we want to go farther. From the still far-off goal of silicon enhanced
artificial neurons, to the shaky present-day experiments already
underway that simply photograph your days and archive them in
searchable databases - computer assisted memory, in one shape or another, is
going to happen.
How This Will Change The World:
What if you could
remember everything? No foreign language
would ever get rusty, no keys would ever be lost, no anniversary would ever be
forgotten and hastily covered for by purchasing last minute gifts at the gas
station. That could all happen with the complete archival of actual memories on
an external system. Just imagine it: Terrabytes of storage, and nothing ever
forgotten. Wisdom, after all, is little more than the possession of a larger
database of memories from which to draw, so picture a world where simply
purchasing a new hard drive puts you on par with the Dalai Llama. With an
archival memory system, even death wouldn't be the end; your every thought and
memory could be accessed by anybody, anywhere, forever. You could have Einstein
on a thumb drive to browse through when bored. No genius, artist or visionary
would ever be truly lost again.
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