5 Technologies That Will Change The World In Baffling Ways

The eventual takeover of self-driving vehicles is going to outright change the world. There are countless benefits, such as increased efficiency and the end of Fast And Furious movies, but by far the greatest result would be a near-elimination of vehicle-related deaths. Of course, there are some downsides, too, like the near-elimination of vehicle-related deaths.

As it turns out, there are some folks out there who rely on car accidents to get by, and we're not just talking about the douchebags who make those Faces Of Death videos. A huge percentage of organ donations come from accident fatalities, so lowering accident rates will remove hospitals' largest supplier of fresh body parts this side of backyard wrestling. The availability of all vital organ donations is already critically low, with waiting lists unmanageably long, so a big dip in second-hand lungs and livers is going to kick things into crisis mode. That's right, people not dying is going to lead to other people dying.

Uber

Not having any organs available is actually a more terrifying future than a robot apocalypse, because it results in a massive demand for the kinds of body parts that people can't quite live without. We've seen black markets pop up for Beanie Babies, so there's no way the theft and distribution of organs won't grow out of control. One possible solution is the legalization of selling one's own organs, like a kidney or a hunk of one's intestine, for cold, hard cash. In summary: Robot cars will kill us by saving us from each other. It's true, despite making even less sense than Terminator: Genisys.

It might not just be cyber-criminals illicitly getting their hands on your most private biological data. Once that information is available, would it be reasonable for employers to ask to see the DNA scans of a potential employee, in order to avoid investing in a person who might be prone to spontaneous combustion or restless legs syndrome? The Chicago Bulls think so, because they tried to make Eddy Curry take a DNA test to prove he didn't have a heart defect before they would extend his contract. He refused and was traded, and that was twelve years ago. Since then, the technology has improved and the questions have become tougher. Who has the right to know the secrets of your genetic code? Hospitals should probably know before they accept your donated organs, right? What about a potential marriage partner? Do they have the right to know what kind of faulty meatbag they're attaching themselves to? This sounds like a high-brow science-fiction concept, but it's an ethical issue we're already facing today. House Republicans are introducing bills to give away your genetic rights before you even understand what they are. And we haven't even touched on the notion of creating genetic copies of a person to destroy their life; an idea we're tentatively calling "clonemailing."

yuriyzhuravov/iStock

This all adds up to good news for consumers and social equality, and bad news for the Home Depots of the world, who will soon go the way of Blockbuster Video and Trump Steaks. Most of all, it's weird news for those of us who might find it unsettling to one day look up into the sky and see hundreds of lawnmowers flying around, possibly bringing us other lawnmowers.

There are some social implications to consider here. If it's an open market on robot legs, then they're probably only going to be available to the super-rich. At least at the start. Batman and Iron Man notwithstanding, the idea of a society divided between the poor and the literally superpowered rich elites doesn't sound great to most of us. If this becomes prevalent enough, the split between mech-enhanced people and "normies" will become the big societal divide of the century. How long willl it be before we hear new robot-related slurs and see "no normies need apply" signs in windows?

Brian Kersey/AP

The sporting world is where this hits first, because humanity has stupid priorities. Will cybernetics be allowed in professional sports, or the Olympics? The easy answer is no, but there's actually some room for debate. What if robotic enhancements are the only way for an athlete to recover from an injury that would otherwise keep them out of the sport? Baseball already has Tommy John surgery, which is basically the restructuring of one's body parts in order to let them whip a baseball with superhuman speed once again. Advances in nutrition, training, and medical technology have been pushing the limits of human ability for generations, and the line between those and upcoming enhancements may grow less clear-cut as they get closer. If there were a technology to minimize the long-term health effects of being a professional boxer, who would deny athletes that protection? Of course, we mean a technology other than "stop being a professional boxer."

This issue has already entered the political scene in Pakistan and in Canada, where notorious crack-smoking mayor Rob Ford was under fire for a video that showed him, if you can believe it, smoking crack. His supporters produced videos showing how a convincing forgery could have been made, as evidence that we shouldn't believe that was actually him smoking crack on video (Spoiler Alert: It totally was!). The news has actually been faked out by several, non-crack-addled forgeries -- including most UFO clips and an infamous shot of an eagle abducting a baby.

Fun fact: We will instantly believe a video of an eagle abducting anything.

How different would the 2016 election campaign have been, if a forged video of Donald Trump actually assaulting a woman had come out, instead of just an audio clip of him bragging about it? Stop laughing -- somebody might have cared! This is theoretical!

It's the last day of Happiness Week. But don't worry if you missed a day -- you can check out everything we've done here.

For more reasons we're, thankfully, far off from having robot overlords, check out 6 Futuristic Technologies That Are Huge Disappointments and 5 Breakthroughs In Tech (That Make Us Look Really Dumb).

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