Goodhart's Law ensures that if you require technological advances, you will get some. For instance, the SSC was going to bring us flat panel displays. What? Y

Goodhart's Law ensures that if you require technological advances, you will get some. For instance, the SSC was going to bring us flat panel displays. What? Yes, I recall at the time that when news articles talked about the SSC, flat panel displays were mentioned in multiple articles. Now this was certainly a case of one article influencing the others, with the original information source buried in obscurity. We're really bad at projecting the technological outcomes of any specific science research project, and asking scientists or their funding agencies to do so is just an invitation for them to make up some bullshit. I'd prefer that they are just honest with their expectations.