It's time to build: a New World's Fair • Hacker News Board

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#121

Post by jiofih » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 10:36 PM UTC

orf wrote: post #109

jiofih wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t get the fuss with the pledge of alliance (non American here). > "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Why is it bad to declare your commitment to the country you’re born in and it’s values? It’s not like you can’t leave (except for the IRS) if you don’t like it.

Borderline indoctrination. You're not pledging commitment to it's "values" and young children are not at an age to have a nuanced discussion or awareness about what those exactly those values are, and make a decision about if they should be declaring a commitment to them or not.

Should everyone wait until their kids turn 18 to start teaching them their own morals and values? You’d just be auctioning their brain to random others who are willing to do that.

I think we either have very different concepts of what indoctrination is, or there is much more beyond the pledge itself, and that is where the real issues are?

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#122

Post by shadowofneptune » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

basch wrote: post #112

poisonborz wrote: post #35

I admire the optimism and motivational tone of the article, but fairs and expos are a thing of the past. We don't need to build elaborate, carefully constructed single-use cities to showcase the scientific advances of the world. Those showcases happen day by day on the internet and mass media.

I am very much pro World Fair revival. But I am also very Cold War revival. We should be launching competitive science wars with each other, not unlike the Olympics. Set objectives, set time periods, when the time and objective expire all knowledge gained is pooled and published for the world, for free. National or International propaganda campaigns to recruit for teams. Spies, espionage, moles. Not just a science fa…

Slightly more seriously, something like the International Geophysical Year could be interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Geophysical_Year

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#123

Post by _joel » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 10:43 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #119

> They no longer showcase the promise of the future or celebrate achievement. Instead, they serve as national branding exercises, infrastructure development projects masquerading as innovation, architecture competitions, and an opportunity to promote tourism I kind of feel that these were the exact goals of the original world fairs too.

Definitely, there's no difference. Just look at the 1937 Paris Expo.

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#124

Post by hnick » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 10:44 PM UTC

namrog84 wrote: post #75

lswainemoore wrote: post #24

Nitpicky/unsolicited UI feedback: I do a lot of double/triple clicking to highlight text as I read online (fidgeting, but also helps keep track of where I am). On your site, triple clicking unintentionally hits the twitter share button, which opens a new, unwanted window. Bit annoying. Medium does something similar, but they offset the button so you have to move cursor in between clicks to actually trigger the button…

I do similar things constantly as well. It makes me not enjoy maybe "modern" apps and web apps. That think text highlighting is somehow a bad thing.

Sometimes I like to middle click and move my house instead of using the wheel (nicer on my joints). Sometimes I like to even just move it a little and have it auto-scroll as I read. It's a fun game to try and match my pace and more engaging that way. So many websites break these too.

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#125

Post by iso1631 » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 10:48 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #16

mynameisvlad wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And stimulating local economies is a problem... why?

All expenditures stimulate the economy equally, as measured by the "marked bills" theory. That means the only way to compare them is to evaluate opportunity costs. Spending a million bucks on constructing a big hole in the middle of nowhere, and performing an important infrastructure revitalization, will both put dollars in the hands of laborers, and thereby grocery stores and so on, at the same rate. That's why all…

> the distant consequences are the same no matter what you do.

Three things

1) Spend the money on blackjack and hookers

2) Spend the money on a new bridge

3) Burn the money on a bonfire for giggles

Those three have very different "distant consequences"

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#126

Post by CobrastanJorji » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #73

The last really prophetic world's fair was New York, 1939. That's famous for GM's vision of the future of 1960, the original "Futurerama" . Freeways everywhere. RCA had television. AT&T let you make free long distance calls. All that stuff happened. The 1964 World's Fair had another GM exhibit. Colonization of the Moon. Underwater cities. None of that happened. What could we have in a World's Fair now that looks ahea…

GM was at least a little bit right. Their moon base had a moon car and some sort of silvery structure. Five years after the exhibition, we had some guys walking around on the moon and returning to a silvery structure, and two years after that, we had a lunar rover.

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#127

Post by whatshisface » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 10:52 PM UTC

iso1631 wrote: post #125

whatshisface wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All expenditures stimulate the economy equally, as measured by the "marked bills" theory. That means the only way to compare them is to evaluate opportunity costs. Spending a million bucks on constructing a big hole in the middle of nowhere, and performing an important infrastructure revitalization, will both put dollars in the hands of laborers, and thereby grocery stores and so on, at the same rate. That's why all…

> the distant consequences are the same no matter what you do. Three things 1) Spend the money on blackjack and hookers 2) Spend the money on a new bridge 3) Burn the money on a bonfire for giggles Those three have very different "distant consequences"

1) Money ends up in the local economy

2) Money ends up in the local economy

3) Currency deflates, making all owners of currency richer, and as long as nobody expects deflation to continue, stimulates the economy.

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#128

Post by caslon » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 10:56 PM UTC

diebeforei485 wrote: post #114

caslon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't think Expo2020 counts. Rooting the future in the UAE seems like a losing battle, and it seems like the amount of entities that would choose not to participate would outweigh those that would.

I'm not sure this has any basis in reality, every single country has committed to participating.

Countries are made up of people and companies. There are definitely people and companies that otherwise would attend were it not at a country with massive human rights issues (like, say, making homosexuality illegal).

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#129

Post by tomphoolery » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 10:57 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #119

> They no longer showcase the promise of the future or celebrate achievement. Instead, they serve as national branding exercises, infrastructure development projects masquerading as innovation, architecture competitions, and an opportunity to promote tourism I kind of feel that these were the exact goals of the original world fairs too.

This is true, and the reason for why they are no longer a thing is the same reason why companies don't sponsor theme park rides anymore. They simply don't need to. With the ability to reach more people more quickly with less money over our mass media networks, there's no real reason to sponsor an attraction of any kind.

At any rate, World's Fairs are still happening, just not in the US... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_fair

Re: It's time to build: a New World's Fair

#130

Post by spankalee » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 10:57 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #73

The last really prophetic world's fair was New York, 1939. That's famous for GM's vision of the future of 1960, the original "Futurerama" . Freeways everywhere. RCA had television. AT&T let you make free long distance calls. All that stuff happened. The 1964 World's Fair had another GM exhibit. Colonization of the Moon. Underwater cities. None of that happened. What could we have in a World's Fair now that looks ahea…

We have a lot of environmental challenges ahead of us. A forward-thinking World's Fair could paint a picture of how we get from here to a carbon-negative economy: solar & wind, battery tech, autonomous cars and less car-oriented cities, better telepresence, carbon sequestering, architecture, etc.