i09 did a wrap-up of a bunch of cool, futuristic stuff that kind of happened this year. The achievements include:
- brain-to-brain interface
- interstellar travel
- government recognition of transgender people and cyborgs
- reversing aging
- quantum computing
- first net-positive fusion reaction
- cybernetic brain implants
- mind-controlled exo-skeleton
- flying cars, carrier-landing drones, etc.
I’d like to point out that probably no more than a few years ago, various science fiction minds were snorting at the idea of these developments ever coming true. The ‘mundanes’ as they’re called, like to snipe at ‘space fantasy’ that has FTL drives, tricorders, lightsabers, ansibles, etc. because they are all pipe dreams not currently worked out in physics or engineering textbooks.
Now, these discoveries and breakthroughs are just bare hints and beginnings, but that’s the point in a way. Something just starting in 2013 will develop by how much in twenty, a hundred, or three hundred years from now? Will these developments be like the Romans discovering the steam engine but it remained unusable for over a thousand years, or if this is Robert Fulton about to bring about the steam age?
Either way, the mundanes are becoming less right and more wrong over time. Am I the only one noticing this?