4 ms·

Oh, than his views on innovation are even more wrong than I thought. Most progress, most innovation is the result of incremental progress. Sometimes you can see

by tehabe 6y ago

Oh, than his views on innovation are even more wrong than I thought. Most progress, most innovation is the result of incremental progress. Sometimes you can see a leap forward, which usually comes that someone puts several incremental innovations together and combines them in the right way. Yeah, ITER is not really a fast project. Weirdly enough there is also Wendelstein 7-X in Germany, which is also mostly funded by the German government is way ahead of other fusion project. No idea if this research will lead to a power source or not, but I'm pretty if it does, those power plants will be subsidised by the government.

noetic_techy 6y ago
To some extent I agree, and to some extent I do not. I have a physics degree and work as an engineer, so I will say that I do not think we have reached the "end" of physics, and I think we still have things to unlock that we would not today think is achievable. For example: Warp Drive (or equivalent) - String theory is largely a 30 year dead end and we have no idea what the link between QED and gravity is. Imagine we could unlock the graviton, it would be huge. Currently we have no unified theory and the quantum realm is still considered "spooky" meaning we don't fully understand the hidden substructure. The fact that 2 particles entangled can interact at ANY distance should tell you something. Eric Weinstein talks a lot about this in his podcasts, one of the reason I think he and Thiel are partners. The Replicator (think star trek) - I know some will say "But what about 3D printers". That is not what I am talking about. That still requires atoms of a material to be fed into what is the incremental advance of the printer, just substitute the ink with X material. I'm talking about a machine that can both synthesize the material from ANY substrate, since its all just proton/neutron/electron arrangements anyways, and then arrange the material in specific placement to create just about anything on a tabletop. I'd even settle for the material part only. That would be mega leap. Equivalent to say the advent of the refrigerator or microwave. Humanoid Robots - On this point I agree with you somewhat, that both AI and humanoid robots are starting to emerge now from incremental advancement. However Thiel loves to point to household objects likes Refrigerators, TV's, etc, so what would be the next step for the household that would be a large leap: IMO it would be a robot that could do all the trivial tasks that I don't care to such as dishes, laundry, general upkeep, etc. All the dystopian robot takeover stuff aside, that convergence of tech would be a quantum leap for humanity. A air-ground/water/space ship personal vehicle - I would not agree that this would be an incremental advancement of the car since the car can only do ground (air in 2 dimensions on specific surfaces). You have vehicles that can traverse these mediums in the singular sense, even small 1 person versions, but NONE combine all 3 mediums with full degree of freedom. I'm not talking flying cars, I'm talking flying saucer that can dive into the ocean or take you to orbit. Another way of thinking of it is, you have access to things now that only the uber rich had long ago, so what do only the uber rich have access to now that you do not: Access to resources (replicator), access to labor (cheap home robots), access to any point on the planet (personal space ships), even access to unlimited energy (fusion reactors, which I would argue are NOT incremental of nuclear). Lets start there. If you want to get outside the box, then you look for the star trek tech: Warp Drive, Tractor Beams (they can do this with sound waves to some extent), transporters, physical-real holographics. So the counter arguments are "well all tech is incremental". From the point of view the 60's starting version 1 appliances most is, but you haven't got sufficiently outside the box IMO. Combinations of tech maybe (phone+computer=iphone, submarine+airplaine+space-pod=flying saucer, AI+Boston Dynamics Robot=humanoid home servant, 3D printer + ? = replicator), but not always incremental. Something like a warp drive or a star trek transporter would fall outside of that. The best we have is to look to sci-fi and ask what it would take to achieve that kind of breakthrough. Even fusion reactors or space elevators would be a huge leap even if there was only 1 on the planet within the next decade. The next counter argument is "well we have reached the end of physics so there is nothing left to invent". Please explain the QED-gravity link and submit your unified theory to the journal Nature then, they are waiting. Until then we have not yet unlocked everything.

by tehabe 6y ago

noetic_techy 6y ago

To some extent I agree, and to some extent I do not. I have a physics degree and work as an engineer, so I will say that I do not think we have reached the "end" of physics, and I think we still have things to unlock that we would not today think is achievable. For example: Warp Drive (or equivalent) - String theory is largely a 30 year dead end and we have no idea what the link between QED and gravity is. Imagine we could unlock the graviton, it would be huge. Currently we have no unified theory and the quantum realm is still considered "spooky" meaning we don't fully understand the hidden substructure. The fact that 2 particles entangled can interact at ANY distance should tell you something. Eric Weinstein talks a lot about this in his podcasts, one of the reason I think he and Thiel are partners. The Replicator (think star trek) - I know some will say "But what about 3D printers". That is not what I am talking about. That still requires atoms of a material to be fed into what is the incremental advance of the printer, just substitute the ink with X material. I'm talking about a machine that can both synthesize the material from ANY substrate, since its all just proton/neutron/electron arrangements anyways, and then arrange the material in specific placement to create just about anything on a tabletop. I'd even settle for the material part only. That would be mega leap. Equivalent to say the advent of the refrigerator or microwave. Humanoid Robots - On this point I agree with you somewhat, that both AI and humanoid robots are starting to emerge now from incremental advancement. However Thiel loves to point to household objects likes Refrigerators, TV's, etc, so what would be the next step for the household that would be a large leap: IMO it would be a robot that could do all the trivial tasks that I don't care to such as dishes, laundry, general upkeep, etc. All the dystopian robot takeover stuff aside, that convergence of tech would be a quantum leap for humanity. A air-ground/water/space ship personal vehicle - I would not agree that this would be an incremental advancement of the car since the car can only do ground (air in 2 dimensions on specific surfaces). You have vehicles that can traverse these mediums in the singular sense, even small 1 person versions, but NONE combine all 3 mediums with full degree of freedom. I'm not talking flying cars, I'm talking flying saucer that can dive into the ocean or take you to orbit. Another way of thinking of it is, you have access to things now that only the uber rich had long ago, so what do only the uber rich have access to now that you do not: Access to resources (replicator), access to labor (cheap home robots), access to any point on the planet (personal space ships), even access to unlimited energy (fusion reactors, which I would argue are NOT incremental of nuclear). Lets start there. If you want to get outside the box, then you look for the star trek tech: Warp Drive, Tractor Beams (they can do this with sound waves to some extent), transporters, physical-real holographics. So the counter arguments are "well all tech is incremental". From the point of view the 60's starting version 1 appliances most is, but you haven't got sufficiently outside the box IMO. Combinations of tech maybe (phone+computer=iphone, submarine+airplaine+space-pod=flying saucer, AI+Boston Dynamics Robot=humanoid home servant, 3D printer + ? = replicator), but not always incremental. Something like a warp drive or a star trek transporter would fall outside of that. The best we have is to look to sci-fi and ask what it would take to achieve that kind of breakthrough. Even fusion reactors or space elevators would be a huge leap even if there was only 1 on the planet within the next decade. The next counter argument is "well we have reached the end of physics so there is nothing left to invent". Please explain the QED-gravity link and submit your unified theory to the journal Nature then, they are waiting. Until then we have not yet unlocked everything.