[bodz]

There's something to be said for getting rid of excessive waste and unnecessarily large warehouses of "cheap junk", but it's also worth remembering that toys play a very important part in teaching children fundamental skills like hand-eye coordination, simple problem solving, fostering imagination, etc.

It's a game of "what-ifs", but I'm fairly confident in saying I wouldn't be pursuing the career I am now if I had never had the experiences of walking down the Lego aisle at the toy store and falling in love with piecing together toy cities.

[bduerst]

Same - except for me it was also Capsela (now called IQ Key), a bunch of cheap plastic crap that let you engineer modular machines.

I think the medium that kids play with 'toys' has changed with tablet and phone devices. Now they're solving puzzle apps and building Minecraft cities - whether or not that's a good or bad thing, I'm not sure, but it doesn't bode well for toy stores.

[bodz]

I think so too, but I wonder about the long term effect that doing everything in the virtual world will have on abilities in the physical world. It's extremely anecdotal, but my little brother, who almost exclusively plays Minecraft, seems to have a fantastic imagination but very poor fine motor skills. He has trouble doing anything physical that requires not using a keyboard and mouse.

[soverance]

I feel like there's a point far into the future where they might consider the current technology age as a turning point in our evolution as biological beings. Consider a future 1000 years from now, after we've spent a thousand years interacting with the virtual world. Imagine a world where the virtual is indistinguishable from the physical - where the virtual IS physical, and the physical IS virtual. Virtual worlds that are infinitely customizable, creating scenarios for your mind that are infinitely more compelling than what you can experience in the purely physical realm. Reset your life to any point in time. Fast forward. Rewind. Play through every conceivable event. Travel to any destination you can imagine. Meet anyone or any creature. BE any creature. Live an existence that can be shaped by your very whim; reality could be whatever you wanted it to be, changes made as quickly as thoughts come and go. For all intents and purposes, you are the architect of your own reality. God.

Computer chips implanted into the body to regulate vital functions. Nanobot technology to repair or modify biological cells. Countless methods to sustain and prolong your biological life.

Eventually the biological dies, but the virtual simulation is not interrupted. Instead, your consciousness is uploaded to the world's mainframe server, where your mind is allowed to continue on it's journey of self-discovery within the virtual world. You and your loved ones can continue to interact virtually, forever. Where you can continue to explore, to learn, and to experience life long after your death.

You are virtually immortal.

[nradov]

Since we don't understand the nature of consciousness there is zero evidence to indicate that mind uploading will ever actually be possible.

[_gcra]

Being "alive" forever, virtual or otherwise, sounds creepy and revolting. You are welcome to it, I think [1]; I and many others enjoy the inherent richness that comes with the ephemerality and unpredictability of biological life.

[1] my concern is how this line of thinking and "living" might continue on a path of mindlessly destroying everything that isn't it.

[solnyshok]

Hello, Neo! Follow the white rabbit?

[erulabs]

Capsela! THANK YOU! I've been googling "little plastic bubbles with gears in them" occasionally for years without finding these.

Between this, K'nex and the original Macintosh my life as a programmer was more a destiny and less a choice :P

Edit: Holy shit, when I google "little plastic bubbles with gears in them", Capsela comes up. Maybe google has gotten better at vague searches in the last decade :P

[agumonkey]

Oh I remember seeing these on rare occasions. They felt very sciency, I would have enjoyed throwing my brain on them as a kid.

[heurist]

We got along fine without them for tens of thousands of years ;)