3 ms·

Have we somehow run out of big ideas before achieving cool scifi stuff, or are we just not allowing people to try out big ideas?

TeMPOraL 10y ago
Exactly. Pick up any half-decent sci-fi book, or even rewatch Star Trek: TNG. There's plenty of cool stuff left to be done, and even more improvements to things that are already here. The real problem is that current economy doesn't let those ideas grow.
- nickjarboe 10y ago
  I'm hoping, as the "duck and cover" generation dies out, we might see a renaissance in nuclear engineering. Some revival is going on at the moment, but civilization only worked on nuclear ideas for about 30 years (1940-1970). We barely touched the surface. I imagine Musk would have a nuclear rocket division, if that was politically acceptable. Maybe a nuclear technology ecosystem is only possible off Earth.
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  The other problem is that groundbreaking ideas take increasingly more genius and luck. This has always been true. Therefore any kind of work aimed at making peak mental performance better would be the most important, to start cascade of improvement and fuel it.
nfoz 10y ago
Who do you think is not allowing people to try out big ideas?
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  It seems that the commercialization impact of R&D spending is more complicated than I had thought (https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/measuring-the-impact-of-r-and-d-spending https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/measuring-the-impact-o...), but I would still encourage you to look at how much various places spend on R&D, and how many people they manage to move through STEM university programs (in terms of percentage of their own native-born population). I think that making people constantly scramble to meet the next deadline puts a harmful damper on innovation and Big New Ideas. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-boson-academic-system https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-... We also may need to spend more effort explicitly targeting our R&D industry towards finding mysteries and solving them. Basic scientific advancement, after all, comes precisely from exploring the unknown rather than from merely innovating within the bounds of the already-known. And then there's patent reform and such to think about. Blah blah. But you should take everything I say with a grain of salt, since I work for an R&D company.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

Exactly. Pick up any half-decent sci-fi book, or even rewatch Star Trek: TNG. There's plenty of cool stuff left to be done, and even more improvements to things that are already here. The real problem is that current economy doesn't let those ideas grow.

nickjarboe 10y ago
I'm hoping, as the "duck and cover" generation dies out, we might see a renaissance in nuclear engineering. Some revival is going on at the moment, but civilization only worked on nuclear ideas for about 30 years (1940-1970). We barely touched the surface. I imagine Musk would have a nuclear rocket division, if that was politically acceptable. Maybe a nuclear technology ecosystem is only possible off Earth.
AstralStorm 10y ago
The other problem is that groundbreaking ideas take increasingly more genius and luck. This has always been true. Therefore any kind of work aimed at making peak mental performance better would be the most important, to start cascade of improvement and fuel it.

nfoz 10y ago

Who do you think is not allowing people to try out big ideas?

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
It seems that the commercialization impact of R&D spending is more complicated than I had thought (https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/measuring-the-impact-of-r-and-d-spending https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/measuring-the-impact-o...), but I would still encourage you to look at how much various places spend on R&D, and how many people they manage to move through STEM university programs (in terms of percentage of their own native-born population). I think that making people constantly scramble to meet the next deadline puts a harmful damper on innovation and Big New Ideas. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-boson-academic-system https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-... We also may need to spend more effort explicitly targeting our R&D industry towards finding mysteries and solving them. Basic scientific advancement, after all, comes precisely from exploring the unknown rather than from merely innovating within the bounds of the already-known. And then there's patent reform and such to think about. Blah blah. But you should take everything I say with a grain of salt, since I work for an R&D company.