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You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

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Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#41

Post by brulard »

learc83 wrote: post #30
eanzenberg wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also would like to add, sheer advances in compute and software lead by Facebook and others has enabled much cheaper space travel than what was possible in 1970's - 80's. This type of stuff is getting cheaper every day, so why be selfish because you "want to see it in your lifetime?" It'll happen. I don't care if it happens in 20 years, 200 years, or 2000 years.

Facebook (and other web advertising companies) isn't leading most of the advances in computing power. Moore's law is much older than Facebook. And they certainly aren't developing the software that space agencies and companies are using. If anything they're likely diverting talent away from more beneficial work towards selling ads. There are maybe 2 projects on this list that could possibly be beneficial for space ex…

Haven't you heard of react.js or GraphQL? Not sure about space agencies, but companies for sure use them.

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#42

Post by krapp »

option wrote: post #24
krapp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm saying is that, by the time it happens, Elon is going to be a footnote in someone else's story.

maybe, I hope to see two things in my lifetime: 1) organisms (a single cell or similar) evolved not on Earth and 2) human base on Moon and/or Mars

I'd like to see those too, but a base is still a long way from making us a multi-planetary species in any meaningful sense. It's a first step, but it's a first step we've been trying to take since the moon landings. If Elon gets us that far, great... but that doesn't mean he'll be remembered as the greatest human who ever lived, any more than Neil Armstrong or Yuri Gagarin are.

To be a multiplanetary species, we'd need large-scale habitats with stable, complex biomes, and planet-scale geo-engineering. Spam in a can isn't going to cut it.

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#43

Post by molteanu »

chrisseaton wrote: post #33
molteanu wrote: post #23

I've told myself countless times lately, that it is simply not possible for young graduates to come to work knowing basically nothing, surfing fb and youtube all day long and then go buy cars and going to Greece as their very first vacation. Something, somewhere, just stinks badly. I've literally never seen a challenging and well run project in almost 10 years in this business. Always late, always overstaffed, always…

> I've told myself countless times lately, that it is simply not possible for young graduates to come to work knowing basically nothing, surfing fb and youtube all day long and then go buy cars and going to Greece as their very first vacation. Something, somewhere, just stinks badly. What is this in reference to? Where do buying cars and holidays in Greece come into this article? Is there a stereotype of programmers…

In reference to all the money being invested in questionable places.

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#44

Post by headmelted »

molteanu wrote: post #23

I've told myself countless times lately, that it is simply not possible for young graduates to come to work knowing basically nothing, surfing fb and youtube all day long and then go buy cars and going to Greece as their very first vacation. Something, somewhere, just stinks badly. I've literally never seen a challenging and well run project in almost 10 years in this business. Always late, always overstaffed, always…

“I've literally never seen a challenging and well run project in almost 10 years in this business. Always late, always overstaffed, always endless meetings and poorly trained people that nevertheless earn well above the median wage so the incentive to improve onself is almost zero”

This was actually painful to read because of how much truth there is in it.

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#45

Post by learc83 »

Aloha wrote: post #7
option wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t want to sound as a fanboy, but IF (and this is a huge if) Elon succeeds on his mission to make humanity a multi-planentary species, he’ll be remembered as a greatest human who has ever lived for a very long time

I'm no Elon fan, and it's a really really big if , but - you're absolutely correct about that if he succeeds completely he'll go down in the same category as Edison or Napoleon.

Napoleon in most of the English speaking world is much more infamous/loathed than admired.

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#46

Post by chrisseaton »

molteanu wrote: post #43
chrisseaton wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've told myself countless times lately, that it is simply not possible for young graduates to come to work knowing basically nothing, surfing fb and youtube all day long and then go buy cars and going to Greece as their very first vacation. Something, somewhere, just stinks badly. What is this in reference to? Where do buying cars and holidays in Greece come into this article? Is there a stereotype of programmers…

In reference to all the money being invested in questionable places.

I think we’re missing some part of your train of thought here.

But fundamentally tech graduates make a lot because the work they do makes a lot. You can’t argue the projects are both over staffed and pay too much at the same time! If there’s enough money coming into the company to pay that many people that much money then good for them? Looks like it is possible. Where should the money go instead? To the investors? That doesn’t sound better for ordinary people.

But I don’t think they use it to go on holiday to Greece, and I’ve never heard anyone talk about normal tech graduates being involved in international tax evasion of all things - they don’t earn that much and I think most of it goes on rent in many places!

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#47

Post by freeflight »

buboard wrote: post #34
eanzenberg wrote: post #12

It sounds like people are forgetting the world before Facebook. Isolated, repressed locations, limited flow of information from tiny amounts of sources. The Connected-Information Age seems to have brought on some great advances and has been self-sustaining from a profitable perspective. Sure, the worlds' governments could have spent billions / trillions building bases on Mars or even terraforming it. But for what pur…

i m not against facebook , but no, the world was "more" connected before facebook and mobile (which i think both represent a shift in the way internet was used). People were connected in open pseudonymous platforms and engaging in continuous explorative mystery with each other, everyone, not just their friends. It's fair to say i haven't read radical ideas online in a decade, and a lot of the edgy stuff of the old in…

> People were connected in open pseudonymous platforms and engaging in continuous explorative mystery with each other.

This also had the effect that most people were way more respectful towards each other because you didn't have an instant "ego comparison" trough shined up social media profiles.

Nowadays most discussions quickly turn ad-hominem because all the needed information is readily available: "You said this nasty thing 4 years ago! A horrible person like you can't have any valid opinions!".

Yet somehow to this day, some people keep peddling this myth that "anonymity breeds toxicity", when Facebook sits there as one of the biggest and most glaring counter-examples collective humanity could ever produce.

Imho the web was way nicer and more productive pre-social media mass adoption.

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#48

Post by adventured »

scythe wrote: post #25

Why is it always space? Space technology requires lots of energy and our society is currently in the middle of realizing that our current way of getting energy is going to kill us. Of course we're not making large-scale investments in energy-intensive exploration. I wish EDS maglev, fusion power or quantum computing generated so much excitement, to say nothing of grid batteries, magnetocaloric heat pumps, or electric…

> Why is it always space?

For the same reason it's always flying cars, despite how comically inefficient such vehicles are. The masses have an extaordinarily simplistic notion of what futuristic or advanced technology is or should look like. There are only a few well-trodden idols linked to what the future is supposed to look like. Hollywood has told them so; they've been told for many decades that it most certainly involves a space thing and or flying thing.

Cracking the human genome was a thousand times more interesting and important than flying cars could ever be and yet the masses can't let go of flying cars as somehow representative of magic futureness. It's nothing more than cultural brainwashing, equivalent to being projected on by media & advertising for decades that smoking cigarettes is cool (and that worked just the same, people bought into it fully).

They do what they're told. They believe what they're sold.

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#49

Post by netsharc »

chrisseaton wrote: post #33
molteanu wrote: post #23

I've told myself countless times lately, that it is simply not possible for young graduates to come to work knowing basically nothing, surfing fb and youtube all day long and then go buy cars and going to Greece as their very first vacation. Something, somewhere, just stinks badly. I've literally never seen a challenging and well run project in almost 10 years in this business. Always late, always overstaffed, always…

> I've told myself countless times lately, that it is simply not possible for young graduates to come to work knowing basically nothing, surfing fb and youtube all day long and then go buy cars and going to Greece as their very first vacation. Something, somewhere, just stinks badly. What is this in reference to? Where do buying cars and holidays in Greece come into this article? Is there a stereotype of programmers…

The OP is from Eastern Europe, and those 2 things he's mentioned are probably the local aspirations (Greece being not so far).

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#50

Post by philipkglass »

This raises some interesting questions about why the-future-seen-from-1970 included so many developments that failed to materialize. Unfortunately, I think it provides mostly wrong or irrelevant answers.

One thing that made the 20th century so amazing was the discovery of scientific phenomena that were easily translated to industrially and commercially relevant technologies. We're still mining the rich vein of technological possibilities opened up by quantum mechanics. The major features of the field were well established before World War II. There has been nothing so technologically fruitful discovered since. It's possible that amazing scientific breakthroughs in cosmology or particle physics will be made this century, yet fail to have anything like the technological impact of quantum effect devices, if the time/length/mass/energy scales are not amenable to building products and factories usable on Earth.

The other big headwind since 1970 has been the price of fuels. In every year of the 21st century, inflation adjusted global crude oil prices have remained above where they were in 1970. The one modern bright spot [1], the shale revolution, has spectacularly failed to make its investors prosper [2]. Nor is its continuance assured enough for airlines and aircraft manufacturers to decide that the time has come again for faster rather than thriftier passenger service. Airframes last a long time. Want faster-than-Concorde passenger air service for the 21st century? You need new vehicles and a stable, low priced [3] energy source for them to consume.

[1] For oil and gas prices. Not for the climate.

[2] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/shale-pioneer-fracking-unmiti...

[3] Including climate externalities. I wouldn't bet on those remaining unpriced over the airframe's life either.

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