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We need to accept, as technologists, that the human race's biggest problems are not going to be solved by technology. we aren't going to be the heroes coming t

We need to accept, as technologists, that the human race's biggest problems are not going to be solved by technology. we aren't going to be the heroes coming through with the miracle fix at the eleventh hour. I really don't know what you're talking about. Technology will continue to progress. Except for temporary pauses, technology has always advanced and always will. If you don't adopt it it doesn't matter. Your children will. I don't know what this stuff about "we aren't going to be the heroes". Who said anything about that? I think you need to read Musk's words again. He isn't saying, "We have to do this because it's good." He's saying, "We'll be forced to do this to keep up." And he's right. If you don't you'll be left in the dust, relatively poor and powerless while alive, and soon dead and irrelevant. It's not about right or wrong and there are no heroes.

inimino 10y ago
That's a rather Malthusian assumption.
Arizhel 10y ago
>Technology will continue to progress. Except for temporary pauses, technology has always advanced and always will. That's not really true; just ask the ancient Romans. When the Roman Empire collapsed, technology took 1000 years to get back to what they had. That's a bit more than a "temporary pause".
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > When the Roman Empire collapsed, technology took 1000 years to get back to what they had. No, it didn't; overall, the cutting edge of technology continued to advance from the Roman period during the 1000 years after its fall (wherever in the typical 117 CE to 476 CE period you want to mark as the "fall"), even in the region where Rome had been dominant, although the distribution of some technologies and techniques suffered.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    This is completely wrong. The Romans had aqueducts, they could even fill up the Coliseum with water for water shows. The Romans had concrete, and built many buildings with it. What did Europeans have after the collapse? They went back to building stuff out of wood and brush. Even castles and cathedrals were built of simple blocks, not concrete. When the Empire collapsed, there was a massive loss of institutional knowledge. Specialization of labor completely disappeared: people left the city and their specialized labor jobs to work as feudal serfs. They did this even though Roman law forbade it, because the imperial leadership saw what was happening, but people preferred to go live as serfs so they could eat rather than starve in the city. Name any technology which actually advanced during the Dark Ages. There aren't any. There's a reason it's called the Dark Ages: literacy plummeted and people stopped writing things down.

inimino 10y ago

That's a rather Malthusian assumption.

Arizhel 10y ago

>Technology will continue to progress. Except for temporary pauses, technology has always advanced and always will. That's not really true; just ask the ancient Romans. When the Roman Empire collapsed, technology took 1000 years to get back to what they had. That's a bit more than a "temporary pause".

dragonwriter 10y ago
> When the Roman Empire collapsed, technology took 1000 years to get back to what they had. No, it didn't; overall, the cutting edge of technology continued to advance from the Roman period during the 1000 years after its fall (wherever in the typical 117 CE to 476 CE period you want to mark as the "fall"), even in the region where Rome had been dominant, although the distribution of some technologies and techniques suffered.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  This is completely wrong. The Romans had aqueducts, they could even fill up the Coliseum with water for water shows. The Romans had concrete, and built many buildings with it. What did Europeans have after the collapse? They went back to building stuff out of wood and brush. Even castles and cathedrals were built of simple blocks, not concrete. When the Empire collapsed, there was a massive loss of institutional knowledge. Specialization of labor completely disappeared: people left the city and their specialized labor jobs to work as feudal serfs. They did this even though Roman law forbade it, because the imperial leadership saw what was happening, but people preferred to go live as serfs so they could eat rather than starve in the city. Name any technology which actually advanced during the Dark Ages. There aren't any. There's a reason it's called the Dark Ages: literacy plummeted and people stopped writing things down.