I’ve been here at SDMB for about a year. I love it! What makes is so compelling is the people, of course. What an interesting, insightful, and incredible source of information y’all are!
But this is the age of the Internet, and things come and go with relative expedience. Will SDMB still be here in 30 years? What will it look like? Can we expect some manner of visual enhancement? Will we have animated heads that may or may not look like us speaking for us instead of simply using text? Will there be neuro-miners, where I can just plug in, think about what I want to know, and it will find those of you also plugged in and get the answer or opinion out of your brain? Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?
I think that we will be able to send & receive clear, high quality digital color clips of ourselves speaking easier than we now send an e-mail.
Of course a film of you saying to me “Jimmmy you are an ass” is a very different proposition than a posting some words on a message board – so I’m sure that Message Boards will continue in some form to preserve anonymity – perhaps by having animated (and/or very real looking) avatars that speak for us.
All of this can be done today of course, but load times and general familiarity with the processes will increase as the tech and ease of use improves.
My WAG: The SDMB in 2034 will be something that is seen and heard rather than written
In 2034, the SDMB will have just completed its first server upgrade in 35 years! Now running on a Commodore VIC 20 rescued from a thrift store with dimes sent in by generous Dopers, threads can now be opened in under 45 minutes!
Other highlights:
[ul]
[li]One full day has passed without someone posting. " Ah, 1920’s style death rays!"[/li][li]A total of seven words ending in -gry have been discovered.[/li][li]MPSIMS collapses under its own weight and falls into the BBQ Pit; both are destroyed, to much cheering and applause.[/li][li]Cecil is finally parolled from Joliet after being convicted in the mysterious disappearance of Ed Zotti in 2004.[/li][li]Q.E.D. reaches 916,481 posts; resolves to try to be more productive.[/li][li]An outbreak of SARS in Chicago is traced to the SDMB hamsters, which are replaced with banned SDMB posters on a treadmill in Guantanimo Bay, Cuba. The hamsters are broasted and consumed as finger food at Dopefest Chicago '34.[/li][/ul]
There is usefulness to limiting a communication medium to just text. For one, I think most read faster than an average person speaks. I know I’d rather read through a thread on my own than have it spoken to me.
Wildest Bill will have been resurected as a total AI computer graphic tamale in a cowboy hat that pops up unnanounced to impart his peculiar brand of wisdom, interspersed with "Gotcha Ya"s.
Think Max Headroom with apoplectic fits of logic-defying whimsy.
Other 2034 Events:[ul]
[li]BBQ Pit closed as US finally takes action on global warming. [/li][li]Bush cited at fault in 85% of all GD threads.[/li][li] Hi Opal still getting used in the wrong places at the wrong time.[/li][li]Socks identified through instant DNA testing.[/li][li]Cecil now a cryogenically preserved, dictates all answers from a jar in Reader’s offices.[/li][li] Top threads in each forum:[/li] - GQ. I involuntarily keep talking like an advert. Is this because I installed cranial halo-sharing software?
GD. Foreskin regeneration is evil.
Cafe Society. What you reading just now?
IMHO. Are Flycar SUV’s necessary?
MPSIMS. Me & My House Robot (TMI)
BBQ. Just because I can’t touch my nose doesn’t mean I’m fat, dammit!
[li]Board now features 1024 thousand different smilies, so you can convey that “quite funny, but in a sad mocking way that indicates my intellectual superiority while acknowledging you as a valid human being” emotion. :)[/li][li] Automatic and intelligent previews switched on by *default so [/li][quote]
that you neve need preview agaim
[/quote]
The “If Lord of the Rings had been written by someone else” thread will have expanded to 254,000,000 posts and will occupy as much bandwidth as the entire Internet did in 2003.
Moderators and administrators will be a thing of the past. THE SDMB will be totally self-policing. Anytime a member thinks a post is inappropriate, he/she can register displeasure. When enough members register the same opinion, the offending posters will be executed through a return line to their computers. This will help keep the number of members down to a server-managable 254,000,000 (all of whom have their own idea of who should have written LOTR.)
Improved server capabilities mean that when a poster clicks the Submit button, 75,000 multiple posts will be generated.
Parkways and driveways will have been made irrelevant by the invention of flying cars. Deliberately obnoxious posters (prior to their executions) will be forced to be content with asking who Cecil really is.
