Which scientific discovery or technological advancement do you hope to see in your lifetime?

I'd like to see fusion power (or some other good power source) become a thing. It'd be nice to live in a society where energy usage was basically safe and free.

If we're being unrealistic, easy access to ftl spacecraft for everyone would be nice. Exploring the galaxy sounds fun.

The last time I checked fusion was ..check notes.. just about fifty years away.
- For the last 40 years it's been down to 20 years away.
Sure it’ll be safe, but free is a pipe dream under our current system
What's funny is that we DO have access to fairly clean energy already! Nuclear and renewables (not as much solar, until we solve the rare earth metals problem) are pretty darn clean. I mean... have you looked up Thoroum reactors? Those things are really neat, much safer and better for the environment, etc., but came just a bit too late combined with the nuclear scare.

Cure for cancer

The problem is that there is not one cancer. But a myriad of cancers. That is the actual problem.
- Same goes for the common cold....
- Yeah. Cancer is more of a name for a condition than it is a specific disease. There will never be a single cure for this entire category of diseases.
🤞

Net zero carbon emissions worldwide

He said "technological" advancement, not "political". I think the greed and slow politics is what is holding us back here, not technology.

Evidence of life elsewhere in the universe. It would be so cool. I just hope its far enough we cant get there and fuck everything up for them (or that they cant do the same to us)

Perhaps we call them and it takes 400 years for them to get here and fuck things up.

Lab-grown meat that is both indistinguishable from animal-grown and is cheaper. Bonus points if they can make bacon have 100% of our daily vitamins and minerals.

Sending someone to mars and keeping an eye on how he lives his life and survives.

Would feel like a survival game let's play.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1284190/The_Planet_Crafter/

On sale right now, too!

Sustained fusion

Sustained net positiv fusion.

It's plausible that we'll see it in our lifetime.
- Would be nice
That's the first thing that comes into my mind when people say 'you can't spend that much money', when thinking of being a billionaire.

I would finance the living shit out of fusion technology. You know. For mankind and such.

Defeating aging.

Read the book Ending Aging by Aubrey de Grey...

Limitless Peace

Me too bro
so no more inheritance? no more younger generations getting their turn to control things? sounds like a nightmare scenario.
- The previous poster spoke about defeating aging, not death.
  
  I mean if we kept the same lifespan as we have today, but everyone basically stopped aging at 35, you keep the energy and clarity of mind all throughout your life, but still die at 82 or whatever, I'd call that a win.
- lol this guy thinks everyone gets inheritance
- Maybe think more creatively and not with a scarcity oriented pro-aging mindset. Limitless peace.

Room temperature superconductors. Not for any of the particular uses per se, but just because the world would go nuts and it would be interesting to see.

Fusion reactors that produce all the (electrical) power we need.

This is the big one. With infinite energy you can basically do matter transmutation and end most forms of commodity scarcity.
- I think the "promise" of fusion is a huge misunderstanding.
  
  I mean we already have a nearly infinite source of clean energy, it's called fission. The only difference between fission and fusion is that fusion will be much more expensive.
  
  If you want a truly unlimited source of energy, we have those too, they're wind and solar.
  
  Seriously though, the expectations for fusion are completely rediculous, when we finally do get it working, it will be the most expensive form of energy ever concieved. If the reactors use the standard method of generating energy, heat capture to run a turbine, it will also require enormous amounts of beryllium as part of the "blanket" around the reactor. How much beryllium will be needed? In the whole world, we probably have enough beryllium for 4 grid scale reactors, the cost of which would be astronomical.
  
  Here's the worst part, over time those blankets would absorb neutrons, the materials would degrade and eventually the now radioactive blanket would have to be disposed of and replaced.
  
  The tldr is this - tokamak and stellerator style fusion reactors work great in theory, they will probably successfully make sustainable fusion reactions quite soon. But they may never generate electricity in practice, they're a logistical and economical nightmare.
  
  I do think fusion could make a fantastic spacecraft engine however, I expect that will be a huge application.

I want to see wide-spread adoption of organ transplants using decellularization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decellularization

A 3d printer in every home and a larger one in each neighbourhood. Design our own stuff instead of buying garbage that falls apart.

A self-hosted AI, which isn't controlled by any bigtech company, would be pretty sweet.

The end of surveillance capitalism.

Alzheimer/Dementia cure. That would be so nice.

Hyper compact batteries, that would change everything overnight

That god is a chemically sustained illusion, and the dismantling of religion.

I want robot body parts.

I want to live forever, or at least until I get lazy and flash some shady firmware to my robotic heart...

Large scale terraforming. We're gonna need it here on Earth if we don't get climate change under control... and we're not gonna get climate change under control the easy way cuz it's not profitable.

But if we do get a hold on planet-scale, controlled climate manipulation here, that'll give us a gold mine of data for extraterrestrial use.

Find proof of extraterrestrial life
Find out what causes gravity and learn to use it (just imagine a world in which we could create gravity)
Master matter and build Replicators
Get a grasp of what time is and why we don't have a real perception of it

Wait, which Replicator are you taking about? It makes a difference.
- Oh, I meant the 'make me a sandwich' - device from Star Trek.

-Discovering extraterrestrial life

-Phasing out of disposable plastics and gasoline vehicles

-Transferring to clean energy and clean industrial processes whenever applicable

-More widespread ethical and sustainable farming practices

-Lab grown organs and/or more efficient artificial body parts

-Improved healthcare system/healthcare research

-Better treatments and potentially cures for chronic and/or rare diseases

-Much longer lifespans ~~I just think we don't live long enough even with the current best case scenerios lol~~

Though some of this would be viable now, if it weren't for capitalism/politics holding it back so might not entirely count

I want a bigger penis.

Immortality or at least a usefully extended lifespan

So much I want to do!

Some sort of bacta tank-like device that can treat all known diseases, illnesses, conditions, etc.

First colony in space.

we've all got a finite time and my dream is that mankind figures out how to spread throughout the stars.

a first colony is that step

Fully augmented reality. Travel anywhere you can read the signs, and understand the language through subtitles and or earbuds.

Non-fixed precision robotics. Basically give a pair of robot arms a piece of wood and a dremel and it can make whatever shape, but for any tool/material.

A decentralized currency that is actually useful as currency.

A rental car that picks me up at the airport, and that I can just abandon when I’m done. I don’t mind driving I just don’t want to bother with the shuttles and parking.

Food delivery drones owned by the restaurant.

Cellular data everywhere (like starlink is working on). Ability to order an air drop of like 10 kg of food/supplies anywhere within ~200 miles of a city.

I'll try to keep it somewhat realistic:

Cure for psoriasis.
Large improvement in public transport. Currently it's just getting worse, at least where I live, because everything is centered around cars. Thus public transport gets less funding, which results in lower quality and less people using it. Which results in more investments into car-centric infrastructure. You get the idea. The more shit it gets, the more shit it gets.
Bicycle lanes and sidewalks. Building large roads is seemingly no problem, but bike lanes and sidewalks? Nah. I could get to school on a bike, but the only way to get there would be by a dangerous busy road, so a bus it is. I am not worried about getting killed by a truck or BMW driver, I am however worried about serious permanent injuries which are probably more likely.

FTL travel and human/animal hybrid genetic engineering to make cat boys and girls real.

Is it considered a technological advancement to remove something which exists now and actively makes life worse? I'd like to remove "health insurance" as a concept

devils advocate: if the technology is not [..or quickly become] affordable. then sometimes, some of these hopes, are unrealistic.

SAO / Matrix level immersive VR

AGI?

Artificial general intelligence (I think)