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> In 1920, the New York Times famously mocked the proponents of the idea [the rocket], implying that they lacked the physics education of a high-school student.
by CoolGuySteve 6y ago
> In 1920, the New York Times famously mocked the proponents of the idea [the rocket], implying that they lacked the physics education of a high-school student. (In 1969, the newspaper issued a light-hearted retraction a day after the Apollo 11 astronauts lifted off towards the Moon.)
Is there any technological opinion people had in 1972 that would be considered embarrassing by today's standards?
The only thing that comes to mind is that Simpsons quote: "I predict that within 10 years, computers will be twice as powerful, ten thousand times larger, and so expensive that only the 5 richest kings of Europe will own them"
- maxerickson 6y agoPeak oil. It'll obviously happen at some point, but they were very wrong about the timing. There's probably lots of examples on the optimistic side too. AI probably counts there.
- bryanlarsen 6y agoPeak oil will never happen. The Alberta and Venezuela tar sands contain hundreds of years of supply, yet in a decade or so it'll be cheaper to make oil using cheap renewable energy than it will be to pull it out of the tar sands.
- dumbfoundded 6y agoSo then we've already peaked? I thought peak oil referred to related to the rate of extraction, not the reserve levels.
- kodoque2 6y agoHow much barrel of oil do we need to get one barrel of oil from tar sands?
- forgingahead 6y agoPaul Krugman's prediction that the impact of the internet will be "no greater than that of the fax machine."[0] This is not by the way a specific criticism of Krugman (though I do think too many people, including Krugman himself, wrongly think his Nobel Prize for trade theory gives him expertise in every other subject he pontificates about). As usual, the non-doers (commenters or critics, places like the NYT) have little perspective on things that can change the world. It's up to us in tech to always have that bright-eyed optimism for what is possible, because we're the ones building it day-in-day-out. Observer critics don't really have a place in this, unless that criticism is coming directly from folks who are meant to be the initial customers/users of technology. [0]https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/revolutions/miscellany/paul-krugmans-poor-prediction https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/revolutions/miscellany/paul...
- kodoque2 6y agoI've always felt the reverse, it's the doer that are in knee deep in the guts of various technological endeavor that display the most technological skepticism.
- mhh__ 6y agoI can't remember where I read it, but "We may one day fit 65k transistors on a chip" is a classic