7 ms·

Amazing feat. Yet it's not the first time that I've also felt bitterness pondering such past achievements. I can't escape the feeling that we used to be so muc

Amazing feat. Yet it's not the first time that I've also felt bitterness pondering such past achievements. I can't escape the feeling that we used to be so much bolder and unconstrained in setting goals for ourselves and actually pursuing them. I feel like 1900 people would have fixed global warming, unaffordable housing, universal healthcare etc.

pasquinelli 3y ago
i drive on the interstate highway system way more than i like, and i'm often struck with the thought that, if we didn't have our interstate highway system now, we wouldn't build one.
- jrmg 3y ago
  Rail network too. We should have high speed rail all over the country - instead, witness e.g. the molasses-speed design and construction of the California High Speed Rail project.
pixl97 3y ago
People in 1900 effectively had two world wars that lead to a massive number of deaths, thinking it was some golden age of unlimited accomplishment without terrible costs would be a mistake.
- leto_ii 3y ago
  Didn't say they were perfect, but when it comes to the speed of scientific and technological progress, nothing beats the late 19th- mid 20th century era.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    This is kind of like saying that the first person harvesting an apple orchard is better than the people that come after because they get to pick the low hanging fruit. If you dug them out of their graves and presented the scientific world as we have it now it's highly likely they'd see the predicaments we are in now and a whole lot of that technological progress would be different. Turned out running economies on leaded gas burns up atmospheres and brains. Turns out that physics didn't have unlimited secrets to divulge without ever increasing amounts of effort and energy being applied to discover them.
  - computerdork 3y ago
    have a good point there: Einstein, Nikola Tesla, the Wright brothers, Edison, Ford (with his usage of mass production), Alexander Graham Bell, modern surgery techniques... and that's only after thinking for 20 seconds... ... although, "somewhat" agree with pixl97 that there was so much to learn and discover during that time period, that many ideas were discoverable by only one or two people (where as things like CRISPR took dozens of researchers decades of building off of each other work to invent reliable DNA editing).
  - timeon 3y ago
    > nothing beats the late 19th- mid 20th century era That is why we have climate change in the first place.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  If we combined 1900 attitudes toward health and safety and 2000 birth rates, we might fix global warming and ecological damage (by drastically reducing the number of us).
  - klyrs 3y ago
    Genocide the poor masses to make room for the rich ultraconsumers? I'll grant that's a bold plan... if a touch supervillain. But where does one recruit minions in this fantasy?
    - cpill 3y ago
      Elon is making robots
  - ben_w 3y ago
    However the 1900's attitude to global warming was "this will be wonderful, shame it will take a few centuries". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius
- jongjong 3y ago
  If anything, the fact that they could keep the economy and innovation going while a large portion of the population was fighting a war makes it even more impressive.
  - Wytwwww 3y ago
    Were they? There was a lot of innovation related military aircraft, chemical weapons and tanks so maybe you're right. Not so sure about "keep the economy" going considering that aftermath of WW1...
stocknoob 3y ago
You’re not the only one: https://patrickcollison.com/fast https://patrickcollison.com/fast
yieldcrv 3y ago
I think this is accurate, a cynical comment mentioned the two wars, but more practically, those wars and pandemics killed a lot of people, ending design trends before they could take hold. people from all walks of life as both civilians and military patriots and conscripts, from so many countries across Europe all at once cities that werent firebombed were on somebody’s list to firebomb. Vienna could have met the same fate as Dresden, Dresden could have the charm of a Vienna or Paris. when you put it in perspective there are plenty more trends that are just lost through that dark age. there are a lot of things from the 1890s to 1910s that I think would be appreciated today if people knew of them.
klyrs 3y ago
My great grandparents fled Mussolini's Italy, despite the trains running on time. And I daresay, many if not all of our environmental problems are due to the bold and unconstrained development of technology.
- mkl 3y ago
  Most of the trains did not run on time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini#Railways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini#Railways
  - klyrs 3y ago
    Weird grievance but okay
    - swores 3y ago
      They were kindly letting you know that a commonly held misconception you had is actually not true, not airing a grievance.
  - pi-e-sigma 3y ago
    This wiki article doesn't prove anything, just cities two dudes who claim that the trains didn't run on time. Excellent 'refutation'. It's like citing one random dude saying that Stalin was a cool guy and basing your whole argument around it.
    - Wytwwww 3y ago
      Seems at least as credible as the people saying that all the trains were running on time?
      - pi-e-sigma 3y ago
        If you actually bothered to read the linked wiki article you would know that even that article actually claims that the trains service _improved_, just disputes who would be responsible for it.
jongjong 3y ago
Most of these problems are artificially created by governments via regulations and their support of corporations and their monopolies.
- timeon 3y ago
  You would have corporations and their monopolies even without regulations. Probably even more.
palemoonale 3y ago
> fixed global warming Sir, the correct term du jour is "climate emergency". "warming" is not to be used anymore since expected natural developments started to contradict the yearly proclamations made by Gore et al.
- hooverd 3y ago
  Huh? This is the hottest year so far.
heads 3y ago
Engineers in the 19th century would be amazed that we can build mechanisms with thousands of moving parts — functions, classes, packages — just by typing on a keyboard. Not only that but they also spin around in the order of millions to billions of times a second and every computer in the world can talk to any other computer. Most of these machines are the size of a bar of chocolate and a huge amount of the software is given away for free in an ecosystem of OSS, applications, and programming languages thriving on competition. I see your point about a lack of modern day gumption in the physical world but I sleep at night knowing that what we do with software more than makes up for it.
- cm2187 3y ago
  And also the only way they could embed logic into objects was through some very convoluted physical mechanism.
  - globular-toast 3y ago
    Those physical mechanisms did have advantages, though. The signals on railways would physically interlock so you couldn't accidentally clear two trains to enter the same portion of track. Perhaps the electrical circuits on modern signalling systems have similar interlocks and it isn't all left up to software (at a minimum you wouldn't want to ever let the system go "all green", for example).
    - synecdoche 3y ago
      It is common for industrial safety relays to have mechanical interlocks internally. https://literature.rockwellautomation.com/idc/groups/literature/documents/td/700-td556_-en-p.pdf https://literature.rockwellautomation.com/idc/groups/literat...
    - kstrauser 3y ago
      That’s still the case. My mom was Wire Chief at a railroad, and when something broke, everything failed safely and ground movement to a halt until she could get the problem fixed. Failsafe systems are still common where safety or vast expense is at stake.
mytailorisrich 3y ago
This is somewhat still this way in China, as we can see in architecture and infrastructure projects that are often bold, ambitious, and which happen rather quickly once decided. In Europe, especially, it is very difficult nowadays for good and bad reasons. Note, though, that this was for a temporary exhibition so being bold and forward-looking, with a level of showing off, what the whole point.
- creer 3y ago
  And all kinds of mayhem is being done in Paris these years, in the name of the next Olympic games. Also a show-off event as a pretext to accelerated large changes.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  "Was" the whole point, of course.
Wytwwww 3y ago
> unaffordable housing, universal healthcare etc. They had a chance to (both were huge problems at the time), they decided to spend massive amounts of resources killing each other instead.. 1940s and 50s people on the other hand had a fairly decent run at it.

pasquinelli 3y ago

i drive on the interstate highway system way more than i like, and i'm often struck with the thought that, if we didn't have our interstate highway system now, we wouldn't build one.

jrmg 3y ago
Rail network too. We should have high speed rail all over the country - instead, witness e.g. the molasses-speed design and construction of the California High Speed Rail project.

pixl97 3y ago

People in 1900 effectively had two world wars that lead to a massive number of deaths, thinking it was some golden age of unlimited accomplishment without terrible costs would be a mistake.

leto_ii 3y ago
Didn't say they were perfect, but when it comes to the speed of scientific and technological progress, nothing beats the late 19th- mid 20th century era.
- pixl97 3y ago
  This is kind of like saying that the first person harvesting an apple orchard is better than the people that come after because they get to pick the low hanging fruit. If you dug them out of their graves and presented the scientific world as we have it now it's highly likely they'd see the predicaments we are in now and a whole lot of that technological progress would be different. Turned out running economies on leaded gas burns up atmospheres and brains. Turns out that physics didn't have unlimited secrets to divulge without ever increasing amounts of effort and energy being applied to discover them.
- computerdork 3y ago
  have a good point there: Einstein, Nikola Tesla, the Wright brothers, Edison, Ford (with his usage of mass production), Alexander Graham Bell, modern surgery techniques... and that's only after thinking for 20 seconds... ... although, "somewhat" agree with pixl97 that there was so much to learn and discover during that time period, that many ideas were discoverable by only one or two people (where as things like CRISPR took dozens of researchers decades of building off of each other work to invent reliable DNA editing).
- timeon 3y ago
  > nothing beats the late 19th- mid 20th century era That is why we have climate change in the first place.
bee_rider 3y ago
If we combined 1900 attitudes toward health and safety and 2000 birth rates, we might fix global warming and ecological damage (by drastically reducing the number of us).
- klyrs 3y ago
  Genocide the poor masses to make room for the rich ultraconsumers? I'll grant that's a bold plan... if a touch supervillain. But where does one recruit minions in this fantasy?
  - cpill 3y ago
    Elon is making robots
- ben_w 3y ago
  However the 1900's attitude to global warming was "this will be wonderful, shame it will take a few centuries". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius
jongjong 3y ago
If anything, the fact that they could keep the economy and innovation going while a large portion of the population was fighting a war makes it even more impressive.
- Wytwwww 3y ago
  Were they? There was a lot of innovation related military aircraft, chemical weapons and tanks so maybe you're right. Not so sure about "keep the economy" going considering that aftermath of WW1...

stocknoob 3y ago

You’re not the only one: https://patrickcollison.com/fast https://patrickcollison.com/fast

yieldcrv 3y ago

I think this is accurate, a cynical comment mentioned the two wars, but more practically, those wars and pandemics killed a lot of people, ending design trends before they could take hold. people from all walks of life as both civilians and military patriots and conscripts, from so many countries across Europe all at once cities that werent firebombed were on somebody’s list to firebomb. Vienna could have met the same fate as Dresden, Dresden could have the charm of a Vienna or Paris. when you put it in perspective there are plenty more trends that are just lost through that dark age. there are a lot of things from the 1890s to 1910s that I think would be appreciated today if people knew of them.

klyrs 3y ago

My great grandparents fled Mussolini's Italy, despite the trains running on time. And I daresay, many if not all of our environmental problems are due to the bold and unconstrained development of technology.

mkl 3y ago
Most of the trains did not run on time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini#Railways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini#Railways
- klyrs 3y ago
  Weird grievance but okay
  - swores 3y ago
    They were kindly letting you know that a commonly held misconception you had is actually not true, not airing a grievance.
- pi-e-sigma 3y ago
  This wiki article doesn't prove anything, just cities two dudes who claim that the trains didn't run on time. Excellent 'refutation'. It's like citing one random dude saying that Stalin was a cool guy and basing your whole argument around it.
  - Wytwwww 3y ago
    Seems at least as credible as the people saying that all the trains were running on time?
    - pi-e-sigma 3y ago
      If you actually bothered to read the linked wiki article you would know that even that article actually claims that the trains service _improved_, just disputes who would be responsible for it.

jongjong 3y ago

Most of these problems are artificially created by governments via regulations and their support of corporations and their monopolies.

timeon 3y ago
You would have corporations and their monopolies even without regulations. Probably even more.

palemoonale 3y ago

> fixed global warming Sir, the correct term du jour is "climate emergency". "warming" is not to be used anymore since expected natural developments started to contradict the yearly proclamations made by Gore et al.

hooverd 3y ago
Huh? This is the hottest year so far.

heads 3y ago

Engineers in the 19th century would be amazed that we can build mechanisms with thousands of moving parts — functions, classes, packages — just by typing on a keyboard. Not only that but they also spin around in the order of millions to billions of times a second and every computer in the world can talk to any other computer. Most of these machines are the size of a bar of chocolate and a huge amount of the software is given away for free in an ecosystem of OSS, applications, and programming languages thriving on competition. I see your point about a lack of modern day gumption in the physical world but I sleep at night knowing that what we do with software more than makes up for it.

cm2187 3y ago
And also the only way they could embed logic into objects was through some very convoluted physical mechanism.
- globular-toast 3y ago
  Those physical mechanisms did have advantages, though. The signals on railways would physically interlock so you couldn't accidentally clear two trains to enter the same portion of track. Perhaps the electrical circuits on modern signalling systems have similar interlocks and it isn't all left up to software (at a minimum you wouldn't want to ever let the system go "all green", for example).
  - synecdoche 3y ago
    It is common for industrial safety relays to have mechanical interlocks internally. https://literature.rockwellautomation.com/idc/groups/literature/documents/td/700-td556_-en-p.pdf https://literature.rockwellautomation.com/idc/groups/literat...
  - kstrauser 3y ago
    That’s still the case. My mom was Wire Chief at a railroad, and when something broke, everything failed safely and ground movement to a halt until she could get the problem fixed. Failsafe systems are still common where safety or vast expense is at stake.

mytailorisrich 3y ago

This is somewhat still this way in China, as we can see in architecture and infrastructure projects that are often bold, ambitious, and which happen rather quickly once decided. In Europe, especially, it is very difficult nowadays for good and bad reasons. Note, though, that this was for a temporary exhibition so being bold and forward-looking, with a level of showing off, what the whole point.

creer 3y ago
And all kinds of mayhem is being done in Paris these years, in the name of the next Olympic games. Also a show-off event as a pretext to accelerated large changes.
mytailorisrich 3y ago
"Was" the whole point, of course.

Wytwwww 3y ago

> unaffordable housing, universal healthcare etc. They had a chance to (both were huge problems at the time), they decided to spend massive amounts of resources killing each other instead.. 1940s and 50s people on the other hand had a fairly decent run at it.