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Yeah, that's what I was asking. If any of our technology history can be attributed to external physical natural phenomena that hadn't existed before then, or so

Yeah, that's what I was asking. If any of our technology history can be attributed to external physical natural phenomena that hadn't existed before then, or something along those lines. Mostly because it's incredibly humbling to think of how all our technology today could have existed thousands of years ago if the right social conditions were in place along the way. It's also interesting to think of what "pause points" we're stuck in now. Technology we know we could have but just aren't driving on right now. I guess one arguably obvious one recently was rocket technology.

kragen 4y ago
well, i suppose certain natural resources are pretty scarce on earth; meteoric iron, for example, and platinum-group metals current cases of 'tech we know we could have but aren't reaching for' includes molecular nanotechnology, human germline editing, decentralized software, provably secure operating systems, simple web browsers (we had them 20 years ago), gem-gum systems, space elevators, supergun-based orbital launch, lithium 'fusion' power, undersea cities, atmospheric carbon capture, orion-style nuclear rockets, terraforming, personal rapid transit, sustainable agriculture (arguably), human space travel (leo isn't travel), suborbital commuter rockets (45 minutes to anywhere on earth), universal access to implanted automatic defibrillators, asteroid mining, solar power plants in solar orbit, all kinds of drugs, implanted perceptual prostheses (with a narrow exception for making people 'normal' if they are disabled relative to social expectations), personal airbags to prevent death from falls, wheelchairs that can climb stairs, cruise airships, etc. i've written about some of these at some length in the notes linked from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35017711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35017711 but basically 'why don't we have atmospheric carbon capture yet' is the same problem as 'why don't we have world peace yet' or 'why is sci-hub illegal in most countries'; the problem is power structures, incentive structures, human motivation, and the result, people working at cross purposes
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kragen 4y ago

well, i suppose certain natural resources are pretty scarce on earth; meteoric iron, for example, and platinum-group metals current cases of 'tech we know we could have but aren't reaching for' includes molecular nanotechnology, human germline editing, decentralized software, provably secure operating systems, simple web browsers (we had them 20 years ago), gem-gum systems, space elevators, supergun-based orbital launch, lithium 'fusion' power, undersea cities, atmospheric carbon capture, orion-style nuclear rockets, terraforming, personal rapid transit, sustainable agriculture (arguably), human space travel (leo isn't travel), suborbital commuter rockets (45 minutes to anywhere on earth), universal access to implanted automatic defibrillators, asteroid mining, solar power plants in solar orbit, all kinds of drugs, implanted perceptual prostheses (with a narrow exception for making people 'normal' if they are disabled relative to social expectations), personal airbags to prevent death from falls, wheelchairs that can climb stairs, cruise airships, etc. i've written about some of these at some length in the notes linked from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35017711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35017711 but basically 'why don't we have atmospheric carbon capture yet' is the same problem as 'why don't we have world peace yet' or 'why is sci-hub illegal in most countries'; the problem is power structures, incentive structures, human motivation, and the result, people working at cross purposes

deleted 4y ago
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