I'm just curious to know what everyone thinks are the great 'revolutionary' ideas that have happened since WW2 (as an arbitrary point, but because it was the end of a previous surge of research). So, what are the innovations we've made, the ones that in 100 yrs people will still look back on?
For me, computers are without a doubt phenomenal: they came from practically nothing at the end of WW2 (pitifully weak, huge, and really only used for cryptography), to the huge network, linking everyone in the world. Noone could have expected it to become this big. In addition to the internet, we have video games (amazing how much goes into these), other 3D graphics (for medicine, simulations, engineering / architectural drawings), engineering design / physics / calculations, word processing (don't take it for granted, think how difficult it would be to write a report by hand: having to rewrite with each edit), watching movies. I'm sure there's plenty more big ones, but I can't keep writing. We all know what computers do.
That's the only real thing I can think of that has been completely researched, implemented, and widely adopted. There's plenty more that might be more useful in the future, but which we don't really have a use for yet. Things like genetic engineering and the human genome project: very nice ideas and probably extremely useful, we just don't really know what that use is yet. So, we're tinkering with bacteria and making them produce pharmaceuticals instead. Not that that isn't useful, just that in the future I'm sure we'll have better uses for it.
I guess nuclear power could also be considered, but I think most of the work was already done in WW2 (to make big kabooms). Also not sure if it will be "the answer" or not.
So what other science / technology advances can you think of?
As you say, the computer revolution is possibly one of the most important changes in the human condition: we have access to instantaneous information from any place in the world, and geographic frontiers as big as the Pacific Ocean are now virtually meaningless. Internet (and instantaneous worldwide communications in general) truly marked the start of a new era for the human race.
Such things as Internet are not only an advance for science and technology. It's also a big change for society in general. Countries that try to limit the flow of information or education their citizens can access will soon find their efforts useless. Internet opens the way for the democratization of the whole world: it is now more and more difficult to keep a whole people in ignorance and isolation, unless you ban computers.
As for what awaits us in the future... who knows?
Maybe this is ridiculously utopian, and maybe I'm getting myself drunk on false hope, but I'm very interested in transhuman science — especially research that aims at a significant increase of the length of human life, by whatever means possible.
If you ever hear of a space expedition that plans to drill a hole in the ice of Europa to find what's below, please waste no time telling me about it.
Fanboy-ism Technology designed to control ones mind.
