5 ms·
It’s noble to want to help the poor but the economy isn’t zero sum in that way. Almost all the surplus we have could be traced back to our discoveries in physi
by nbardy 3y ago
It’s noble to want to help the poor but the economy isn’t zero sum in that way.
Almost all the surplus we have could be traced back to our discoveries in physics leading to machines.
People lived much much poorer lives without modern physics discoveries.
The expects return on physics is so great we should find ways to afford more long shot experiments not less.
- nathan_compton 3y agoThis is some galaxy brain shit.
- edgyquant 3y agoThis is overblown. The vast majority of improvements to human lives can from textile and agricultural revolutions. Physics supplemented these, sure, but it wasn’t thanks to a few dudes hiding out in a lab doing theory.
- nathan_compton 3y agoSorry, but _even as a physicist_ I think the idea that the expected returns for society of discovering some other obscure standard model particle are trivial to nothing. Literally useless knowledge and only of interest to a tiny minority of people (of whom I am a part, I admit). Like seriously. Consider: how has anyone's life been improved by the discovery of the Higgs? By the absence of Supersymmetry?
- steve_mcdougall 3y ago[dead]
- senttoschool 3y agoWe don’t know yet. To be determined. But science has taken us pretty far.
- clarle 3y agoNeural network algorithm research was considered more of an academic endeavor rather than something that could have practical implications from the 1960s to even the early 2000s, compared to other machine learning algorithms. Look at where it took us today.