5 ms·

I wonder about what, a thousand years from now, people will look back on us and say 'if they just did this, they could have discovered that thing centuries earl

by AS37 4y ago

I wonder about what, a thousand years from now, people will look back on us and say 'if they just did this, they could have discovered that thing centuries earlier'.

sakex 4y ago
Nuclear fusion, maybe?
- cellis 4y ago
  This or quantum computing, probably both. I'd imagine a quantum computer running RL could fit solutions for fusion without much fuss.
Nasrudith 4y ago
Battery technology seems like a good candidate given its long period of stagnation. Our current progression was informed by the hiatus like the microcontroller required lithium ion.
- eru 4y ago
  What do you mean by long period of stagnation? Which time period are you talking about? I couldn't find a grand unifying graph of eg cost-per-kWh of electricity storage since 1900 or so, but what I could find points to steady declines in price. Both in single use batteries and in rechargeables. What you might see as stagnation is that rechargeable batteries haven only rather recently become good enough for many exciting applications (like practical electric cars). But just because we've only recently crossed these thresholds, doesn't mean there was stagnation earlier. See eg https://enerpoly.com/alkaline-cell-then-and-now/ https://enerpoly.com/alkaline-cell-then-and-now/ for some important progress that you might have missed. The humble lead-acid battery also has a fascinating history, that is full of steady improvements. > As an example, lead battery life has increased by 30-35% in the last 20 years. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2019/10/27/the-lead-acid-batterys-demise-has-been-greatly-exaggerated/?sh=791361db4016 https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2019/10/27/the-lead-aci...
winter_blue 4y ago
I would imagine most likely something to do with space travel.
spullara 4y ago
Room temperature & pressure super-conductors, if they exist, might be so rare that you have to accidentally find them and that could happen any time after we have electricity if they are simple enough compounds.
- throwawayacc2 4y ago
  We might also be the pinnacle of civilisation. It is not outside the realm of possibility a perfect storm of nuclear war, climate change, fossil fuel depletion and the resulting collapse in civilisation replaced by warlords and distrust of the technology that cause the calamity pushes us to a pre industrial society. Sure some books will survive but good luck recovering data from ancient computers when there’s no electricity. Perhaps in many thousands of years civilisation would somewhat recover but by then nearly everything would have to be rediscovered. This in fact is one of the possible answers to the Fermi paradox. Intelligent life besides us does exist but has regressed to a pre technological state and is unable to get back due to depleted resources. Thus it is unable to make its self known.
  - withinboredom 4y ago
    We could also just have a lucky sun. It hasn’t flared on us in a hundred years or so. Maybe other systems aren’t so lucky and they can’t use electricity like we can. Hell, the next time it does flare up, we will probably go back to a preindustrial society for a decade or so.
  - jprd 4y ago
    While a completely valid theory (and thank you for sharing it here), that is super dark. There just seems to be so much we know we don't know, that to theorize we're the pinnacle of what civilization can be is...gauche? Insanely short sighted and Sol-centric? I dunno, I'm obviously not a theoretical physicist or conducting well thought out experiments testing those theories - but it just seems defeatist and lame. We have a visible Universe that has rules and guardrails - that's bonkers and needs to be hacked more.
    - 4y ago
thrown_22 4y ago
Copyright and patents.
7952 4y ago
It could be cheap underground drilling. That gives you affordable ground source heat pumps. It makes it cheaper to run underground cables to renewable energy. It makes it easier to build on piled foundations. And could even be a source of material for construction.
D-Coder 4y ago
Sound recordings. A hand-cranked wax cylinder with an acoustic cone, a needle, and a rod to move the needle along the cylinder.

by AS37 4y ago

I wonder about what, a thousand years from now, people will look back on us and say 'if they just did this, they could have discovered that thing centuries earlier'.

sakex 4y ago

Nuclear fusion, maybe?

cellis 4y ago
This or quantum computing, probably both. I'd imagine a quantum computer running RL could fit solutions for fusion without much fuss.

Nasrudith 4y ago

Battery technology seems like a good candidate given its long period of stagnation. Our current progression was informed by the hiatus like the microcontroller required lithium ion.

eru 4y ago
What do you mean by long period of stagnation? Which time period are you talking about? I couldn't find a grand unifying graph of eg cost-per-kWh of electricity storage since 1900 or so, but what I could find points to steady declines in price. Both in single use batteries and in rechargeables. What you might see as stagnation is that rechargeable batteries haven only rather recently become good enough for many exciting applications (like practical electric cars). But just because we've only recently crossed these thresholds, doesn't mean there was stagnation earlier. See eg https://enerpoly.com/alkaline-cell-then-and-now/ https://enerpoly.com/alkaline-cell-then-and-now/ for some important progress that you might have missed. The humble lead-acid battery also has a fascinating history, that is full of steady improvements. > As an example, lead battery life has increased by 30-35% in the last 20 years. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2019/10/27/the-lead-acid-batterys-demise-has-been-greatly-exaggerated/?sh=791361db4016 https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2019/10/27/the-lead-aci...

winter_blue 4y ago

I would imagine most likely something to do with space travel.

spullara 4y ago

Room temperature & pressure super-conductors, if they exist, might be so rare that you have to accidentally find them and that could happen any time after we have electricity if they are simple enough compounds.

throwawayacc2 4y ago
We might also be the pinnacle of civilisation. It is not outside the realm of possibility a perfect storm of nuclear war, climate change, fossil fuel depletion and the resulting collapse in civilisation replaced by warlords and distrust of the technology that cause the calamity pushes us to a pre industrial society. Sure some books will survive but good luck recovering data from ancient computers when there’s no electricity. Perhaps in many thousands of years civilisation would somewhat recover but by then nearly everything would have to be rediscovered. This in fact is one of the possible answers to the Fermi paradox. Intelligent life besides us does exist but has regressed to a pre technological state and is unable to get back due to depleted resources. Thus it is unable to make its self known.
- withinboredom 4y ago
  We could also just have a lucky sun. It hasn’t flared on us in a hundred years or so. Maybe other systems aren’t so lucky and they can’t use electricity like we can. Hell, the next time it does flare up, we will probably go back to a preindustrial society for a decade or so.
- jprd 4y ago
  While a completely valid theory (and thank you for sharing it here), that is super dark. There just seems to be so much we know we don't know, that to theorize we're the pinnacle of what civilization can be is...gauche? Insanely short sighted and Sol-centric? I dunno, I'm obviously not a theoretical physicist or conducting well thought out experiments testing those theories - but it just seems defeatist and lame. We have a visible Universe that has rules and guardrails - that's bonkers and needs to be hacked more.
  - 4y ago

thrown_22 4y ago

7952 4y ago

It could be cheap underground drilling. That gives you affordable ground source heat pumps. It makes it cheaper to run underground cables to renewable energy. It makes it easier to build on piled foundations. And could even be a source of material for construction.

D-Coder 4y ago

Sound recordings. A hand-cranked wax cylinder with an acoustic cone, a needle, and a rod to move the needle along the cylinder.