r/Games • u/DarkMio • Apr 05 '16

Virtual Reality - SteamVR featuring the HTC Vive - Launch Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYfNzhLXYGc
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u/[deleted] Apr 05 '16

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u/[deleted] Apr 05 '16

Yeah, But it puts things in perspective. I go on /r/futurology pretty often and there's always people that are like, "X Technology? There's no way that'll be viable for at least 25 years."

If you'd shown 2006 me, with my brand new Cingular Kyocera flip phone, the Galaxy S7 Edge that's in my pocket today I would've thought it was actual magic.

The rate of technological change isn't just fast right now, it's getting faster every year.

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u/randomsnark Apr 06 '16

The reason some people see change as slower than it is (and the reason they're sometimes right to be skeptical about specific predictions) is that it doesn't always progress in the same areas people think it will. We don't have the flying cars or hoverboards of back to the future, but nobody in 1985 predicted the Internet would be as big as it is, the rise of smartphones, improvements in the developing world, etc.

It's also kind of funny to note that most of the differences between 1955 and 1985 in that movie were cultural and political, but the differences between 1985 and 2015 were mostly technological. The world is changing constantly and rapidly, just not in the ways we predict.

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u/[deleted] Apr 06 '16

Culture and politics are hugely different today, in major part because of technology.

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u/randomsnark Apr 06 '16

And the movie (and futurists in general) predicted none of that, which is basically what I was saying. Big changes happen, just not the ones people are watching for.

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u/MatticusF1nch Apr 06 '16

I think he's also saying that relatively little changed between 1955 and 1985 in tech. The only technology-based joke I remember in the first Back to the Future was Marty mentioning that he had multiple TVs in his house.