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"He suspected “that many people had had this idea, knew more about glaciology than I did, and obviously concluded it could never work.” “If we really had [known

"He suspected “that many people had had this idea, knew more about glaciology than I did, and obviously concluded it could never work.” “If we really had [known] what we were doing we would probably not have done it. And, in fact, it turns out that a lot of the things we should have known turned out not to be true.”" This paragraph reminded me a lot of the quote of Max Planck saying that "science progresses one funeral at a time" (removing old and incorrect convictions from the pool of opinions in the scientific community).

PhasmaFelis 9y ago
On a totally different subject, this is why life-extension technology scares me. Science, politics, and so many other things progress when set-in-their-ways elders give way to young revolutionaries, who become elders in their own time. I worry that the generation in power when medical immortality is perfected will nearly freeze us in place forever.
- civilian 9y ago
  If this is such a big problem, why don't we execute scientists when they're 50? Or at the very least, ban them from writing about their field? My argument is hyperbole, but an "anti-life-extension" position is literally a "pro-death" position. We may have problems with ancients stagnating science, but I think that's a problem we can tackle with other methods.
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    I'm less worried about science in particular and more about politicians, CEOs, and other authorities. And society in general, for that matter; a lot of the improvements that African-Americans, for example, have seen in the last 100 years have been down to the old bigots being displaced by more tolerant young people. Basically, whatever prejudices are popular when life extension becomes commonplace are going to be fixed permanently. And of course overpopulation becomes a huge issue if it's widely available. People seem to have a real thing about having kids, and even with dramatically advanced space travel it's just not possible to transport people offworld fast enough to make a dent in the population. We either wind up with crippling overpopulation or draconian birth control. > I think that's a problem we can tackle with other methods. Such as?

PhasmaFelis 9y ago

On a totally different subject, this is why life-extension technology scares me. Science, politics, and so many other things progress when set-in-their-ways elders give way to young revolutionaries, who become elders in their own time. I worry that the generation in power when medical immortality is perfected will nearly freeze us in place forever.

civilian 9y ago
If this is such a big problem, why don't we execute scientists when they're 50? Or at the very least, ban them from writing about their field? My argument is hyperbole, but an "anti-life-extension" position is literally a "pro-death" position. We may have problems with ancients stagnating science, but I think that's a problem we can tackle with other methods.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  I'm less worried about science in particular and more about politicians, CEOs, and other authorities. And society in general, for that matter; a lot of the improvements that African-Americans, for example, have seen in the last 100 years have been down to the old bigots being displaced by more tolerant young people. Basically, whatever prejudices are popular when life extension becomes commonplace are going to be fixed permanently. And of course overpopulation becomes a huge issue if it's widely available. People seem to have a real thing about having kids, and even with dramatically advanced space travel it's just not possible to transport people offworld fast enough to make a dent in the population. We either wind up with crippling overpopulation or draconian birth control. > I think that's a problem we can tackle with other methods. Such as?