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Not "every technological achievement seemed laughable before its time". Some were even imagined long before they came to reality. Also that does not make every

Not "every technological achievement seemed laughable before its time". Some were even imagined long before they came to reality. Also that does not make every idea imaginable also achievable. And conversely a lot of technological predictions were considered pretty seriously which are pretty far away from today (look at all the future predictions of the early 20th century. Flying cars and humanoid robots and all). Your comparison with existing cars replacing horses at that time is pretty out of whack with our abilities right now and the task of terraforming Mars, even the question IF making it habitable is even possible. We cannot even redirect asteroids...

darkerside 6y ago
Sure, I was being a bit flip with that response. But I think the point I was making stands. There are certainly innovations that sounds illogical but turn out to be very successful. Just because something sounds like a bad idea doesn't mean it is, it just means it hasn't worked yet. I actually don't think cloud cities sound that ridiculous either. Just like I also didn't think landing a rocket on its tail ever sounded unfeasible.
- ruph123 6y ago
  > But I think the point I was making stands. There are certainly innovations that sounds illogical but turn out to be very successful. Just because something sounds like a bad idea doesn't mean it is, it just means it hasn't worked yet. No because your point was about horses being replaced by cars, which is what people (and probably horses) were skeptical about at that time. In the same way IBM was saying that computers will never appear in homes, etc. But these devices were already there. The misconceptions were about predicting demand and miniaturization. This is completely different from terraforming. You are comparing "oh these devices sure never will be popular enough to make this other thing obsolete" with "lets nuke the Mars to create an atmosphere so we can live on it" (always winter, yeay).[0] Your argument is bad because by saying "technologies were laughed at in the past" every technology that sounds laughable should be taken seriously? No. This is the same trap that Theranos investors had fallen in. It is all a fantasy. We humans are very bad at estimating what is possible and what not. E.g. our inability to divert asteroids [1]. That is already a hard problem and currently not possible to do. I am not against crazy technological ideas, for example the space elevator had a surprisingly good feasibility to being realized before we polluted our planet's atmosphere with junk. Terraforming Mars is in the Theranos land of crazy ideas though. > Just like I also didn't think landing a rocket on its tail ever sounded unfeasible. Maybe because that was already demonstrated in the 90s [1]. [0]: https://www.space.com/elon-musk-nuke-mars-terraforming.html https://www.space.com/elon-musk-nuke-mars-terraforming.html [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wrc4fHSCpw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wrc4fHSCpw [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv9n9Casp1o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv9n9Casp1o
  - darkerside 6y ago
    Not sure how you got off track, but my point was that building cloud cities on Venus seems no more unrealistic than terraforming Mars. Both are really fucking hard, but Mars probably sounds easier to the poster I was replying to because it is more similar to what we've seen in the past.

darkerside 6y ago

Sure, I was being a bit flip with that response. But I think the point I was making stands. There are certainly innovations that sounds illogical but turn out to be very successful. Just because something sounds like a bad idea doesn't mean it is, it just means it hasn't worked yet. I actually don't think cloud cities sound that ridiculous either. Just like I also didn't think landing a rocket on its tail ever sounded unfeasible.

ruph123 6y ago
> But I think the point I was making stands. There are certainly innovations that sounds illogical but turn out to be very successful. Just because something sounds like a bad idea doesn't mean it is, it just means it hasn't worked yet. No because your point was about horses being replaced by cars, which is what people (and probably horses) were skeptical about at that time. In the same way IBM was saying that computers will never appear in homes, etc. But these devices were already there. The misconceptions were about predicting demand and miniaturization. This is completely different from terraforming. You are comparing "oh these devices sure never will be popular enough to make this other thing obsolete" with "lets nuke the Mars to create an atmosphere so we can live on it" (always winter, yeay).[0] Your argument is bad because by saying "technologies were laughed at in the past" every technology that sounds laughable should be taken seriously? No. This is the same trap that Theranos investors had fallen in. It is all a fantasy. We humans are very bad at estimating what is possible and what not. E.g. our inability to divert asteroids [1]. That is already a hard problem and currently not possible to do. I am not against crazy technological ideas, for example the space elevator had a surprisingly good feasibility to being realized before we polluted our planet's atmosphere with junk. Terraforming Mars is in the Theranos land of crazy ideas though. > Just like I also didn't think landing a rocket on its tail ever sounded unfeasible. Maybe because that was already demonstrated in the 90s [1]. [0]: https://www.space.com/elon-musk-nuke-mars-terraforming.html https://www.space.com/elon-musk-nuke-mars-terraforming.html [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wrc4fHSCpw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wrc4fHSCpw [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv9n9Casp1o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv9n9Casp1o
- darkerside 6y ago
  Not sure how you got off track, but my point was that building cloud cities on Venus seems no more unrealistic than terraforming Mars. Both are really fucking hard, but Mars probably sounds easier to the poster I was replying to because it is more similar to what we've seen in the past.