3 ms·

Don't mind if you do Dr Wonka. > If no one stops me there will be floating castles and highways to the stars. ;-P Why have a highway to the stars when you cou

Don't mind if you do Dr Wonka. > If no one stops me there will be floating castles and highways to the stars. ;-P Why have a highway to the stars when you could have a maglev train to the moon. Check out Sam Hyde's talk at TED.

carapace 10y ago
That was pretty funny. The problem is humans being jerks (people call it "human nature" but I say that's a cop-out.) We could make this world a paradise with a wave of our hands, but we have bad dreams.
- internaut 10y ago
  I think we have to distinguish between jerks who are making a serious and pointed critique through humour and those who are merely misanthropic. > We could make this world a paradise with a wave of our hands, but we have bad dreams. That is actually the core point behind my last post on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12686698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12686698 To me it seems like society has decided to taboo major lines of inquiry in physics, chemistry and biology because it didn't like some of the answers it got initially. These are my bad dreams. Research into nuclear energy, the source of all power: Taboo. Not even taught in Britain anymore. No building for decades but lots of empty promises. Research into genetics, the source of all natural variation and adaption. Taboo. The cult of egalitarianism has seen to that. Research into drugs. Not many people know this but there exists a reverse of Moore's Law called Eroom's Law in the phamaceutical industry. Ignoring the recreational drug side of things which is tabooed, outside of DARPA I don't know any mainstream research into fine motor and brain chemical control in conjunction with control by computation. The core problem with all of this tabooing is that we're prevented from opening up new avenues of exploration. You could taboo some things and it wouldn't matter because they're just a leave node on the tree of ideas, but if you outright forsake an entire branch node then you lose much more than just the thing you tabooed. Nuclear energy physics and genetic manipulation of humans are definitely branches and not leaves.
  - carapace 10y ago
    Sorry for the delay in replying, I missed your response for a bit. I didn't mean that you or the guy in the TED talk were jerks. I'm thinking more about e.g. the people still supporting a certain handsy clowntroll as candidate for U.S. President. Enough said on that though. I agree that nuclear power suffers from a "taboo". It's crazy that we don't develop and use fusion. Personally I count solar power as fusion but it's not the same as, say, working jet-packs that never run out of fuel. I think people just don't get fusion power, what it means, what it enables. But on the same token: could you trust fusion jet-packs to the general public in a world that still contains suicide bombers? I am freedom-loving and egalitarian as all hell but I just don't think that would be wise. Coming at it from another angle, I am convinced that we have all the technology we really need already. I'm not against more research, not at all, not even a little, but I don't feel the urgency anymore. We've got this. The limiting factor going forward has everything to do with psychology, in my opinion.
    - internaut 10y ago
      I agree. It's in our heads. We've got to leave the funk behind before we can do something proactive. Silicon Valley is sometimes overly optimistic but I prefer that to the cynicism I felt in the UK. Europe in particular really needs some successes. I think I could do something with affordable housing that would scale but we'll have to see. Am confident I wouldn't get venture funding but I have an angle or two. I intend to build a demonstration model as a proof of concept and then hopefully some traction will occur through internet-magic. Good luck with your projects carapace! We've got this!

carapace 10y ago

That was pretty funny. The problem is humans being jerks (people call it "human nature" but I say that's a cop-out.) We could make this world a paradise with a wave of our hands, but we have bad dreams.

internaut 10y ago
I think we have to distinguish between jerks who are making a serious and pointed critique through humour and those who are merely misanthropic. > We could make this world a paradise with a wave of our hands, but we have bad dreams. That is actually the core point behind my last post on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12686698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12686698 To me it seems like society has decided to taboo major lines of inquiry in physics, chemistry and biology because it didn't like some of the answers it got initially. These are my bad dreams. Research into nuclear energy, the source of all power: Taboo. Not even taught in Britain anymore. No building for decades but lots of empty promises. Research into genetics, the source of all natural variation and adaption. Taboo. The cult of egalitarianism has seen to that. Research into drugs. Not many people know this but there exists a reverse of Moore's Law called Eroom's Law in the phamaceutical industry. Ignoring the recreational drug side of things which is tabooed, outside of DARPA I don't know any mainstream research into fine motor and brain chemical control in conjunction with control by computation. The core problem with all of this tabooing is that we're prevented from opening up new avenues of exploration. You could taboo some things and it wouldn't matter because they're just a leave node on the tree of ideas, but if you outright forsake an entire branch node then you lose much more than just the thing you tabooed. Nuclear energy physics and genetic manipulation of humans are definitely branches and not leaves.
- carapace 10y ago
  Sorry for the delay in replying, I missed your response for a bit. I didn't mean that you or the guy in the TED talk were jerks. I'm thinking more about e.g. the people still supporting a certain handsy clowntroll as candidate for U.S. President. Enough said on that though. I agree that nuclear power suffers from a "taboo". It's crazy that we don't develop and use fusion. Personally I count solar power as fusion but it's not the same as, say, working jet-packs that never run out of fuel. I think people just don't get fusion power, what it means, what it enables. But on the same token: could you trust fusion jet-packs to the general public in a world that still contains suicide bombers? I am freedom-loving and egalitarian as all hell but I just don't think that would be wise. Coming at it from another angle, I am convinced that we have all the technology we really need already. I'm not against more research, not at all, not even a little, but I don't feel the urgency anymore. We've got this. The limiting factor going forward has everything to do with psychology, in my opinion.
  - internaut 10y ago
    I agree. It's in our heads. We've got to leave the funk behind before we can do something proactive. Silicon Valley is sometimes overly optimistic but I prefer that to the cynicism I felt in the UK. Europe in particular really needs some successes. I think I could do something with affordable housing that would scale but we'll have to see. Am confident I wouldn't get venture funding but I have an angle or two. I intend to build a demonstration model as a proof of concept and then hopefully some traction will occur through internet-magic. Good luck with your projects carapace! We've got this!