Magazine For Museums Publishes Its 2040 Issue -- 23 Years Early (aam-us.org) 40
A nonprofit founded in 1906 is now offering a glimpse at 2040, according to an anonymous reader:
The Alliance of American Museums has just published an ambitious Nov/Dec 2040 issue of Museum, the Alliance's magazine. The columns, reviews, articles, awards, and even the ads describe activities from a 2040 perspective, based on a multi-faceted consensus scenario.
Besides virtual reality centers (and carbon-neutral cities), it envisions de-extinction biologists who resurrect lost species. It also predicts a 2040 with orbiting storehouses to preserve historic artifacts (as well as genetic materials) as part of a collaboration with both NASA and a new American military branch called the US Space Corps. And of course, by 2040 musuems have transformed into hybrid institutions like "museum schools" and "well-being and cognitive health centers" that are both run by museums.
It also predicts for-profit museums that have partnered with corporations.
Besides virtual reality centers (and carbon-neutral cities), it envisions de-extinction biologists who resurrect lost species. It also predicts a 2040 with orbiting storehouses to preserve historic artifacts (as well as genetic materials) as part of a collaboration with both NASA and a new American military branch called the US Space Corps. And of course, by 2040 musuems have transformed into hybrid institutions like "museum schools" and "well-being and cognitive health centers" that are both run by museums.
It also predicts for-profit museums that have partnered with corporations.
Re:This is so stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
The censorship spiel is just nonsense, "who cares" isn't a constructive comment.
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Because in 23 years, people will look back and say "oh how short sighted of us", and it's a chance for people to re-examine what we think is a good path for humanity; if there's consensus right now that space is going to be millitarised and museums will become for-profit within a few decades, are we as a people ok with that.
For-profit might actually get some museums a bit more interesting. Other parts, though, show a distinct lack of understanding of the base technical requirements--'de-extinction' biologists as a concept is horrible.
Let's start with the basic requirements if you want to bring back a species. You need a good, complete genome with some decent amount of variation, plus a species you can have incubate it to whatever point is necessary--or an artificial female reproductive tract, and we're unlikely to see that o
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More interesting, and less correct because the facts don't bring in the money like a nice exciting lie does. It's better if we just call them history-themed amusement parks instead of museums.
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More interesting, and less correct because the facts don't bring in the money like a nice exciting lie does. It's better if we just call them history-themed amusement parks instead of museums.
The nonprofit ones still need to get their money from somewhere; they are not in possession of money trees, and must get people to turn up to stay open.
Besides, some of the history ones already are history-themed amusement parks because people wouldn't donate money if they told the less-palatable truth, and the sad fact is that an entertaining history-themed amusement park might actually more closely approximate the truth than some of what we get as a result.
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In 23 years this will be Mad Max world and most of us will be Soylent Green.
Kurzweil disagrees (Score:1)
There won't be museums in 2040 because that's the year of The Singularity [wikipedia.org].
For-profit museums and corporations (Score:3)
Like the Ark Encounter in Kentucky?
Do the writers realize for-profit museums are already a thing, most major corporations have one. Also, do they realize 2040 is about 20 years away, do they really think things are going to change that much? In the last 20 years we got the Matrix and higher speed Internets but not much changed in the fields of space exploration and health care.
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How can the Ark Encounter thing be for profit if it is rapidly hemorrhaging money?
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It being for-profit doesn't mean it's making a profit. But it's funny how all religious-based organizations are continuously hemorrhaging money yet don't seem to ever die. I'm pretty sure Ken Ham made a tidy profit around it personally even though it's "losing" money.
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Yeah. I know that for profit and making a profit are not synonymous, but I still could not pass that one up. I could see some secular group buying them out though, and using that as an exhibit for a greater mythology museum.
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wait a minute...are you trying to say that moderation is censorship?
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Nah, more like the Indianapolis Museum of Art which has gone from Free to $18 ticket per visit, and is changing its name in a rebranding effort to avoid bad press.
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Yeah, I don't get the for-profit museum thing. Because there are a LOT of them. Granted, they're not your typical museums - giant gr
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In the last 20 years we've had incremental improvements, but no earth-shattering things like the steam engine or the Model T Ford was and there seems to be no current paths to actual innovation because schools would have to change today to have an impact within 20 years. Facebook is an incremental change at best, it's an amalgamation of Usenet and IRC/ICQ but it's not the breakthrough that SMTP was.
I'm not saying the next 20 years won't be better than today, but I don't expect any major changes.
This is bound... (Score:2)
The Smithsonian, brought to you by Exxon (Score:1)
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Re: The Smithsonian, brought to you by Exxon (Score:2)
Neither do the people who claim we are going to be living in the clouds of Venus.
Perhaps those people already do. :)
Re: The Smithsonian, brought to you by Exxon (Score:2)
Otherwise what goes up must come down, unless you want to keep shipping fuel up to keep boosting it into a higher orbit.
Only in LEO, due to drag.
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Lets expose all of our priceless artefacts to radiation from deep space, to ensure that no human can ever stand in close proximity to them ever again.
Really this idea is ludicrous and a complete non-starter. The point of museums is to store those artifacts for future generations to study and learn from. Pretty difficult to study artifacts that are in orbit, and irradiated.
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A common disposal orbit (or graveyard orbit) used for satellites that reached end of life is up high enough to be considered stable for thousands or even millions of years. Use an orbit like that, or one just beyond it to avoid all those dead satellites.
Would you really trust putting the Mona Lisa on a rocket?
That's an interesting question. People trust their one and only life with these rockets all the time. If the goal is to preserve a truly one of a kind item then perhaps putting them in orbit might not be wise, even if people trust them with their lives.
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Countless important texts, movies, music and so on have already been placed in orbit by sending a copy via the ISS internet link.
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The International Space Station is not expected to still be in orbit in 2040. Current and future modules of the ISS might be reused in a Russian station, but the international mission will not remain. Unless the Russians plan on maintaining this archive then this orbital museum will be at the bottom of the ocean in 15 years or so. Maybe it is wise to plan on creating more than one such archive.
If this is a private archive then this could be profitable for someone. They can sell space on the archive and
Space Corps could still be on its way... (Score:3)
Orville and Wilbur flew in 1903, both sides of WWI had fighting aircraft, and still in WWII my grandfather was drafted into the Army Air Corps because the Air Force wasn't founded until 1947...
Gagarin flew in 1961, +44 was 2005, and there's been relatively little militarization of space, yet.
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A common theme in science-fiction was bombs in space or military posts on other planets (Avatar, 2009). The Outer space treaty (1967) bans military posts on all natural bodies outside Earth and nuclear weapons in space (Space cowboys, 2000) but not giant bullets (G.I. Joe: Retaliation, 2013). Contrary to the movie, there is a problem with kinetic bombardment, similar to laser bombardment: Limited accuracy and highly localized damage.
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Dammit! You ruined my Space Cowboys joke!
Militarization of space has already happened. Militarization of space does not mean putting big guns on orbiting platforms. It can mean other military assets like communication, navigation, spying/surveying, weather (just a special kind of surveying really), and perhaps others that I have not thought of.
The US Navy has shown it has the weapons to destroy a satellite in orbit, some orbits anyway. They shot rockets from ships at sea and have at least tested the fea
carbon-neutral cities (Score:2)
You mean like a church? (Score:3)
And of course, by 2040 museums have transformed into hybrid institutions like "museum schools" and "well-being and cognitive health centers" that are both run by museums.
I don't know why I thought this but at some point I found it odd that we have words that separate places that store items of historical and cultural significance. I'm thinking of libraries, museums, schools, churches, monuments, and perhaps even hospitals. Libraries, especially those that are larger and older, have for a long been as much a museum as a place for books. They'll let people view and borrow not just books but also artwork, maps, videos, and music. Often a library will display artwork, either among the books or in a separated area that is really just a small museum attached to the library.
Schools are, in effect, just an extension of a library or museum. Education is more formalized, of course, but it's really mostly about a "curator" lecturing and discussing a topic of history, culture, science, or religion that they have specialized in. A church is a museum for many intents and purposes. Some churches ARE a museum, where people may visit freely to view the artwork and such when services are not being held. There's churches (or chapels rather) in schools, schools in churches, libraries in churches, and museums in them all.
Even when it comes to things like health people will go to a church for distress or depression, a mental health issue, to talk to a religious figure (animate or inanimate). Historically physical and mental health have been big things within every religion. Many religious rituals are based on eating healthy, like keeping kosher. The word "university" comes from a religious custom or construct. What they called a "university" long ago we'd call a "seminary" today. If you wanted to be a physician then you'd be expected to go to university and study medicine along with "universal" knowledge contained in religious texts.
We've seen this convergence and blurring of what defines a library and museum for a long time. I expect further convergence and blurring in the future. I don't expect a complete convergence by 2040. I don't know if such a complete convergence is possible, we cannot expect one building, or campus of buildings, to be all things to all people. If we don't create new words for this convergence then the meaning of the words we use today will evolve a new meaning, like how universities are most often secular institutions but were highly religious long ago.
I can just imagine someone foreign to modern society being baffled at this arbitrary separation of structures like I have become baffled. I imagine an alien from another planet landing on Earth and seeing "churches" everywhere and wondering why we keep the books from the statues, the lecture halls from the worship halls, schools separated from hospitals, and the university separate from the seminary.