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Our society isnt really structured to do things that require many years of research so were either making things incrementally better or just going after low ha
by stanleykm 3y ago
Our society isnt really structured to do things that require many years of research so were either making things incrementally better or just going after low hanging fruit. We need different incentives than profit.
- JKCalhoun 3y agoGood point. But it seems you have to go back to the Pharaohs to find a time when we (well, slaves anyway) did those things for reasons other than profit.
- stanleykm 3y agoSure, we’ve been doing things wrong for thousands of years. Doesnt mean we cant correct that.
- rsrsrs86 3y agoI don’t know what you are talking about. The world around is nothing but the fruit of research.
- stanleykm 3y agoOf course. I am looking at things like nuclear fusion that are perpetually underfunded. It would be an incredible technological advancement but it is an enormous undertaking that industry is largely unwilling to participate in because there are no short term profits to be had. So it falls on governments to pick up the slack but most of our energy as a society is in industry. Think about the old meme that the smartest people are focused on increasing ad click through rates. Imagine a world where they could instead be focused on something useful.
- nextlevelwizard 3y agoExcept things are not getting even incrementally better in the aggregate. Say there is a 5% improvement in hardware performance this year it will immediately vanish by shitty programmers writing shit code that can now be 5% sloppier. I can’t say there has been any new tech that has made me excited or changed my life. Best I can come up with is turning on/off my lights with my phone, but even that is old AF already