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Today, we have this: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CEZblkf9NKw/TN_LssuYPHI/AAAAAAAAABw/OOWfw4Vn8sg/s1600/a380.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CEZblkf9NKw/TN_LssuYPHI/

Today, we have this: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CEZblkf9NKw/TN_LssuYPHI/AAAAAAAAABw/OOWfw4Vn8sg/s1600/a380.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CEZblkf9NKw/TN_LssuYPHI/AAAAAAAAAB... [Airbus A380] 100 years ago, we had this: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2u1lGwe_Jf8/TwW1lxbBrtI/AAAAAAAAJ7A/Zszdy8dn1LA/s1600/Ford-Model-T-1.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2u1lGwe_Jf8/TwW1lxbBrtI/AAAAAAAAJ7... [Ford Model T] 100 years before that, was: http://animalpetdoctor.homestead.com/1800horsebuggy.jpg http://animalpetdoctor.homestead.com/1800horsebuggy.jpg [1800s horse and buggy] 100 years before that, was: https://i.pinimg.com/236x/b5/46/5b/b5465bb591ec882f187d5b3d8fd8c83e.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/236x/b5/46/5b/b5465bb591ec882f187d5b3d8... [horse] 100 years before that, was: [horse] 100 years before that, was: [also horse] etc. 100 years seems like a very long time to humans, but each century has seen continued exponential progress in transportation technology. Where you see a joke, I see a certainty -- barring of course some unforeseen massive catastrophe.

baq 9y ago
the problem with exponential growth is that it can't last given finite resources or finite space. the question is when the inflection point to the second part of the sigmoid is.
- dwaltrip 9y ago
  This is why we will most certainly expand out into the solar system in the coming centuries. There are immense energy sources and resource deposits available.
sillysaurus3 9y ago
It's not exponential, it's sigmoidal. Technological progress is slowing down and becoming more specialized. Most of what we have today we also had 25 years ago, if you ignore electronics.
- MPSimmons 9y ago
  > if you ignore electronics. And materials science. And medical science. And probably several other things I'm not thinking of right now. The truth is that the electronics you mentioned are a force multiplier. It's like saying 4,000 years ago, we had everything we had in the immediate pre-renaissance. The math was the enabler that gave us the ability to exceed what we had. Electronics (and the things that go along with it, such as the software to run it) are what allow us to move vast swaths of other tech forward. We are still limited by physics, and we won't ever find ways to circumvent physics, but we'll find ways to not have to circumvent physics.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
jhbadger 9y ago
The whole point of post 1970s technology is that despite all the predictions of flying cars, jetpacks, vacations on Mars, etc. they didn't happen. Transportation is done. If anything, we've gone backwards -- we used to have things like the Concorde, and now we don't. It isn't that technology has stood still, of course, but the whole advance in communications means that the need for transportation is reduced. Videoconferencing between New York and London is better than a Concorde flight sending people across.
- dwaltrip 9y ago
  > Transportation is done. Do you actually, literally mean this? Or did you mean to say that the next big change won't happen for a very long time? I get your point -- it's a very good one, if said much more moderately. Communication tech can be a replacement for transportation tech, and the next big change in transportation tech may be quite difficult to achieve. But the absolute statements drive me bonkers... P.s. self driving cars may be mainstream in a few decades or less.
  - isostatic 9y ago
    Self driving vehicles make sense as the next major change, akin to the jetliner, mass production car, steam train, and steamship. Until something along the lines of antigravity is discovered, I can't see any major modal change in aerospace. Fundamentally there's little different from today's 787 or a380 than a 747 or 707. As was pointed out, you used to be able to cross the Atlantic 3 times in a single day. The major change to open up Europe-far east travel wasn't high speed planes, it was the opening of Russian air space. Aside from some modest range improvements there's little change in 50 years on long haul travel. The only things on the horizon would be antipodal non stop flights, but those distances tend to be uneconomic due to having to carry the fuel. High speed trains are slightly faster than they were in 1980 but not by an order of magnitude, things like the Shanghai maglev seem doomed to be one off curiosities. There's not much in today's transport world that would shock someone from 60 years ago.
- thaumaturgy 9y ago
  There are quite a lot of predictions for the future that didn't work out -- living rooms which the housewife would be able to hose down every day, holograms, self-tying shoes (yeah, I know, somebody made a pair as a gimmick). Many of them are rooted in fashions which didn't survive long enough for the technology to get there, or in cost-benefit issues. The Concorde's demise had a variety of factors that can't be summarised as, "we haven't made any improvements to transportation since then". Promising technology always, eventually, reaches a dead-end, sometimes before something better comes along, yet technology as a whole keeps progressing. The steam engine, for instance, far outperformed internal combustion engines even after ICEs became more common (https://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z11210/stanley-steamer-rocket.aspx); https://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z11210/stanley-steamer-r... the electric car "revolution" that's happening now also happened a century ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_Electric_Truck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_Electric_Truck I see interplanetary travel as inevitable because we have nowhere else left to go. There are humans on every continent now, humans under the ocean, even humans full time in space. Although there are numerous members of our species who don't now (and never have) seen any reason to leave their own backyard, our species has made it to all of these places because of the members who just can't stand to be wherever everyone else already is. For that reason alone, we will eventually become interplanetary.

baq 9y ago

the problem with exponential growth is that it can't last given finite resources or finite space. the question is when the inflection point to the second part of the sigmoid is.

dwaltrip 9y ago
This is why we will most certainly expand out into the solar system in the coming centuries. There are immense energy sources and resource deposits available.

sillysaurus3 9y ago

It's not exponential, it's sigmoidal. Technological progress is slowing down and becoming more specialized. Most of what we have today we also had 25 years ago, if you ignore electronics.

MPSimmons 9y ago
> if you ignore electronics. And materials science. And medical science. And probably several other things I'm not thinking of right now. The truth is that the electronics you mentioned are a force multiplier. It's like saying 4,000 years ago, we had everything we had in the immediate pre-renaissance. The math was the enabler that gave us the ability to exceed what we had. Electronics (and the things that go along with it, such as the software to run it) are what allow us to move vast swaths of other tech forward. We are still limited by physics, and we won't ever find ways to circumvent physics, but we'll find ways to not have to circumvent physics.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

jhbadger 9y ago

The whole point of post 1970s technology is that despite all the predictions of flying cars, jetpacks, vacations on Mars, etc. they didn't happen. Transportation is done. If anything, we've gone backwards -- we used to have things like the Concorde, and now we don't. It isn't that technology has stood still, of course, but the whole advance in communications means that the need for transportation is reduced. Videoconferencing between New York and London is better than a Concorde flight sending people across.

dwaltrip 9y ago
> Transportation is done. Do you actually, literally mean this? Or did you mean to say that the next big change won't happen for a very long time? I get your point -- it's a very good one, if said much more moderately. Communication tech can be a replacement for transportation tech, and the next big change in transportation tech may be quite difficult to achieve. But the absolute statements drive me bonkers... P.s. self driving cars may be mainstream in a few decades or less.
- isostatic 9y ago
  Self driving vehicles make sense as the next major change, akin to the jetliner, mass production car, steam train, and steamship. Until something along the lines of antigravity is discovered, I can't see any major modal change in aerospace. Fundamentally there's little different from today's 787 or a380 than a 747 or 707. As was pointed out, you used to be able to cross the Atlantic 3 times in a single day. The major change to open up Europe-far east travel wasn't high speed planes, it was the opening of Russian air space. Aside from some modest range improvements there's little change in 50 years on long haul travel. The only things on the horizon would be antipodal non stop flights, but those distances tend to be uneconomic due to having to carry the fuel. High speed trains are slightly faster than they were in 1980 but not by an order of magnitude, things like the Shanghai maglev seem doomed to be one off curiosities. There's not much in today's transport world that would shock someone from 60 years ago.
thaumaturgy 9y ago
There are quite a lot of predictions for the future that didn't work out -- living rooms which the housewife would be able to hose down every day, holograms, self-tying shoes (yeah, I know, somebody made a pair as a gimmick). Many of them are rooted in fashions which didn't survive long enough for the technology to get there, or in cost-benefit issues. The Concorde's demise had a variety of factors that can't be summarised as, "we haven't made any improvements to transportation since then". Promising technology always, eventually, reaches a dead-end, sometimes before something better comes along, yet technology as a whole keeps progressing. The steam engine, for instance, far outperformed internal combustion engines even after ICEs became more common (https://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z11210/stanley-steamer-rocket.aspx); https://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z11210/stanley-steamer-r... the electric car "revolution" that's happening now also happened a century ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_Electric_Truck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_Electric_Truck I see interplanetary travel as inevitable because we have nowhere else left to go. There are humans on every continent now, humans under the ocean, even humans full time in space. Although there are numerous members of our species who don't now (and never have) seen any reason to leave their own backyard, our species has made it to all of these places because of the members who just can't stand to be wherever everyone else already is. For that reason alone, we will eventually become interplanetary.