4 ms·

Does it? We visited the moon and created the internet in the span of one generation. We are arguably in the most innovative scientific period in our history.

HarryHirsch 7y ago
We are selling ads and moving money from one desk onto another instead of addressing antibiotic resistance and climate change.
- derp_dee_derp 7y ago
  You lack serious historical context. We went fromom electricity to flight to nuclear to space flight to the internet in less than 150 years. Its been less than 100 years since antibiotics were invented, so, sorry we aren't addressing antibiotic resistance at a fast enough pace for you. Hope you don't mind all those vaccines that are keeping you healthy and providing here immunity: they've only been around for about 130 years. It's the most innovative time in human history, despite your negativity.
  - HarryHirsch 7y ago
    The first powered aircraft flew in the 1900s, and by the 1940s we had jet aircraft. The Boeing 747 was introduced in the 1960s, and in the 1970s we had supersonic flight. The pace of innovation has stalled since.
    - jbay808 7y ago
      "and in the 1970s we had supersonic flight" 1947?
      - dredmorbius 7y ago
        I suspect commercial supersonic flight was meant. Concorde was testing by 1969, but didn't carry passengers until 1976. The USSR's Tu-144 actually beat Concorde on both dates -- 1968 and 1975. Though it also beat Concorde, by 25 years, on retirement from passenger service: 1978.
    - jcranmer 7y ago
      We sculpt rocks to dimensions that are most easily measured in terms of layers of atoms for the price of mere dollars per rock.
      - sumitviii 7y ago
        And might soon be able to design life! Present FTW!!!
  - geniium 7y ago
    Antibiotic resistance has been marked as top #1 priority for WHO [1]. It's a huge problem not much people realise. [1] https://www.who.int/en https://www.who.int/en
Gatsky 7y ago
Yes, I wasn’t trying to be disparaging. Interesting though you cite mainly engineering achievements, I had a similar feeling that we are in a phase of engineering/materials advancements, particularly sub-microscale in the post-WW2 period. But having said that, technological advances of this kind tend to end up as historical footnotes, no matter how amazing they seem at the time. I think vaccines and antibiotics are probably our era’s truly great technological advance that kids will still learn about post 26th century. But quantum mechanics and relativity are really our Pythagoras’ theorem equivalents, and will stay in textbooks for a very, very long time.
fortran77 7y ago
Probably the discovery of solid state devices and the invention of the digital computer is more important than the "Internet"
- dkersten 7y ago
  We will be remembered for our most important achievement: bringing high speed access to cat pictures to the masses.
  - abdullahkhalids 7y ago
    Nope. Our most important achievement has been to create a system where smart people spend their life trying to get people to click on ads, using morally dubious dark-patterns.
    - cbHXBY1D 7y ago
      If I had to bet, western society will be judged for creating an industrialized world while knowingly ignoring the effect of greenhouse gases.
      - juanbyrge 7y ago
        To be fair I think the severity of climate change has only come into mainstream focus in the past 5-10 years. Just as one data point, when I was shopping for a car in 2012, I did not even consider CO2 emissions. Now, climate change is top of mind for me. I now own an electric car, stopped eating beef, mostly eliminated travel, etc... I'm not saying this will make a difference overall, but I imagine others feel similarly, and a lot of young people will hopefully be in a position to work on solving some of these problems.
        cbHXBY1D 7y ago
        We've known for a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_scie... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/clim...

HarryHirsch 7y ago

We are selling ads and moving money from one desk onto another instead of addressing antibiotic resistance and climate change.

derp_dee_derp 7y ago
You lack serious historical context. We went fromom electricity to flight to nuclear to space flight to the internet in less than 150 years. Its been less than 100 years since antibiotics were invented, so, sorry we aren't addressing antibiotic resistance at a fast enough pace for you. Hope you don't mind all those vaccines that are keeping you healthy and providing here immunity: they've only been around for about 130 years. It's the most innovative time in human history, despite your negativity.
- HarryHirsch 7y ago
  The first powered aircraft flew in the 1900s, and by the 1940s we had jet aircraft. The Boeing 747 was introduced in the 1960s, and in the 1970s we had supersonic flight. The pace of innovation has stalled since.
  - jbay808 7y ago
    "and in the 1970s we had supersonic flight" 1947?
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      I suspect commercial supersonic flight was meant. Concorde was testing by 1969, but didn't carry passengers until 1976. The USSR's Tu-144 actually beat Concorde on both dates -- 1968 and 1975. Though it also beat Concorde, by 25 years, on retirement from passenger service: 1978.
  - jcranmer 7y ago
    We sculpt rocks to dimensions that are most easily measured in terms of layers of atoms for the price of mere dollars per rock.
    - sumitviii 7y ago
      And might soon be able to design life! Present FTW!!!
- geniium 7y ago
  Antibiotic resistance has been marked as top #1 priority for WHO [1]. It's a huge problem not much people realise. [1] https://www.who.int/en https://www.who.int/en

Gatsky 7y ago

Yes, I wasn’t trying to be disparaging. Interesting though you cite mainly engineering achievements, I had a similar feeling that we are in a phase of engineering/materials advancements, particularly sub-microscale in the post-WW2 period. But having said that, technological advances of this kind tend to end up as historical footnotes, no matter how amazing they seem at the time. I think vaccines and antibiotics are probably our era’s truly great technological advance that kids will still learn about post 26th century. But quantum mechanics and relativity are really our Pythagoras’ theorem equivalents, and will stay in textbooks for a very, very long time.

fortran77 7y ago

Probably the discovery of solid state devices and the invention of the digital computer is more important than the "Internet"

dkersten 7y ago
We will be remembered for our most important achievement: bringing high speed access to cat pictures to the masses.
- abdullahkhalids 7y ago
  Nope. Our most important achievement has been to create a system where smart people spend their life trying to get people to click on ads, using morally dubious dark-patterns.
  - cbHXBY1D 7y ago
    If I had to bet, western society will be judged for creating an industrialized world while knowingly ignoring the effect of greenhouse gases.
    - juanbyrge 7y ago
      To be fair I think the severity of climate change has only come into mainstream focus in the past 5-10 years. Just as one data point, when I was shopping for a car in 2012, I did not even consider CO2 emissions. Now, climate change is top of mind for me. I now own an electric car, stopped eating beef, mostly eliminated travel, etc... I'm not saying this will make a difference overall, but I imagine others feel similarly, and a lot of young people will hopefully be in a position to work on solving some of these problems.
      - cbHXBY1D 7y ago
        We've known for a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_scie... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/clim...