Alexa vs Alexa

[yogi]

Consciousness in inanimate objects is based on a broad definition. In humans consciousness is the total being which includes mundane facilities such as interacting with the environment around us. Trip on a stair and we fall because we are conscious, albeit gravity has a lot to do with it. On a metaphysical level the simple fact that we interact with the things around us gives us consciousness. If humans have consciousness because they interact with their environment, then why not rocks? Or, as you have read, why not the whole planet? In the past I thought of consciousness along the same lines as awareness, but they are different. Awareness is confined to the mental processes in our brain and ultimately allows us to make independent choices. I don't think rocks and planets have that ability, but they are conscious in the sense that they interact with other objects. A more realistic example would be self driving cars. They too are conscious.

You and I have similar notions about evolution. When I was growing up I understood it to be a straight line of development from the single cell animals all the way to the top level which is us humans. It's pretty obvious that a progression is built into the life forms on this planet, but there are people like yourself who fail to see the links between independent branches. Albeit each branch is a progressive step higher than it's neighbor down the scale. I think it's possible we are looking at evolution in the wrong light. Links between species are not required to validate the process. The scale of low life forms progressing to higher complex forms of life is clearly evident to the most casual observer. Darwin may have eventually come to the same conclusion that you did. Each species evolved from scratch independent of the others. Thus there likely can be multiple straight paths of creatures on the evolution train. The multiple paths, however, do not invalidate the process. Neither should it be a question of where did all those species originate. There was a time when no living critters existed on this planet. When life emerged from the primal soup, a lot of seedlings were spread far and wide. They all came from the original seed stock which is why you see the progression over entirely different lines of species.

There are branches of the US (and other countries) military which right at this moment are planning for life after a nuclear war. The MAD doctrine has become obsolete. The current thinking is that people, at least a limited number of them, can survive a nuclear holocaust. The details of how this survival scenario can play out have not been finalized yet. It's reasonably certain that the military has it's ways of surviving, but the reason a nuclear war has not broken out yet is because it has not yet been fully determined how large numbers of civilians will survive. Of course none of that planning would prevent some nut job with nuclear weapons from setting off a few thousand devices just because they are pissed off at the rest of the world. I don't think they came up with a response to that situation yet.

[Kellemora]

I don't know about rocks, but trees seem to have a consciousness about them.
The work together to protect each other, as best as they are able to do so.

Well, I still go with someone created all the creatures, or at least planted the seeds that would become the individual species.
I say that because not enough time has elapsed for even an eyeball to come about via evolution. It is just to complex.
If each species developed on its own, independent of all other species, then why so many similarities between them.
There are not too many species that don't have eyes or ears for that matter.
So there is a common denominator somewhere.

I hear ya. There really is nothing to stop a rogue government from nuking someone they don't like.
Scary when you think about it too much.

I have to leave for a doctors appointment. but will check the other post first and hope it is short.

[yogi]

I'll risk broadcasting my ignorance here, but the analogy is a fairly good one. You have seen dandelions with those yellow peddles on their flowers. They are amazing weeds in fact, somewhat like cockroaches. You can't get rid of them totally. The reason for their being is that they are good, very good, at reproducing. In the case of the yellow weed those peddles all turn into seeds with fluffy parasols to carry them wherever the wind would take them. Then each of those seeds produce more of the same.

In terms of evolution I see something similar to the above. The primal soup that existed before life had all the components of DNA and the genes that characterize the life form. That first pool of life carrying material scattered in many directions and ultimately developed into a wide variety of flora and fauna. The source of all this variety is that single blob of life that popped out of the chemical cloud which was struck by lightning millions and millions of years ago. Earth, being what it is, restricted what those various life forms could evolve into being. Thus, since all the living material formed in the same environment they all had the same potential. Random chance is what allowed each scattered pool of life to evolve into something different than its neighbor. And, for what it's worth, I've seen that argument about the time not being long enough to develop some of the complex organs in animals. It seems only those people who object to Darwin's original thesis still hold that misconception. Apparently there is a significant number of people who think the time frame was adequate.

I've also read about how trees communicate with each other via their root system. That phenomena is awareness. Consciousness includes that ability but is more encompassing. The reason that tree is in the forest in the first place is due to consciousness. Planet earth needed trees for some purpose and voila!

[Kellemora]

Do you know ALL PARTS of a Dandelion are Edible? And they are supposed to be good for you too!
I only had one uncle who would agree with that, said it makes some mighty fine wine, hi hi.

Some of the earliest forms of life we have discovered, many have had quite complex eyes.
Some, what are seemingly more simple eyes, but they served the purpose.
Which poses the question, how did they know they needed eyes in order to develop them?
And here we go again, the complexity of the eye, to occur via happen-chance, is no more likely than an iron mine creating a bulldozer.

Trees and plants actually are very fascinating to study. Most of them have a form of self-preservation built-in. And in many cases, they work with each other to protect the herd so to speak.
The diversity of plant life alone is totally amazing, and yet no two genera are alike, and no species within the genera are exactly alike.
Heck, we probably share 80% of our DNA with plants, hi hi.

That being said, we are continually learning more about DNA, and some day, scientists might think they are gods.

[yogi]

Some people already think scientists are gods when they claim they can custom design human beings. It's just a matter of biology dynamics and the right tools, but for one irrational reason or another in some quarters designing humans is thought to not be allowed by mere mortals. I have no doubt that it is possible to make a human without physical flaws. Perhaps that human could live a healthy life for hundreds or years. Unfortunately a lot of Stone Age theocrats are out there and holding back progress for the rest of us.

Asking how organisms knew they needed eyes in order to produce them is backwards logic. Even if primitive organisms knew they needed visual sensory organs they could not force them to develop. Having visual sensory organs was critical for survival at some point on the evolutionary scale, thus the DNA/RNA in cells responded. It's pretty much the same idea as those chickens in Chernobyl which have alligator skin and no feathers. That is what they needed to survive and their gene pool took care of the need. The knowledge needed to adapt was not internal to the chicken, other than the role it's genes play.

It seems as if people look upon "life" as an entity onto itself. That entity was given intelligence by the need for humans to make sense of what is going on around them. That, in my humble opinion, is the basis for inventing the myth of a Supreme Being. Life as I see it is no more than a thermo dynamic force prevalent throughout the universe, something akin to gravity. At times it gets mixed in with the right elements and human beings suddenly take form. The life infused in plants is the same stuff we have as do all the rest of the animals. I suspect this life force is the root of the survival instinct demonstrated in all living things.

My grandpa made dandelion wine and claimed it was great stuff. His wife used the green leaves in salads. I guess the flower part is edible too but I've not seen or heard about any recipes for it. I have heard of dandelion root being highly nutritious. All that could be true. But I know what my doggie thinks of those yellow weeds and you won't catch me eating one. LOL

[Kellemora]

With the rate of inflation, I don't know if living longer than 100 years is worth it.
You can't afford to buy much of anything after around 70 years old anyhow.
Unless you are one of the lucky ones who got rich.

You may be right, but the chickens at Chernoble are actually more like mutations due to the radiation there.
Lot's of weird things happening around that place to many types of animals.
On short lived rapid breeding animals, they can see the results right away, on others it takes many years.

I wouldn't eat one either, but I leave mine in the yard for the bees to dine on before all the other flowers start blooming.

[yogi]

I think it's just a matter of time before designer humans will populate this planet. The issue of longevity will be solved by then because the robot revolution will already have occurred and put most people out of work. The big social conundrum of the future will be what to do with all those unemployed humans. Inflation is not the problem in old age. It's quite a natural phenomena that's been around ever since economics was invented. It's the social institutions to benefit all the citizens of this country that do not exist, or are inadequate. At some point in the not too distant future capitalism and a fairly representative form of government will evolve to deal with the new normal. I don't suppose it will ever be a Utopian society, but socialism will become more acceptable out of necessity. Either that or we will all become subservient to a dictatorial regime that owns the robots and the designer humans.

Today I'm 77 and can buy anything I wish to have - which means my wishes are not beyond my means. I am not wealthy by any measure, but I do consider myself to be very fortunate for making the right financial decisions many years ago. My uncertainty about my future, however, is greater than it has been at any time in my life. Personal catastrophes happen frequently and you never know when your number is up. Then, too, the country is in turmoil these days and could change in structure at any given moment. I have no control over that scenario.

[Kellemora]

You're probably right about the future.

I should have been able to retire with over 1/2 million dollars in my investments and nest eggs.
All it takes is a crook to steal 2/3 of it from you, and a sickness in the family to burn up the rest.

If people have no money to buy the stuff the companies are making, they won't need the robots to make the stuff because they will be out of business.

Personally, I think everyone who wants a job will have one in order to keep the economy afloat.
We also may see a major reversal in inflation also. Not all at once, but as the big companies take over making things in cheaper ways.
Raising wages only fuels inflation, and as always, leaves the seniors in a pickle, especially older seniors whose lifetime nest egg was an enormous amount of money at the time the retired, but inflation rose so fast, their lifetime savings wouldn't even buy a tank of gas anymore.

I was reading a rather lengthy article about this 3-D printing of houses.
Right now they don't look so hot, but the article was showing how they could be finished both outside and inside rapidly.
A 1,400 sq. ft. house exterior and interior walls could be completed for 2,000 bucks in materials, and 4,000 in expenses. With Roof, Windows, and Doors, set in place. Or 6,000 bucks to have it ready for final finishing.
The locations for the plumbing and electric will be programmed into the walls, and the buyer could install those easily, or pay someone to do it for them. Of course the Unions will get involved and require the main feed for electric and the connection via a lateral to the sewer line all done by Union workers. Which of course would greatly increase the price for those items.
What I like was the different ways in which the exteriors could be finished, and so fast too.
And some day, the 3-D printing will be able to handle that at the same time as the house is built.

Cars, aka transportation, is going to have to have some major changes also. It is to the point, only the elite can afford a decent car now. We need 1 to 3 thousand dollar cars again, since that's about how much folks can afford these days.

[yogi]

After the great revolution when robots and designer humans are commonplace, the social structures we have today will not exist in the same form. For one thing with so many people likely not needed to be part of the work force a method of providing them with income and meaningful activity will need to be established. That's likely to be a guaranteed income for everyone. Major expenses such as housing and medical care could be taken over by the local governments and thereby reduce the resources needed by all those idle people. In other words the economy will be restructured. In order to remain productive and a major player in global economics capitalism in one form or another will need to be maintained. It is the single most provider of incentive to do better than the competition. Thus inflation will continue to be an issue, but not to the extent it is today. That minimum level of income for all citizens will rise in proportion to inflation. More people and more money will continue to expand the economy and thus drive prices upward as supply and demand varies. We will be energy independent by then as will be most other countries. There will be less globalism and more nationalism and thus less of a likelihood of being influenced by the whims of some other country. The only problem will be the Putin's of the world who don't exactly see things our way.

I guess 3-D printing is a thing now. I've seen a few things printed from resin wires and can't see how that is better. For sure the homes printed will be cheaper, especially since these days the price of wood and other raw materials are skyrocketing out of control. But then, you will be living inside a plastic box. Having printed it yourself would not seem like a mitigating factor. LOL

[Kellemora]

Here are 7 jobs that probably won't be replaced by robots, but they may use robots in doing their work.

Teachers and Educators. The first job or career path landing on our list is teaching and educating. ...
Programmers and Systems Analysts. ...
Healthcare Workers and Carers. ...
Social Workers. ...
Lawyers. ...
Project Managers. ...
Designers and Artists.

I would add to that list, Sales Jobs, but not telemarketing, direct sales or counter sales.
A lot of teaching will be done by computers, but there will still be teachers required.

I've seen a lot of 3-D printing done using concrete, a concrete like foam, and various metals or alloys.
Some even use just sand and a binder of some sort.
To make large things like houses, etc.

Scientists have learned how to grow wood in a lab. Duh, we've been doing that in greenhouses for over a hundred years, hi hi.
But I think what they meant was, they can grow lumber of all sizes and shapes with their techniques.

Places like Georgia Pacific and Wayerhouser plant 3 to 4 times more trees than they harvest, and many of them are fast growing varieties also, so they can harvest their crops of trees like every 20 to 30 years.

I also saw where they are making lighter weight bricks using clay, sand, straw, and a binding agent. And they can make them twice as fast as a normal brick. And some of these newer bricks don't use mortar, they go together like Lego's using glue.
I know, that's what I get for spending so much time watching interesting videos, hi hi.

I watched a machine do 3-D printing of gears of all things.
One would think by layering the wire a line at a time would make the product weaker than out of steel.
But the tests they are doing on some of these items is actually stronger than steel, and in some cases where carbon fiber is used, a lot stronger than steel.

I think the technology of the near future is going to be totally awesome, and I won't understand one iota of it if I was still around to see it all come to fruition, hi hi.

[yogi]

You and I run across widely different assessments of what the future could be like. The quote about teachers not disappearing doesn't fit in with the designer human beings that I've read about. Those humans, in addition to physical characteristics, will have specific knowledge uploaded into their brains. There will be a basic regimen that all folks will have learned by downloading it from a data bank up in The Cloud somewhere. After that if you decide you want to be a rocket scientist you simply download all that into your brain and voila. You are a rocket scientist. That all seemed a bit far fetched, but apparently they are doing similar things for people with certain mental illnesses. They can erase bad memories and replace them with something less disturbing, for example. The idea of downloading a career's worth of information is a stretch, but it seems as if the concept has already been proven.

Healthcare providers will be needed to provide the human touch to medical care. All the diagnostics and prognoses will be done by computers with advanced artificial intelligence. Doctors as we know them today might disappear altogether given that we will be able to build people with little or no illnesses. But, of course, people will still fall and break things and need surgeries. Robots will be doing that more than they do today which would change the role of surgeons somewhat.

When it comes to aesthetics and art, that seems to be something futurists don't talk about much. They haven't come up with a way to simulate creativity and inventiveness. That doesn't mean it won't happen, but machine art would not be the same a something produced by a live human. And while things such as sex dolls, robots, already are being sold, there still will be folks who may want to have offspring the old fashioned way. However those children come into existence, they will need what only a mother and father could provide in terms of emotional support and nourishment. As you well know raising children involves A LOT of intuition and instinct.

I've seen a hand gun printed, loaded, and then fired. It looked as if it were carved out of a chunk of wood, but it worked as well as the real thing. I don't recall what caliber bullet was fired, but I'm guessing something around .38. The gun was not that big. I've also read about self-healing concrete. When a weak spot develops in the concrete a chemical reaction takes place to create something like a scar. The scar is actually stronger than the original concrete so that your house's foundation will get stronger instead of cracking and falling apart over time. They were not printing the concrete but it goes to show that new building materials are being worked on. Trees and their lumber seem like a good idea in that they are renewable, but it's likely that in the future buildings will not need to be renewed or renovated. They may just heal themselves.

[Kellemora]

I don't doubt that some day they will have brain implants that contain all the data in the world, hi hi.
But if you don't build up your motor skills, a lot of it would be useless.
Of course, by then too we will probably become bio-automatons, hi hi.

Most of the cataract surgery done today is already done by robots, which is one reason I keep putting it off.
The way I cough all the time, with my luck, that will be just when the robot plunges the knife.

I don't know Yogi, I've seen one heck of a lot of art duplicated by computer driven machines, and they can modify the artwork.
But I think you mean coming up with designs totally on their own.
There are already printers that use oils or acrylic paints and if you take a picture, it will reproduce it in oils or acrylic, and make it look like it was done using spatulas and brushes. I don't doubt they will be able to reproduce copies of real paintings showing all the brush strokes as found on the originals. 3-D printing using oils is probably possible now.

I've those handguns, as well as the self-healing concrete. Lot's of neat new stuff out there.

A number of years ago, a company was selling a graffiti proof paint to use in subways and the like.
It sounded like a great idea and they sold one heck of a lot of it.
But there was a major drawback.
It attracted dust, dirt, and grime, like a magnet, due to its always oily surface.
You wash it off and it recoats itself with the thin oily layer.
But eventually, it runs out of its ability to do that, and then you have to sandblast it off in order to paint the walls again.

[yogi]

My understanding of loading the brain with knowledge is that there are no external parts being attached. A bunch of electrodes are connected to the appropriate places in or on the brain and then the knowledge machine does its thing to rearrange the memories inside your head. Given that the practical application today is to erase bade memories, all that new knowledge could possibly be erased and replaced with something else. Thus if rocket science doesn't work for you, it may be possible to go to the lab and become a brain surgeon instead. LOL And, I do agree that having the knowledge alone does not seem like it's enough. This is particularly true for something like brain surgery. Even robotic surgery is connected to a human controlling the movements and that human had better have the right touch. Today that's all accomplished by experience.

I don't know how fool proof cataract surgery is. They clamp your head into place and let the machine do its thing. I know with general anesthesia they do things to calm the body functions so that there are no (or few) unpredictable spasms at critical moments. I would guess that cataract surgery has a lot of precautions built into the procedure, but I really don't know. My wife had it done and it seemed pretty trivial. All I could suggest is for you to talk to a surgeon or two to try and get a better explanation of the safeguards they have in place during surgery. It truly would be to your benefit if you could have the surgery done.

Computer art is a reality and making copies is no big deal. I was not referring to that when I was talking about creativity and intuition. The brain is not exactly like a computer where serial information is input and a response is output. There are many centers of function in the brain organ and each one operates interdependently. When it comes to something that requires instinct, the appropriate centers are polled and the control mechanism in the brain tries to extract something meaningful from all the data. In artistic terms that meaningful information is something that did not exist beforehand. They have some understanding about how this happens inside the brain, but they have not been able to get a computer to be very creative yet. I guess it would be the equivalent of half a dozen AI machines getting together in a brainstorming session. The output would be something totally new and never existed prior to the session.

You jogged my memory with that anti-graffiti paint story. I believe I ran across a story at one time regarding a similar paint that simply disappeared after a certain amount of time. I don't recall a mention about the down side. It seems as if it just turned transparent and eventually flaked off the wall. Being high tech like that would automatically make it expensive and I doubt that any graffiti artists would use such a thing to begin with. They want their work to be permanent.

[Kellemora]

In a way, I'm glad I won't be around to see what the future holds. But I'll bet it will be crazy fast paced world.

I watched a couple of videos on cataract surgeries. The doc is still doing a lot himself.

I'm sure AI will keep advancing until the robots take over and eliminate humans, hi hi.

Back when that paint was made, most graffiti, or graphilthy if you prefer, was done using magic markers.
Today, most of it is done using spray paint. So I don't know how well the graffiti proof paint would work with that.
Other than the paint wouldn't stick to it either.

I've seen some amazing artwork on walls along the highway, I wouldn't call that graffiti though.

[yogi]

There is one railroad track going through the old section of O'Fallon. It crosses the main drag and traffic comes to a stand still when a freight train passes through. Fortunately this does not happen very often and even 100+ cars do not take that long to pass by. Many of the box cars I've seen up in Illinois have graffiti sprayed all over their bottoms. Some go much higher. I've seen some of that on the RR cars here in O'Fallon, but nothing like the number of cars around Chicago. Today I was stopped by one of those freight trains and not a single car had graffiti on it. Then, too, almost half were flat bed cars and they seldom get touched by artists. I'm guessing the trains come out of STL and head toward Kansas City, and of course they come back as well. I have no idea where the train yards are in the big city here, but apparently they upped the security in them. Or possibly the cost of spray paint has raised so much due to inflation that the artists can't afford supplies anymore.

I'm sitting here lamenting that I was born too early in time because I want to see what it's going to be like 50 years from now. I'd not want to be a working stiff, but being retired in the future watching the world pass me by would likely be a very interesting experience. Even today I would not want to be in the job market. It's not as competitive as it was when I worked for a living because the number of unfilled jobs are not today what they were back 25 years ago. I'm the kind of guy that prefers working for one company my entire career, but that simply is not what's happening these days. Not only that the skills required to get a decent job are extraordinary. You would not think so judging by some of the air heads in the service businesses. As messed up as it is today, I still would like to witness first hand life in the year 2075.

[Kellemora]

When I was a kid, we would ride our bicycles into Kirkwood and watch the steam locomotives go passing by.
Got our asses whipped for going into town without an adult, but it was worth it.
It wasn't but a couple of years later that all you saw were diesel engine trains.

When I was a little older, I did take the Silver Eagle train with my parents. Probably to Denver. All the other trips that way, dad drove his car, and we made a country tour of those trips, visiting many states along the way.
And this was BEFORE air-conditioning too, so it was hot in the car, hi hi.

I'm amazed at all the developments in my own lifetime alone.
When we got our first TV, it was a little round tube in a big wooden box, Philco-Ford I think was the brand.
But then a couple of years later, dad got a much larger screen Magnavox TV.
Then he got a console TV with a record player and radio in it, plus a tilt out turntable.
I forget when color TV came out, but it was a long time before we got a color TV.
At least we were in our teens and twenty's during the era of the Muscle Cars, and loved that.
I wouldn't give you a plug nickle for the cars they make today. Most of the are Garbage, and those that aren't I can't afford.
As fast as we are moving forward with technology, I'm afraid the human race as a whole is moving backwards in intelligence and morality.
Most kids today never had the kinds of toys we grew up with, so never learned much about anything other than pushing buttons.
All kinds of hobbies were a big thing when I was growing up, and you learn one heck of a lot from building things, even from kits.
You talk to someone today, even in their 30s, and they have no idea how to sweat a pipe, cut a sheet of glass, or even how to change a light bulb in some cases. Trouble is, most of them make so much money, they can hire what they want done easily, so they don't have to know. Then there are those who can't afford to hire stuff done, so give a lick n a promise on their own, and usually mess things up royally in the process.
You can tell also by some of the questions that are asked on help forums. How can one not know the answers to some of those questions?
And colleges only teach you how to work for someone else, and at great expense. Kids would be better off going to a trade school and learning a trade.

[yogi]

Steam locomotives are stashed away in my childhood memory banks. We didn't have a car in those days, nor a television. We were lucky to have food actually. One of my aunts lived in a suburb about ten miles from the train station near our house. I say it was near but it was easily a two mile hike, which back in those days was indeed considered a short distance. Today there is a small grocery about two miles from this computer, but I would not even think about walking that distance. LOL The trip on the steam engine train was the attraction to me. Aunt Jenny was a sweet old lady that always had cookies and milk for us. Otherwise it was a boring visit until it came time to catch the train home again.

That passenger train station was at the edge of a massive switch yard. There was a bridge over what must have been twelve parallel tracks. When I got a bit older I would peddle my bike over to that bridge and watch the action in the switch yards. There were stories about kids stealing stuff from the box cars but I don't recall ever seeing graffiti on any of them. I guess people back then were not as artistically inclined as they came to be in later years.

If I had to make a guess I would say about 70% of the world's population are dumb as a rock. That is all changing as can be seen by the industrialization of many countries. A lot of the third world countries could not sustain a population if it were not for the fact that most of the citizens there were well versed in the local trades. They have no choice but to haul water by foot from the common source to their home because plumbing hasn't come to their land yet. That's pretty much how it was in the good ol' U S of A back when you were a kid. The modern conveniences you enjoy today didn't exist back then and you had no other choice but to learn how to do things the old fashioned, and hard, way. When you talk to people two generations younger than yourself you could expect most of them grew up experiencing a modern lifestyle. Why the heck should they know how to live off the land when all they need to do is find the closest WalMart and live like princes and princesses. (the kings and queens don't go to WalMart, by the way) I know how you must feel when you lament about what seems to be the ineptitude of the younger generation. There certainly are enough idiots out there, but I personally have met some very brilliant and successful modern day professionals. There are youngsters in their teens playing in Carnegie Hall for example because they are indeed talented and smart. The way the world is going these days it's easy enough to become discouraged and depressed about the leaders. But I can assure you there is a better class of graduates grooming to take their place in the not too distant future. I've often proclaimed here that college education teaches a person how to think through the challenges of life. That is still the case and the challenges of tomorrow will not diminish. There is a need for tradesmen, but the need for well educated leaders is becoming greater than ever.

I have to agree that in many instances morality seems to be in decline. I would add to that my thinking that much of the moral code in this country at least is obsolete. Those younger better educated people I speak of are not only changing the lifestyle around them but also adding new dimensions to what we grew up knowing as morals. All of that, and more, is why I say I would like to be around in 2075 to see how it all worked out.

[Kellemora]

As the commercial use of the steam locomotives declined. A lot of them were bought up by the various amusement parks around us. Many of them still run the old steam locomotives too.
Down here, we have the Three Rivers Rambler which is still running today. Debi and I have been on it several times. One of their track lines is so long, it takes two whole hours to take the long tour. And on very rare occasions, they get permission to switch over to commercial tracks and go to either Nashville or Memphis. But when they do, they have to have an emergency diesel engine standing by just in case, because they have to be off the tracks by a certain time, and that includes if they break down, they have to be pulled in and off the tracks by the diesel engine. Debi and I never went on one of those trips, but those that did said it was phun and the dinner at the restaurant by the siding they have to wait on was excellent. After the train is stopped and parked, the steam locomotive has to go somewhere to get water and coal, and come back on another track and wait on a siding about 5 miles closer to home. Then a diesel engine pulls the train back down the track and off to another siding on the eastbound side of the twin rails. It leaves and the steam engine comes backing up and connects to the passenger cars, and they just sit and wait, sometimes for a half hour or so. A commercial train has to pass before they get cleared to move onto the main tracks heading back home again.
I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I hear they have to switch over to oil and not use coal as they go through a certain area. But nobody ever said why. Was it for less smoke, or was it for hotter heat to climb a grade?

Yeppers, living on a farm growing up, before we had piped in city water was really something. Now we did have our own water towers, two of them in fact. One of them fed water to grandpa's house and the drinking fountains. The other fed water to the front greenhouse, and prior to that the Market Building which became the back of the front greenhouses.
Plus we had a huge pond up behind the greenhouses to catch runoff water from the roofs of those greenhouses.
I remember hearing the constant clacking sound of the hydraulic water rams that pumped the water up to the pond, and both water towers. The group of them that fed the house water supply came from the lead end of the creek where no livestock could get to. Albeit in later years we had no livestock, so all the water was fairly clean since the creek was spring fed a few miles further up. This is one reason that creek was never dry.
Come to think of it, the pipe that emptied into the creek went through the first set of hydraulic rams, this pipe started about where Bopp Road is located, and ran a steady downhill slope from the spring to the rams that fed the drinking water tower.
Then the outflow from the ram ran back into the creek where the next row of rams were located. Each ram had at least 25 feet or more of pipe leading to them to get the downhill pressure needed for the rams to work properly.

Heck, by 2070 I imagine, if we are still here that is, kids will be engineered, maybe picked from a long glass tube like the song says. With electronics getting smaller and smaller, I don't doubt that we will have earpieces no bigger than the head of a pin embedded in our ear skin, and one even smaller as a microphone glued or affixed to our front tooth.
And then who knows, maybe implants in our brains too.
There is a Vet we see at WalMart every once in a while who has robotic legs paid for by Uncle Sam.
He lost his legs while in the service, well above the knee, so artificial limbs would not work for him.
I've never got to speak with him, but from the words of others who have, he was happy in his wheelchair, but signed up for some experimental work that might make him walk again. Obviously it was successful. I have no idea how it is done, but when he walks, he looks as normal as you and I do, and his legs do bend where our knees would be. He wears long pants and shoes, so you wouldn't know he was half automoton, hi hi. He has only one problem though, the batteries that run them only last a couple of hours, so he has to be back in his wheelchair fairly quick.

[yogi]

The well water on grandpa's farm wasn't exactly city water pure. However, none of the farm residents died from drinking it. Well, none that I knew about. There actually was something like rust particles floating in the water which would settle down to the bottom of the container if you let it sit a while. I think I could have learned to like that, but that water also had a sulfur type aroma that just didn't sit right with my nose. Grandpa also had a few 55 gallon drums to collect rain water. I seem to recall the water coming directly off the building roof tops through a downspout into the barrel. There was a cover on the water barrel but once in a while you would ind things floating in it. That is the water I drank when I visited, but it's main purpose was for washing faces and clothes. Looking back on all of it I have to wonder why that water didn't kill everybody. I think the pond on your farm had the same problem in that it was exposed to open air, bugs, and bacteria 24/7. Water purification was unknown in those situations and apparently it wasn't necessary. It's mind boggling to contemplate it all.

The Three Rivers Rambler sounds like an awesome adventure. I believe I already told the story of my one time travels on a train that was steam engine powered. It took several hours to get to the end point, but was well worth the lunch on an island in the middle of the Mississippi inside a pretty fancy restaurant. We were in the first car going up to the destination and the chugging of the engine shook the car. Coming back we were in the last care where the quaking wasn't as pronounced, but there also was no heat in that car. It was fall and rather cold trip back home. A remarkable memory nonetheless.

Robotics in the year 2022 is pretty good. It can only get better by 2075. There are already artificial limbs that look and feel like the real thing. Heck the Japanese make an entire human like android that moves, speaks, and feels as close to being human as you can get without actually being one. I think there is a great future for such things, not only a sex toys, but just for the companionship. There is currently a ton of research being done with human stem cells. They have medical potential for treating a number of diseases, but they also can be manipulated to grow human organs. I am certain that technique will be perfected and replacing defective organs will become commonly available if folks can get their heads past the ethics of it all. It's possible that at some point in the future you will not know for sure if you are talking to a natural human being or one that has been designed and fabricated from various body parts laying around the lab.

[Kellemora]

Had my dad and his brothers not sold off some of the land east of Bopp Road, the spring fed creek would have continued to flow. But as the developers put in a subdivision, they disrupted the spring somehow, it now flowed north to another creek that used to be a dry creek, except when it rained.
But that water we had for years was clean and tasted good. Which is why it was probably piped to the tower for the house.
The pond was only used to water the plants in the greenhouses, and originally in the lower field before power pumps came on the scene.
Des Peres got sewers to every business around 1930, and every home by 1936 give or take a few years.
But they didn't get piped in water until around 1940 or so, that project was not completed when WWII started, so was put on hold until after the war. Even then, not that many homes were connected since most had wells or cisterns. Nor could many afford to have the connection made right after the war. Also, many homes were rural, not along the main drags so didn't get water until sometime long after 1950.

One of the things that were popular when I was in my 20's was to take a date for a train ride on the Illinois Central RR. And one of our hopes was to afford to get on the car named The City of New Orleans as a wedding day ride. Of all the cars with city names on the Illinois Central railroad, why that particular became the Must Ride train car is beyond me. It was so well known, it even appeared in a song or two.
We normally only road that train from East St. Louis, down to the end of that spur line, which was before it crossed into Kentucky. A few times we took the Effingham Express down just into Kentucky from the spur, then wait for a northbound that would be stopping at one of the two depots that connect to the East. St. Louis route. More often than not, you got stuck at the furthest away depot. We think they did that on purpose to charge you double, even though it was only about 30 miles between the two depots.

It's not really the robotics, or improvements in the medical fields that bother me.
I think it will be new laws and blatant government overreach that tracks every individual 24/7.
Implants would allow the government to immobilize any person at any time, if they don't comply or even if they do.
I'm sure the future will be very scary to folks like us!