Why things might have taken so long • Hacker News Board

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#181

Post by Roybot » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 4:23 PM UTC

johngalt wrote: post #170

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #157

Someone smarter than me noted that most science fiction has badly missed the mark of what the present and near future will look like b/c the assumption was that power sources would trend towards zero cost ("too cheap to meter") and that this would enable all sorts of interesting world altering gizmos's like jetpacks, flying cars, physics defying spacecraft etc. What actually happened is that communication density exp…

It's not just power sources vs communications. People always assume that the future will simply be like present only more so. After two world wars, people assumed the future would be wars of tremendous destruction. When aviation was growing fast, people assumed the future would be flying everything. During the space race, people assumed the future would be space everything. During the growth of nuclear power, people…

> People always assume that the future will simply be like present only more so.

Thanks for your thought. It reminded me a little bit about an interview with peter thiel where he responded to a question about the future. I guess popular culture in tech moves past ideas rather quickly and generally seems to jump from trend to trend until realizing the value of a trend.

https://youtu.be/ryFB6mvy4uE?t=26m38s

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#182

Post by ahartman00 » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 4:30 PM UTC

ci5er wrote: post #163

narag wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today, we've run low on the scope of reasonably easy to invent things that are actually valuable. All the obvious "wish we could X" things have been done or are nigh impossible for any one person or small team to figure out I disagree. There are a lot of small inventions that are happening every day. I've had independently ideas that are now massive sites or products. If you want to know why things have taken so long…

> There are many in which half of usually smart people can't simply understand what's the others' position about. > The pattern is that one side considers current practice tedious, steep learning curve for professionals only, while the other side finds it "good enough". If it's good enough for you, you'll never invent something easier and faster to understand. This is a bit baffling to me -- the phenomena to which yo…

Perception bias: is the tendency not to notice and more quickly forget stimuli that cause emotional discomfort and contradict our prior beliefs.

Confirmation bias: is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses.

"It appears to have something to do with both pre-suppositions and different orderings of personal values"

I believe the two cognitive biases above explain this. If negative numbers are "ignore", and positive are "use in conclusion": conclusion = -0.1 * fact1 + 0.9 * fact2 + -0.4 * fact3. Your past experiences determine the weights.

edit: I also think sibling comment by narag plays a part.

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#183

Post by racer-v » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 5:42 PM UTC

dkural wrote: post #169

racer-v wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People’s brains were actually biologically less functional fifty thousand years ago. This is correct; there's been a huge amount of brain evolution in the past 50K years. See for example "The 10,000 Year Explosion" (Cochran).

Cochran's popular science book has no scientific backing or support from working scientists and peer reviewed articles. In particular, human genomics can easily refute the idea of brain functional changes in the last 10K years. Our ancestral populations that colonized EurAsia, Africa, and the Americas diverged before the 10,000 mark, and there are no discernible cognitive differences between any of these groups. Furt…

Could you provide a reference as to how "human genomics can easily refute the idea of brain functional changes in the last 10K years"?

Furthermore, this is why Cochran is considered a racist; correctly so.

I'd caution that this isn't actually an argument, but merely invective: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#184

Post by quadrangle » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 7:44 PM UTC

simonbarker87 wrote: post #31

quadrangle wrote: post #17

About not having invented anything: it's harder to invent something novel today simply because so much has already been invented and knowledge of it is available. Centuries ago, it was easier to think of things to invent (we should be able to fly, to stay under water longer, to copy books faster, to notate music… ). It still took a lot of work to actually realize the invention (which only could be done by people weal…

This is not the case, the famous (if apocryphal) quote of "everything that can be invented has been invented" made in 1900 by the head of the US patent office was clearly wrong and made either in jest or due to an enormous lack of imagination. The point is that there is always more to invent and the possibilities keep increasing. There are plenty of inventions yet to make, from complex AI enabled devices down to the…

Actually, my personal experience includes a ton of examples of:

1. I realize the need for something and envision a novel invention 2. I discover upon research that it has already been invented

So, I did have the thought about the "thing I've never seen" and could pursue inventing it. But it's a big world and far easier than ever before to learn from others.

I have known people who went all the way, finished inventing something and got it patented, and then I (as a patent critic) have doubts that it's truly novel and then discover, to the surprise of my inventor friend, that it actually was invented before but was obscure and they hadn't heard about it.

There's tons of room for invention still, but it's comparably much reduced from the past for all the basic stuff and far easier to discover existing inventions. It's just NOT anything like it used to be.

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#185

Post by quadrangle » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 7:48 PM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #139

adrianN wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that this thread started with the assertion that all easy inventions are already gone and it takes a lot of effort to invent something novel. You countered with flying via genetic engineering, which to me doesn't sound like something reasonably simple that hasn't been invented yet.

But the thread's based on an invalid assumption. I posit that inventions were never "easy." They just seem that way in retrospect, from the outside.

Easy is relative. So is "invention". I invent things most days of my life, but they aren't that novel.

People are crazy inventive and always have been. But today, it is far easier than it ever was before to learn about the best inventions others already figured out instead of reinventing the wheel.

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#186

Post by quadrangle » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 7:57 PM UTC

tkoski-hs wrote: post #34

quadrangle wrote: post #17

About not having invented anything: it's harder to invent something novel today simply because so much has already been invented and knowledge of it is available. Centuries ago, it was easier to think of things to invent (we should be able to fly, to stay under water longer, to copy books faster, to notate music… ). It still took a lot of work to actually realize the invention (which only could be done by people weal…

IMHO this is the point 4. the author is pointing out: "Posing the question is a large part of the work. If you have never seen rope, it actually doesn’t occur to you that rope would come in handy, or to ask yourself how to make some." Sorry @quadrangle, I would go towards an opposite opinion than yours :) I have never in my life been in such a time when inventing would be as easy as now: It's so easy to communicate t…

This is among the best replies I got.

I agree that there's tons of room and lots of things that enable such novel inventions today in certain spaces.

I was focusing on the bad hindsight that tries to assert that because we see inventions as obvious in hindsight, we should realize how non-obvious they were originally, in the same way that new inventions today are non-obvious.

I think tons of inventions are obvious, both then and now. The hard work to make a good rendition, spread the knowledge to others etc. is just different now than before. People have reinvented most inventions multiple times because the inventions are obvious enough. And still today, there's tons of obvious enough inventions — people imagine Apps that do things no app yet does. Bringing the invention to fruition and to market is harder.

But in the past, it was hard to learn that someone else had also invented the thing you're inventing. That's easier now, and easy enough to stop you from reinventing it in the first place (unless you're one of those self-centered startup people who delusionally believes that whatever your idea is must be novel and just skips doing the research to see what exists already).

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#187

Post by quadrangle » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 8:00 PM UTC

MrFantastic wrote: post #114

cf wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inventions are motivated by problems, and we still have lots of them. We sorely need cheap sustainable energy, cheap drugs, artificial organs, more efficient transportation, denser batteries, and that's just stuff off the top of my head. Some of that stuff will entail using existing technology, buy much of it will require new inventions. Many ideas that seem easy to invent only seem so in retrospect. The article repe…

Bicycles are 97% efficient. Society could be organized around the bicycle. Many of the health issues would be corrected if our environment required people to exercise to get around. People are just really lazy.

Don't get into victim-blaming. Where bicycling is prioritized in the development planning (e.g. Netherlands, where it's also quite flat), people bike all the time.

There are powerful entities who throw their weight around in both policy and propaganda to promote the wasteful forms of transportation.

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#188

Post by varjag » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 10:31 PM UTC

simonbarker87 wrote: post #108

varjag wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly all commercial plastics available now were available back in 1997. Even exotic things like PEEK. The yellowing is due to flame retardant additive to ABS granules. Modern flame resistant ABS stock is prone to same issues.

We use a heat-resistant ABS, 20 years ago it would have yellowed, now it doesn't.

Heat resistant suggests a higher melting point, it is not necessarily flame retardant. The yellowed plastics on old consumer electronics aren't specifically heat resistant.

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#189

Post by nradov » Sat, Jan 06, 2018, 4:22 PM UTC

fastball wrote: post #49

kalonis wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck with making your own wheel or rope from scratch (i.e. alone and naked in the woods)!

Making your own rope is easy with some trial and error. You just take a bunch of stringy things and twist them together to make a stronger stringy thing. The twisting bit takes some finesse, and obviously you won't be making nylon rope with your bare hands, but making a grass rope is child's play. Making a wheel, once you have the concept of a wheel, is pretty damn easy too. If you want a stone wheel, take a large st…

You can't make a useful wheel out of a single large block of wood. It will dry out and crack. Wooden wheels are made of several pieces to minimize this problem.

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#190

Post by anonytrary » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 6:48 AM UTC

Pica_soO wrote: post #180

mzzter wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The keywords there are “aimless” and “incremental”. I think those properties are correctly valued in any fast-paced workplace. I think one of the things that career inventors need to overcome is selling themselves. Often the fun part is in the work of inventing, but conveying the value of the process is just as important and less straightforward.

Did you even read his post? He explicitly stated that the multi-role problem is what is killing most inventions. If everyone would have to be his own salesman- there wouldnt be any inventors at all- just people trying to sell each other rocks for berries. What is needed is a inventor currency- that allows for a exchange of services and favours, without it being abused as a source of cheap labour.

We see this happen in ICO-land especially. A lot of ideas are being marketed with absolutely zero substance or scientific innovation behind them.

Innovators like Berners-lee, Shawn Fanning, Satoshi Nakamoto, etc. plant seeds which grow into trees. Businessmen, lawmen, and psychology-manipulators fight over who gets to pick the fruit, sometimes they destroy the tree in the process. Sometimes, they even say that the fruit is not allowed to exist.

This is a massive inequity in power, and it's going to change soon. "Management" is the enemy of innovation. I've stopped looking at what old, rich, white and asian men are doing, and started looking more at what youth are doing.