5 ms·

I don't know if they were unrealistic so much as they didn't anticipate the cataclysmic demotivation that we as a planet incurred with the end of the cold war.

ryandrake 8y ago
Maybe they just vastly underestimated the cost of these things and overestimated the return on investment. We have the technology to build a lot of sci-fi. It’s an economic problem, not a technical one. Even if moon rocks were all made of solid gold it wouldn’t make economic sense to fly there and pick them up.
- moreira 8y ago
  But it didn't make economic sense to go to the moon at all in the first place, either. That's what the parent is referring to, I think. We lost the motivation/incentives we had to get on with this exploration, with these ventures.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- Razengan 8y ago
  For a sentient civilization to be "successful" it has to be keep asking itself the following questions: - What are we doing to ensure our survival? - What are we doing to ensure we propagate beyond our home? - What are we doing to ensure that, in the event of an unavoidable extinction or apocalypse, the history of our existence and knowledge endures on? So far we aren't doing any of that (although #3 may be accidentally taken care of through our ruins.)
  - mjevans 8y ago
    We're sort of doing #3 with some stuff... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11851871 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11851871 ( archive.org link, because this article isn't online anymore. ) https://web.archive.org/web/20180106124933/http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%20message%20to%2012,000%20a_d.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20180106124933/http://www.wipp.e...
wallace_f 8y ago
I don't know what fhe word for it is. Demotivation does not seem wrong, but incomplete. What I mean is Korolev would have rotted away in the gulags if not for the cold war. Von Braun would never have had a chance if not for it, and who knows what would have happened to him. It's not just a lack of motivation among people, but the incentives of authoritarians to remain in power.

ryandrake 8y ago

Maybe they just vastly underestimated the cost of these things and overestimated the return on investment. We have the technology to build a lot of sci-fi. It’s an economic problem, not a technical one. Even if moon rocks were all made of solid gold it wouldn’t make economic sense to fly there and pick them up.

moreira 8y ago
But it didn't make economic sense to go to the moon at all in the first place, either. That's what the parent is referring to, I think. We lost the motivation/incentives we had to get on with this exploration, with these ventures.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Razengan 8y ago
For a sentient civilization to be "successful" it has to be keep asking itself the following questions: - What are we doing to ensure our survival? - What are we doing to ensure we propagate beyond our home? - What are we doing to ensure that, in the event of an unavoidable extinction or apocalypse, the history of our existence and knowledge endures on? So far we aren't doing any of that (although #3 may be accidentally taken care of through our ruins.)
- mjevans 8y ago
  We're sort of doing #3 with some stuff... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11851871 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11851871 ( archive.org link, because this article isn't online anymore. ) https://web.archive.org/web/20180106124933/http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%20message%20to%2012,000%20a_d.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20180106124933/http://www.wipp.e...

wallace_f 8y ago

I don't know what fhe word for it is. Demotivation does not seem wrong, but incomplete. What I mean is Korolev would have rotted away in the gulags if not for the cold war. Von Braun would never have had a chance if not for it, and who knows what would have happened to him. It's not just a lack of motivation among people, but the incentives of authoritarians to remain in power.