61–70 of 505 posts
If we consider Einstein as a "10x scientist", I for one, I'm glad that society is realising that it's better collectively to increase slightly the performance/achievements of 10 scientists than relying on a single "10x" one for innovation.
A similar breakthrough today could be: Quantum mechanics, Fusion and a fully functional decentralized Internet (not to be confused with decentralized web).
My theory is a little different: War. War is the thing that, in my opinion, enables all progress. The pandemic had some sort of war conditions, and this forces people to get creative and create new unusual paradigms.
In the normal/usual day to day, people could not care less. They want incremental improvements but rarely want a full disruption of the status quo. They dream of remote work, but there aren't enough forces (government, society, corporate, workers, etc...) to make that happen. They just don't do fundamental changes.
I appreciate that they at least acknowledge my first thought. They try although I really don't know what they mean exactly when they mean by the title.
Maybe some perspective is needed.
This is ridiculous. We’re seeing innovation EVERYWHERE, and looking back, this will be a golden age for progress (if the species makes it far enough to look back, that is). Think of it like this: we invented personal computers. At the time, only nerds had access to computation. These days, all kinds of scientists just script up things in python. We have how many million people who are able to code? I don’t even care…
Is the blooming you refer to helping humans and making them healthier and happier though? Or smarter? For the average person in the USA that I encounter it seems like the answer to smarter is a resounding no. And this seems to correspond with the rise of social media in the timeline in my head. Human intelligence doesn’t evolve lower in such a short time period, but the knowledge in that head varies greatly with what…
For damn sure "smarter" by any definition of education and intelligent that I could come up with. Sure, maybe not Americans/Western Europeans. Sure. But _globally_ has our education system gotten better and people gotten "smarter"? I think so!
Happier? Oh hell no, I don't think we're _happier_ now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The last technological breakthrough was the smartphone. That's fairly recent, and pretty damned significant. How often are you expecting such society-changing innovations to occur? Your list of things we don't have that you want is kinda odd. Is there a need for cloned humans? What huge societal improvements do holograms permit? Why is a consumer product with graphene meaningful but the massive innovation in small,…
> kinda odd. Is there a need for cloned humans? Cloned militaries. Eliminating birth defects. Relieving women from the pain of childbirth. Also to solve the problem of low birth rates, and allow people to perpetuate themselves. Elon Musk could clone himself and raise his copy to eventually take over his businesses after him. > What huge societal improvements do holograms permit? Look man, the Jedi didn't use Slack, d…
So... are these clones slaves that are forced to join the army?
> Also to solve the problem of low birth rates, and allow people to perpetuate themselves. Elon Musk could clone himself and raise his copy to eventually take over his businesses after him.
He could also do this with his children?
I think this is more of a version of the "why have we stopped making good music/movies, almost everything today is garbage?" issue. With the benefit of hindsight, we only remember the greats (and the very worst villains) from past eras. While if we look around today, we see all the people who will never make it into the history books, just like we see all the songs and movies that will never become "classics." Edit:…
If you had a CD of 20 songs, they were pretty great. If you got a box set ... oh man you hit A LOT of stinkers.
This is ridiculous. We’re seeing innovation EVERYWHERE, and looking back, this will be a golden age for progress (if the species makes it far enough to look back, that is). Think of it like this: we invented personal computers. At the time, only nerds had access to computation. These days, all kinds of scientists just script up things in python. We have how many million people who are able to code? I don’t even care…
The "innovation" that pervades through our current times is shallow and false. The only substantive innovations we've had in the last couple of decades has been the internet -- and unfortunately its applications have been a net harm on society. I will also say, despite how disagreeable it is, you are part of the problem vis-a-vis "Why we stopped making Einsteins": because your perception of things is not rooted in anything more than self-service and how it affects you -- and not the world at large.
If one were to look at the fruits of academia without any self-deception, it's mostly "scientists" making careers for themselves, and constantly engaging in long-cons, grifting for grant money. And if we include the amount of useless (or even out-right damaging) research that has been published (because, once again the incentives for most science is not love of truth, discovery, or practical application -- but self-service) it will seem like it has done more harm to the human soul than organized religion has in the past.
Millions of people are able to code, and where has that got us?
The questions of the 90s -- how many of them were actually useful, and not simply a distraction from reality?
Ad tech? Search? Phones in your pockets with the ability to magnify and create a hyper-reality better than could possibly ever be experienced in real life? Yes, the list goes on, but I don't consider any of these things to be good. What have they done for the human condition besides atomize and intensify certain things -- while neglecting the rest?
Machines beating people at Go? We've created automatons that can best us at what should be leisurely activities and hobbies -- to what end?
We don't have Einsteins anymore because our culture would not be able to recognize an Einstein until decades past his innovations -- when all the hype and hoopla as died down, and we can look at them detached, and with a cool head and ask ourselves "how much impact has this really made?" (For Einstein, it has been quite large. But I'm certain in 100 years, if we ever wisen, that we'll look back at the things you've listed as appalling detriments, and wonder how could we have been so foolish).
It's not pessimism -- it's just looking at the world without painting one's emotional state over it.
This is ridiculous. We’re seeing innovation EVERYWHERE, and looking back, this will be a golden age for progress (if the species makes it far enough to look back, that is). Think of it like this: we invented personal computers. At the time, only nerds had access to computation. These days, all kinds of scientists just script up things in python. We have how many million people who are able to code? I don’t even care…
Agreed with all your points, except for this one: > b) will continue to bloom for the foreseeable future I don't think this will be the case. True, it was/is a golden age, but I don't see how this demonstrably unsustainable machine can go on fore the "foreseeable future". Unless we get a huge breakthrough on the order of fusion, I don't see this golden age going on more than 50 or so more years.
But I don't see us stopping to make progress any time soon, far from it, and the network-effects of the various things to come will change the face of the earth to a completely unpredictable degree - every couple decades. 2060 is absolutely unpredictable, letalone 2080 or 2100. Rising sea levels notwithstanding.