Re: [xml-dev] [OT] What are the key technical problems of our era?

[James Fuller <james.fuller.2007@gmail.com>]

back in the 14th/15th century a lot of the problems were cast in the
light of 'unbounded systems' ... we could not imagine in terms of the
human race surviving, so my initial list is related to the fact that
we now need to review entropy of the entire system ;

* evolving civilisation so we spend less time wasting energy on
war/defenses with each other
* asteroid deflection
* water extraction
* food production

w/o sounding too pessimistic, many of the todays technical challenges
revolve around 'things that dont matter' e.g. but if pressed I would
say;

* replacement of currency system to give individual control of taxation
* creation of low power internet w/o wires (or satellites) to give
individual control over acces, anonymity, privacy
* creation of truthful non corruptable global voting systems to
underpin democracy
* someone needs to write a new '1984', because that book only shows
.0001% of what may happen with technology direction we are going
(think drones in terms of foreign policy, playing video games)  ...

I am sure other folks can come up with more classical 'problems'
probably related to space exploration and new frontiers though I can't
help to think that we have a lot more militarisation of space going on
then most people realise.

nice interesting question to start a monday!

 Jim Fuller

On Sun, Jul 8, 2012 at 11:27 PM, Costello, Roger L. <costello@mitre.org> wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> In the 15th and 16th century a key problem was that there were no accurate clocks. Accurate clocks were needed by ships at sea to determine their position. Smart individuals, such as the Dutch mathematician, astronomer, and physicist Christian Huygens, worked and solved this problem with the creation of the pendulum clock along with its mathematical underpinnings.
>
> What are the key technical problems of our time?
>
> What waters can we not sail today because we do not have the technology and the math and science underpinnings to enable it?
>
> /Roger
>
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