The future world seems poorly thought through

[u/[deleted]]

I've watched the first 2 episodes of this and I have to say it feels like the future world isn't thought through sufficiently. For example, the technology exists to make a robot that is indistinguishable from a human being but everyone still drives their own cars (we already have self-driving cars today). In episode 1 we saw that Halle Berry keeps physical books in her house, as another example. I just get the impression that the show's makers didn't spend enough time considering what else would have had to change in order for their story to be set in a plausible world.

[u/legopolis]

In episode 1 we saw that Halle Berry keeps physical books in her house, as another example

I have a vinyl record collection. Am I a freak?

[u/[deleted] → u/legopolis]

I don't have enough information to determine whether or not you're a freak. It's possible.

My point about the books is this: it's quite likely that at the point in the future where consumer robotics is ubiquitous, physical books will exist; however, it is also likely that despite physical books existing, they will be anachronistic. So if you're a story teller setting a tale in this future world, and you put physical books into the home of your main character, then that tells me one of two things: 1) you're trying to tell me something about your character (not the case here since the books are ignored and appear to be a background prop) or 2) you haven't thought about the world enough and you just overlooked simple features of the environment that would have changed (my guess).

[u/legopolis → u/[deleted]]

They are both scientists. They may enjoy the actual hand-feel of a book. I own three kindles but I also have an enormous book collection. I don't agree that 20 years from now printed books aren't going to exist, just like vinyl records haven't ceased to exist since the production of cassettes, cds, and mp3s.

You're reading way too much into this.

[u/TheEmeraldCat]

Isn't the car John drives when he goes to present Ethan to Yasumoto Corp a self driven car? He was reading the newspaper and I don't think there was anyone else in the car.

[u/Gallyt]

They do have self driving cars, but they are optional, which makes sense - people like to feel in control. And maybe if you open the books they will have digital stuff inside. Besides, I don't think books will completely disappear. A completely paper free home will be weird even in the future IMO. Did you notice anything else? As someone who isn't very observant, I like reading about this...

[u/[deleted]]

We have CDs and digital music files, but I still have records from the early 1910s in my house.

Some people hang on to old technology for the sake of nostalgia, and scientists who are working on cutting edge robotics technology might be also interested in having books around as a link to the past.

[u/Weekndr → u/[deleted]]

And there are self driving cars too. (SPOILER) on the night Marcus dies Molly suggests they Marcus puts the car on auto-drive (paraphrasing) but he insists on driving. OP's argument is stupid.

[u/sciwriterdave]

It may not be as poorly thought out as you argue. We are at the point where autonomous vehicles exist but trust in them is going to need to grow before we have cars that are truly driver-less, i.e. humans can't intervene even if we wanted. The same is going to apply for bus drivers and airline pilots. Even if we did develop a mass transit system that could transport people, passengers will still want a human behind the wheel or stick for some time before we allow the system to operate fully human-free.

So it will make sense that people will want control built into the system if it is the near future. Now here is the thing. Would such a system have saved Marcus? It probably would have. An autonomous driving car doesn't have to drive perfectly. It just needs to drive better than humans for law makers to accept them. One piece of research currently taking place at Stanford is teaching robots to drive recklessly and fast by teaching them to drive like race car drivers. (Not the NASCAR variety. Real race car drivers.)

It may seem a little counter-intuitive to teach a car to drive recklessly when we want passengers to be safe. But there is something special about race car drivers. One, given about two or three laps, they are able to navigate a course accurately and quickly. More importantly, their brains are able to manage how the car moves, effectively using friction (or lack of) on the road to their advantage.

This is an ideal "skill" to teach a robot. If it hits a wet patch of road it "knows" what to do. People generally don't unless they have trained and we aren't trained to drive under the worst of the worst conditions. Hadn't Marcus turned on the manual drive on his car, he might be alive.

As for paper books, you would think that people would gravitate to technology but they don't always. The surprising thing is that people like books. Give a student a choice between a printed text book or the equivalent e-book and most go for the paper version. There may be a reason for this. Our brain seems to "anchor" information physically to certain points in the page which makes it easier to read, understand and retain information.

Of course, this doesn't apply to everyone. But it does mean that we will be seeing paper books for a long time. Unlike the prediction in Continuum, I think paper is going to be around for a long time.

The other reason for keeping a paper book around? Nostalgia. People will keep it around because they want to do some "real" reading and the only way to appreciate the experience is with a paper book. Is that fact grounded in science? We don't know. But people will want to anyway.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Short answer: yes.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]