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Author Topic: A Stern Warning of Things to Come  (Read 7327 times)
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Nasty Pasty

DOOP Secretary
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« on: 05-19-2004 22:27 »

This was mentioned in another thread and i thought it was an interesting idea:

Taking yourself away from the Science Fiction and comedy; Do you think Futurama shows a fairly accurate description of what the world will be like in 1000 years?

I personally think that the society displayed in Futurama could well be similar to the Future in that there is artificial intellegence, and a society that is mainly in it for their own indulgences.

What are your thoughts on this?
Dr. Morberg

Professor
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« Reply #1 on: 05-19-2004 23:01 »

I think that it is too primitive in some places, yet too advanced in others. I highly doubt that we will be able travel to distant planets in hours in 1000 years, yet I doubt people will still be watching tube TVs. Many things seem accurate, though.
Gilby

Delivery Boy
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« Reply #2 on: 05-19-2004 23:31 »
« Last Edit on: 05-19-2004 23:31 »

I can't even begin to guess what things will be like in 1000 years. If humanity survives that long it'll be a surprise to me. (not I'll that know or not *L*)

I really believe there is life on other planets out there somewhere. We just can't be in this huge Universe all by our lonesome.

 
 

David A

Space Pope
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« Reply #3 on: 05-19-2004 23:35 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by Nasty Pasty:
Taking yourself away from the Science Fiction and comedy; Do you think Futurama shows a fairly accurate description of what the world will be like in 1000 years?

Not even close.  I doubt that our world 1000 years from now will look anything even remotely like the world of Futurama.

One aspect of Futurama rings true though: No matter how much technology changes, people are still pretty much the same.
winna

Avatar Czar
DOOP Ubersecretary
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« Reply #4 on: 05-19-2004 23:40 »

No, society will have evolved far beyond its means in 1000 years.  If we come into contact with life on other planets that will only skew the current perception.  Also the technology in Futurama probably isn't too far advanced.  Technology is heading in a crazy momentum today, 1000 years, who knows?
KAH

Bending Unit
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« Reply #5 on: 05-20-2004 00:26 »

I agree technology is moving very quickly but I think in a different direction than depicted in Futurama. If you look at the technology commonly used today the vast majority is used for entertainment purposes. True there'll be military advancements(they'll build bigger boards with bigger nails in them, one day they'll build a board with a nail so big it will destroy them all) but the space program doesnt seem to be of much importance to most people.
DrJohnZ

Starship Captain
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« Reply #6 on: 05-20-2004 00:38 »

...If there is anything left in the world in 1000 years  :hmpf:
canned eggs

Space Pope
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« Reply #7 on: 05-20-2004 03:49 »

I think Futurama is good at predicting the stuff no one else predicts.  Like, people predicted the internet in the '70s, but no one predicted it would be dominated by porn, and likewise people in the present have predicted different future technologies, like beaming stuff into your dreams, but only Futurama predicted it'll be used for ads.  So I think they have a good sense that the future will involve a lot of things staying the same.
M0le

Space Pope
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« Reply #8 on: 05-20-2004 05:32 »

I'm surprised they still speak English and use essentially the same slang in Futurama. Axe may have replaced 'ask', but it's still English.
PCC Fred

Space Pope
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« Reply #9 on: 05-20-2004 06:52 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by M0le:
I'm surprised they still speak English and use essentially the same slang in Futurama. Axe may have replaced 'ask', but it's still English.

I think it's a dramatic neccessity that they speak contemporary English.

But technically speaking English will be spoken in 1000 years' time (it's too big a language to simply die out), but it'll be vastly different to today's English (Shakespeare wrote in English, but it's virtually unrecognisable from the language we speak today.)

Here's a thought - how does today's world compare to the world of 1000 years ago?  Technologically we've grown far more advanced, but in many ways we're still stuck in the same ruts of war, wealth and power going hand in hand, and religious mania dominating over common sense.

 
Quote
Q: But you can't deny, Captain, that you're still a dangerous, savage child race.

PICARD: Most certainly I deny it!  I agree that we still were when humans wore costumes like that, four hundred years ago...

Q: At which time you slaughtered millions in silly arguments about how to divide the resources of your little world.  And four hundred years before that you were murdering each other in quarrels over tribal god-images.  And since then there have been no indications that humans will ever change...

I can just see the world of 1000 years hence.  We'll have leaped forward in terms of technology, humans will live even longer, healthier lives (at least the ones who can afford it), we may even have reached space and contacted aliens.  But humans will still be the same bunch of morons they've ever been.  :nono:
FishyJoeGilman

Poppler
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« Reply #10 on: 05-20-2004 08:36 »

I think there is one odd thing about the future 1000 years from now...

It's the fact that people all over the world watch only the news broadcast from L.A. 

I guess local news is out in the future.  Which would be sensible because the world is a small place when you can travel to distance planets in a couple seconds.
Teral

Helpy McHelphelp
DOOP Secretary
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« Reply #11 on: 05-20-2004 10:23 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by PCC Fred:
But technically speaking English will be spoken in 1000 years' time (it's too big a language to simply die out), but it'll be vastly different to today's English (Shakespeare wrote in English, but it's virtually unrecognisable from the language we speak today.)
 

In 100 AD Latin was among the top-3 languages in the world, the main language of the undisputed superpower of it's time, 1000 years later it was dead (only the catholic church used it). I know there are some diffirences between Latin and English, but it's not uncommon for big languages to be consumed by history. Great use of TNG.  ;)

1000 years is a long time, it's virtually impossible to predict what will happen. Even the brightest scientists (or sci-fi writers) have difficulties predicting what will happen in the next century, let alone millenia. The only thing it seems we all can agree to is the human race wont evolve in the same pace as our technology. Hmm, maybe evolve might be too optimistic, let's just hope we wont degenerate.
PCC Fred

Space Pope
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« Reply #12 on: 05-20-2004 10:58 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by Teral:
 In 100 AD Latin was among the top-3 languages in the world, the main language of the undisputed superpower of it's time, 1000 years later it was dead (only the catholic church used it). I know there are some diffirences between Latin and English, but it's not uncommon for big languages to be consumed by history.

In 100AD the world was a much smaller place, and with countries conquering countries languages dying out or changing radically was inevitable.  Nowadays the political situation in and between countries is much more stable.

Besides, Latin itself may not be a common language anymore, but it didn't totally die out.  Besides the church it's still used in science, and it formed the basis of several European languages, including modern English.

 
Quote
Great use of TNG.   ;)

I try my best.  :D

 
Quote
The only thing it seems we all can agree to is the human race wont evolve in the same pace as our technology. Hmm, maybe evolve might be too optimistic, let's just hope we wont degenerate.

Ug.
Drunknmunky

Bending Unit
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« Reply #13 on: 05-20-2004 11:07 »

World superpowers will rise and fall within 1000 years and it is quite possible English will die out. The World Map will be totally different; countries that are dominant now probably wont even exist. In Futurama, The Unites States is still prosperous and seems to be the main superpower. I doubt it will even exist in a millenium. Some people believe that in just 10 years, China will have the highest economy in the world.
But the Earth will probably be blown to pieces by nuclear warfare or environmantal damage soon.
dimension_8

Bending Unit
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« Reply #14 on: 05-20-2004 11:14 »

The head in jars idea is funny, but stupid. A brain requires all the organs contained in the body to stay alive.
Also with all the troubles in the world like terrorism at the moment, it may even elavate to constant war in years to come.
TheLampIncident

Urban Legend
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« Reply #15 on: 05-20-2004 11:42 »

Futurama often doesn't seem like it's set in the future at all(just look at Bendin' In The Wind). Although the thing about society collapsing makes sense, though I don't think it will be by aliens, but by our own means. We'll just have to wait and see.
canned eggs

Space Pope
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« Reply #16 on: 05-20-2004 13:19 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by PCC Fred:
In 100AD the world was a much smaller place, and with countries conquering countries languages dying out or changing radically was inevitable. Nowadays the political situation in and between countries is much more stable.

Besides, Latin itself may not be a common language anymore, but it didn't totally die out. Besides the church it's still used in science, and it formed the basis of several European languages, including modern English.
 

English isn't going to die out as part of the natural progression of history.  I mean, if aliens raze western civilisation, it might.  But political stability and widespread writing are not going to keep English the same for a thousand years.  Samuel Johnson said "When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature, and clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation... Sounds are too volatile and subtle for legal restraints; to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength."

So while English isn't going to die out, it will certainly be unrecognisable in a thousand years.  There'll be more changes than just going back to the Middle English "aks."  But to use the Latin example, Latin never actually died out; all the Romance languages today are a legacy of spoken Latin in Europe.  It's like Old English; it never died out; it became Modern English.  So a thousand years in the future there will be some unrecognisable language that is the direct descendent of modern English, but I don't know what we'd call it.
Ranadok

Starship Captain
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« Reply #17 on: 05-20-2004 13:39 »

I have read that, thanks to the internet and the "global village", language is evolving less rapidly than it ever has (with the exception of new technology-related terms, of course). I think it is feasable that English in 1000 years will be more recognizable to us than the English of 1000 years in the past, though it will have changed much more than the word or two in Futurama.

In all, I think Futurama's future would more closely represent the future of 200 or so years in the future than a thousand, speaking mainly technology-wise.  Of course, that is barring some massive disaster that would require an almost complete re-build of society, as they showed in the pilot.  Still, I agree more with Futurama's idea of people in the future than most other science-fictions. People will always be people.
Mystery_Meat

Delivery Boy
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« Reply #18 on: 05-20-2004 16:09 »

Put it this way: Futurama will probably be as accurate a potryal of 3000 as George Orwell's was for 1984 or Disney's Tomorrowland was for the mid-range future. It's how 3000 looks from the year 2000. If the show was created in 1960, it would be a lot different even though it's cast in the same time. If they do a Futurama remake in 2040, it'll be a lot different.
Dr. Morberg

Professor
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« Reply #19 on: 05-20-2004 16:16 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by FishyJoeGilman:
I think there is one odd thing about the future 1000 years from now...

It's the fact that people all over the world watch only the news broadcast from L.A. 

I guess local news is out in the future.  Which would be sensible because the world is a small place when you can travel to distance planets in a couple seconds.

In a universe where there are millions of planets, and apparently the majority of them have life, I'd say LA is pretty local.

 
Quote
Originally posted by KAH:
I agree technology is moving very quickly but I think in a different direction than depicted in Futurama. If you look at the technology commonly used today the vast majority is used for entertainment purposes. True there'll be military advancements(they'll build bigger boards with bigger nails in them, one day they'll build a board with a nail so big it will destroy them all) but the space program doesnt seem to be of much importance to most people.

The vast majority of technology in Futurama is for entertainment. The internet, the way ships are designed, movies, sports, and a head museum.  There is little technology in the show that wasn’t designed for entertainment. 

The reason the space program doesn’t interest most people is because a majority of the technology is the same as it’s been the past 20 years. Once there is a major breakthrough, it’ll get going again.
gottalovebender

Bending Unit
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« Reply #20 on: 05-20-2004 16:22 »

i think everything if futurama is totally accurate, except the tv, tv will go far in 1000 years, and the net, i know it was a joke when the proffesor said he logged on to aol last month and he finally got on, but i think in the future, the internet will be faster. the only other thing i was surprised about in futurama, when i first saw it, was that humanity still excisted, let alone the world. i would've thought that nuclear arms and wars, would have destroyed earth and most of it's surrounding planets by then. either wars or the stupid human race killing the ozone, and poluting, and littering....i can go on.
Cloud 9

Bending Unit
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« Reply #21 on: 05-20-2004 16:53 »
« Last Edit on: 05-20-2004 16:53 »

A lot of Futurama's technology was adapted from older sci-fi books, movies, shows, etc. with a good deal of modern American pop culture tossed in there somewhere. So, I think that some parts would be more accurate than others. Like, sometimes the characters seem to know WAAAY more about the everyday 20th century life than they would normally. I mean, how many of us know EXACTLY what the year 1004 was like without studying it? And judging from the fact that humans are just as stupid in the year 3000 as now, I'd say there wasn't much chance of that.
tom123

Starship Captain
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« Reply #22 on: 05-20-2004 17:04 »

I don't know if anyone said this, but I don't think robots would be fueled on Alchohol.
Cloud 9

Bending Unit
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« Reply #23 on: 05-20-2004 17:09 »

I agree, but remember: alcahol isn't their main source of energy. It's oil, right? Like the kind Mom sells. (I'm only guessing this, cause when Bender went all religious, he gave up alcahol and went to drinking oil, I think...)
Ozor Mox

Starship Captain
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« Reply #24 on: 05-20-2004 17:10 »

 
Quote
Like, sometimes the characters seem to know WAAAY more about the everyday 20th century life than they would normally.

And yet there are moments on Futurama where they have no idea what it was like in the 20th century. An example would be in The Lesser Of Two Evils when caveman-style robots built cars. As David says in the commentary...

"It's not really clear exactly when all historic records were lost!"

Or a close approximation anyway.
Teral

Helpy McHelphelp
DOOP Secretary
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« Reply #25 on: 05-20-2004 17:14 »
« Last Edit on: 05-20-2004 17:14 »

Mom's oil is a lubricant not a fuel. That's why the anchovie gene were such a threat to her conglomerate, one drop of anchovie oil could permantly lubricate 10 robots. Robots are powered primarily by alcohol, synthetic fuel oil is for squares and robots who found religion.

Robots would probably use some kind of fuel cell, or highly advanced batteries, though the alcohol idea isn't that bad.
VoVat

Bending Unit
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« Reply #26 on: 05-20-2004 17:20 »

The space program isn't that important today, but it might become so if alien races were to make contact with us.  I don't believe the show has ever clearly indicated whether it was people from Earth who inititally discovered the alien civilizations or vice versa.  The fact that Earth has contact with so many other planets allows for the show to present things that we'd probably never come up with on our own, like hypnotoads and bouquet trees.  And, of course, the fact that it's a comedy means that they're going to design the aliens so they'll have the maximum humorous value.  I doubt that there's actually a planet of lobster people with Yiddish accents.

Obviously, we have no way of knowing what's going to happen in 1000 years.  I agree that we'll probably be much more advanced than the Futurama society in some ways, and less so in others.  I think there are quite a few things on Futurama that will become obsolete in the next thousand years, if not the next hundred, some because it's funny to see them still in use in a highly advanced society (dot matrix printers, anyone?), but some possibly because of sloppy writing (why would there still be a need for airplanes when cars can fly?) or a simple inability to predict what will come next (I'm sure there will be a better cooking method than microwave ovens in the next thousand years, but what will it be?).  Some things that we see in Futurama might well be obsolete by the actual year 3000 (at least if technology continues progressing as it has been; I know there are nuclear wars and devastating alien attacks in the Futurama future, and we might suffer from some similar setback in reality) include:

Electrical cords and plugs
Dial-up Internet connections (and, in fact, the Internet itself will probably become something completely different by then)
Audio and video tape
Probably a lot more that I can't think of offhand

On the other hand, I kind of doubt we'll have faster-than-light flight (or an increase in the speed of light) or heads kept alive in jars.  Really, the medical technology in Futurama seems somewhat inconsistent.  They can keep a head alive in a jar or on someone else's body, but Leela needs to wear an eyepatch for a week after being blasted with spices?
Cloud 9

Bending Unit
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« Reply #27 on: 05-20-2004 17:28 »

Concerning the space program, I think it would be more popular if, as stated earlier, alien life made contact, (either by us or them) or if we found or made a habitable planet other than Earth.
PCC Fred

Space Pope
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« Reply #28 on: 05-20-2004 19:52 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by canned eggs:
So while English isn't going to die out, it will certainly be unrecognisable in a thousand years.  There'll be more changes than just going back to the Middle English "aks."  But to use the Latin example, Latin never actually died out; all the Romance languages today are a legacy of spoken Latin in Europe.  It's like Old English; it never died out; it became Modern English.  So a thousand years in the future there will be some unrecognisable language that is the direct descendent of modern English, but I don't know what we'd call it.

 
Quote
Originally posted by PCC Fred, apparently ignored by everyone else:
But technically speaking English will be spoken in 1000 years' time (it's too big a language to simply die out), but it'll be vastly different to today's English (Shakespeare wrote in English, but it's virtually unrecognisable from the language we speak today.)

 
Quote
Also posted by PCC Fred, also ignored by everyone else:
Besides, Latin itself may not be a common language anymore, but it didn't totally die out. Besides the church it's still used in science, and it formed the basis of several European languages, including modern English.

Does anyone actually read posts before replying to them anymore?
bender+fry

Professor
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« Reply #29 on: 05-20-2004 20:21 »

i guess not. i also have a bone to pick with pluto. how could it go down to twenty degrees below absolute zero in the future? will the sun get farther away from pluto or something?

i realize it was just a funny joke, but i need something to be angry at right now.
VoVat

Bending Unit
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« Reply #30 on: 05-20-2004 20:33 »

Actually, it seems like the sun would have to be CLOSER, since there's daylight on Pluto in the episode.
Spacedal11

Space Pope
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« Reply #31 on: 05-20-2004 20:35 »

God I hope so...
David A

Space Pope
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« Reply #32 on: 05-20-2004 20:45 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by bender&fry:
i guess not. i also have a bone to pick with pluto. how could it go down to twenty degrees below absolute zero in the future? will the sun get farther away from pluto or something?

The sun getting farther away would hardly explain it.  There's no such thing as "below absolute zero".  Absolute zero, by definition, is the lowest possible temperature.
Nasty Pasty

DOOP Secretary
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« Reply #33 on: 05-20-2004 22:42 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by David A:
   Absolute zero, by definition, is the lowest possible temperature.

That we know of anyway...
davierocks

Professor
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« Reply #34 on: 05-20-2004 23:20 »
« Last Edit on: 05-20-2004 23:20 »

On language:  Has anyone ever tried reading Chaucer how it was orignally written?  That was just a few hundred years ago...do you really think that in a thousand years English will be in any way recognisable to what we see today?  Even with todays  widespread of the language.  Letters are being dropped off words all the time, even if it is not recognised officially.  It has always been that slang of the proles that generally wins out in the evolution of language, even if it is looked down upon by the "scholars.  New slang words are constanty arising, common meanings of words are constantly being changed "queer", "hot (as in attractive)", "cool" for example.

I think that if someone from 1940's Britain, if transported in time would have difficulty understanding someone from Britain today.  Thanks to the popularity of American-English and new slang words.  And some subjects becoming less taboo.  That was a mere 60 years ago...
David A

Space Pope
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« Reply #35 on: 05-21-2004 00:21 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by Nasty Pasty:
 That we know of anyway...

No, it's the lowest temperature possible.

Temperature is a measure of the speed of molecular motion.  The faster the molecules are moving, the higher the temperature.  The slower the molecules are moving, the lower the temperature.  Absolute zero is the temperature at which molecular motion stops altogether.

You can't get lower than absolute zero because you can't have less than no movement.  There's no such thing as a temperature below abolute zero because there's no such thing as a speed less than zero.
KAH

Bending Unit
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« Reply #36 on: 05-21-2004 02:15 »

Way to lay some science on us, David A. Right on!
Ok, as far as technology being used for entertainment in futurama: true there is the internet but look at their crappy TV. My point was that what people want is home comforts and entertainment, therfore you would expect giant screened televisions in every home. My point about the space program was that we have no drve to get to the point of intersteller travel.
zomit

Starship Captain
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« Reply #37 on: 05-21-2004 05:43 »

They still use Floppy Disks often, which people hardly use now. They use a dial-up internet connection (instead of cable), and all of the aliens (or at least most of them) speak English.
Tweek

UberMod
DOOP Secretary
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« Reply #38 on: 05-21-2004 06:42 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by davierocks:

I think that if someone from 1940's Britain, if transported in time would have difficulty understanding someone from Britain today.  Thanks to the popularity of American-English and new slang words.  And some subjects becoming less taboo.  That was a mere 60 years ago...
I doubt that, some slang has changed but the core language hasn't, and while some words are less taboo others are more so than they were then. They might just have a few problems with the slang like the Prof in Back to the Future in 1955  :p
VoVat

Bending Unit
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« Reply #39 on: 05-21-2004 10:48 »

 
Quote
They still use Floppy Disks often, which people hardly use now. They use a dial-up internet connection (instead of cable), and all of the aliens (or at least most of them) speak English.

If one floppy disk can hold Bender's entire personality, though, they must be a lot better than the floppy disks of today.  As for the aliens speaking English, maybe there's some kind of universal translator?

A lot of the things we see on Futurama are sci-fi traditions and/or parodies: heads in jars, humanoid robots, rayguns, hovercars, holograms, etc.  Some sci-fi gadgets that I can't recall seeing are force fields, matter transporters, and stun guns (Ranger Park was going to use an old-fashioned tranquilizer dart on Bigfoot).

I have no idea whether robotics will have reached the Futurama level by the year 3000.  I know there are already experiments in articifical intelligence, but, when you think about it, do we really WANT girder-bending robots that steal and smoke cigars?  As cool as Bender is, I think in some ways he could represent a good argument AGAINST giving robots human personalities.
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