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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 2926837" data-attributes="member: 710">I remember that a scientist on a science day at our school (sometime at the end of the 90s) predicting that we would have sustainable fusion technology in the 50th of the 21th century. So far, I have seen nothing that suggests otherwise, so I chose 26-50 years.It is an interesting question wether scientific (and social/political) advances are all dependend on each other. We have no good answer to this question so far - we have only our own example available. But many factors seem dependend on each others. Example: You need knowledge about quantum mechanics (and technology to affect material on that level) to build even faster computers. The same knowledge can also help to understand the chemical processes in a body, especially when related to DNA. The drive to build stronger materials, create better medicine or faster computers on the other hand also means that you will explore quantum mechanics. A capatalistic society requires constant growth, and as such, more refined technologies become a requirement - you need to produce more, in shorter amount of times, for a better price, at a higher quality. A democracy requires a certain amount of education of anyone, otherwise they would have difficulties making a (more or less) sensible vote. When anyone can become a politician and voted into a position of power, everyone needs to have some education, too, otherwise there aren't enough politicians that could be eleted (and still hope to make at least a few good decisions). A good education also leads to a larger base of people capable of advancing science, or at least being able to operate the fruits of scientific advancements. (Ever considered what incredible amount of abstraction is required to grasp the concept of chatting with people over the Internet?)A society only has to decide wether it accepts cloning or not once the technology to do it comes into existence (before that, it might never have considered this possiblity!).That said, there seems still a bit of wiggle room - our cars today rely on gas/oil, but in the beginning of the automobile era, that was just one possible option - the option that somehow won (maybe even literally, I remember reading that there was a race between different engine variants, and the gas/oil combination won that race), but that might have been by chance and not by a general superiority of the technology.</blockquote>

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