3 ms·

Another recent thread on this same topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8337460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8337460 Have to say I can't agree w

by api 12y ago

Another recent thread on this same topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8337460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8337460 Have to say I can't agree with him more on this specific point. Other than IT and a few other things, technology has stalled since 1970. Every counterexample I've heard is actually an application of IT to enhance some other thing (e.g. self-driving cars). The car itself hasn't changed in any fundamental way since 1950 (unless it's electric).

myusernameranou 12y ago
How about the heavy advancement of car safety, the improved capacity for producing materials that cars use, cars being faster, and cars being cheaper? With most technologies and processes, first you create something and then you improve it and optimize it, each further improvement of the same size has a higher marginal cost. Cars have come a very long way, you wouldn't expect a car to change more in one decade than it did in the previous decade. If you are looking for a really revolutionary fundamental change, then it probably wouldn't be a car anymore, maybe it would be a plane.
- 001sky 12y ago
  "Cars" are constrained massively by a couple things that in fact have not really progressed much since 1970. EG, they are constrained to roads and the interstate was a far more revolutionary change than the catalytic converter, direct injection, or DOHC or whatever. You're basically arguing that fuel efficiency is greater, but fuel scarcity is another topic altogether. It remains the case that petrol is still the fuel of choice--not electric or some other source--becuase of its inherent efficency in terms of energy per unit of mass. So, betweeen the fuel constraint ant the roadway constraint, cars are a fractional better than they were a generation ago...but not a categorical or even significant leap by any stretch. If you read some history of LA and compare the changes from 1920 to 1940 you would have seen a radical shift in the impact of the automobile. Heck, even the impact of the container ship alone is far more interesting at a macro/absolute level. Car safety and fuel efficiency are simply very minor improvements on a fundamentally unchanged basic engineering platform: the two ton, four-wheel ICM constrained to a limited right of way, and a very similar feasible safe-speed constraint. Note, that one better argument here is these are as much legal/social as technological constrainst placed upon the automobile. Many people in the younger genreations would rather see the (at least the personal) automobile dis-associated with its role of primacy in western society. This is more or less feasible depending of course on technology and other elements improving the constraints on urban planning. The lack of the removal of these constrainsts (both technological and economic) is again also a sign that technology has/had plateaued in the area of civil engineering. It may have been improved, but in terms of radical improvement...not so much. Of course, shale gas and hydro-fracking may yet do more than keep the status quo in place...but fundamentally...not much has changed in Californial in the past 40-50 years in terms of day to day getting around.
slapshot 12y ago
> The car itself hasn't changed in any fundamental way since 1950 The form factor of cars haven't changed much since 1950. Everything else has. Seatbelts. Airbags. Hybrids. Automatic transmissions allow more people to drive, and are now faster/better than manual. We moved from carburetors to fuel injection to direct injection, dramatically increasing the ability to control combustion in each cylinder. We went from massive V8 and V12 engines (the entire 1950s Cadillac line produced about 300 horsepower from a 6 liter V8 -- a modern import sedan can produce almost the same on a 2 liter V4 e.g., the Hyundai 2.0 liter engine). Superchargers allowed greater performance, turbochargers unlocked greater efficiency. Radial tires were barely a thing in 1950, and advancements in tires have made cars dramatically safer. Catalytic converters and electronic emission controls returned LA's atmosphere to health. Etc. If there was any doubt, check out this chart: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/TIp8lXB5h2I/AAAAAAAAOW8/fmXi_SCP-jw/s1600/highway2.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/TIp8lXB5h2I/AAAAAAAAOW... Highway fatalities per mile traveled are about 80% lower than in 1950. The vast majority of that gain is from technology -- drivers sure haven't gotten any better over that period.
- api 12y ago
  That's improvement, yes, but it's incremental. I'm talking about the internal combustion engine -- the core design. This reminds me a lot of the micro/macro-evolution debate in biology. There are people who think macroevolution is just a lot of microevolution, and there are people who think macroevolution is sometimes something completely different -- that discontinuous leaps occur. I am of the latter camp there too. The Cambrian explosion was a sudden non-linear leap to give one example. Going from horse to car is not the same as going from Model T to Honda Civic.
  - krschultz 12y ago
    It's not incremental, you just don't understand the depth of the difference. You're effectively saying there is no difference between a telegraph and the internet. They both send data over an electrical wire, so it must be 'incremental progress'. If that's your definition of incremental, then you will probably never see something that you consider innovative in your lifetime.

by api 12y ago

myusernameranou 12y ago

How about the heavy advancement of car safety, the improved capacity for producing materials that cars use, cars being faster, and cars being cheaper? With most technologies and processes, first you create something and then you improve it and optimize it, each further improvement of the same size has a higher marginal cost. Cars have come a very long way, you wouldn't expect a car to change more in one decade than it did in the previous decade. If you are looking for a really revolutionary fundamental change, then it probably wouldn't be a car anymore, maybe it would be a plane.

001sky 12y ago
"Cars" are constrained massively by a couple things that in fact have not really progressed much since 1970. EG, they are constrained to roads and the interstate was a far more revolutionary change than the catalytic converter, direct injection, or DOHC or whatever. You're basically arguing that fuel efficiency is greater, but fuel scarcity is another topic altogether. It remains the case that petrol is still the fuel of choice--not electric or some other source--becuase of its inherent efficency in terms of energy per unit of mass. So, betweeen the fuel constraint ant the roadway constraint, cars are a fractional better than they were a generation ago...but not a categorical or even significant leap by any stretch. If you read some history of LA and compare the changes from 1920 to 1940 you would have seen a radical shift in the impact of the automobile. Heck, even the impact of the container ship alone is far more interesting at a macro/absolute level. Car safety and fuel efficiency are simply very minor improvements on a fundamentally unchanged basic engineering platform: the two ton, four-wheel ICM constrained to a limited right of way, and a very similar feasible safe-speed constraint. Note, that one better argument here is these are as much legal/social as technological constrainst placed upon the automobile. Many people in the younger genreations would rather see the (at least the personal) automobile dis-associated with its role of primacy in western society. This is more or less feasible depending of course on technology and other elements improving the constraints on urban planning. The lack of the removal of these constrainsts (both technological and economic) is again also a sign that technology has/had plateaued in the area of civil engineering. It may have been improved, but in terms of radical improvement...not so much. Of course, shale gas and hydro-fracking may yet do more than keep the status quo in place...but fundamentally...not much has changed in Californial in the past 40-50 years in terms of day to day getting around.

slapshot 12y ago

> The car itself hasn't changed in any fundamental way since 1950 The form factor of cars haven't changed much since 1950. Everything else has. Seatbelts. Airbags. Hybrids. Automatic transmissions allow more people to drive, and are now faster/better than manual. We moved from carburetors to fuel injection to direct injection, dramatically increasing the ability to control combustion in each cylinder. We went from massive V8 and V12 engines (the entire 1950s Cadillac line produced about 300 horsepower from a 6 liter V8 -- a modern import sedan can produce almost the same on a 2 liter V4 e.g., the Hyundai 2.0 liter engine). Superchargers allowed greater performance, turbochargers unlocked greater efficiency. Radial tires were barely a thing in 1950, and advancements in tires have made cars dramatically safer. Catalytic converters and electronic emission controls returned LA's atmosphere to health. Etc. If there was any doubt, check out this chart: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/TIp8lXB5h2I/AAAAAAAAOW8/fmXi_SCP-jw/s1600/highway2.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/TIp8lXB5h2I/AAAAAAAAOW... Highway fatalities per mile traveled are about 80% lower than in 1950. The vast majority of that gain is from technology -- drivers sure haven't gotten any better over that period.

api 12y ago
That's improvement, yes, but it's incremental. I'm talking about the internal combustion engine -- the core design. This reminds me a lot of the micro/macro-evolution debate in biology. There are people who think macroevolution is just a lot of microevolution, and there are people who think macroevolution is sometimes something completely different -- that discontinuous leaps occur. I am of the latter camp there too. The Cambrian explosion was a sudden non-linear leap to give one example. Going from horse to car is not the same as going from Model T to Honda Civic.
- krschultz 12y ago
  It's not incremental, you just don't understand the depth of the difference. You're effectively saying there is no difference between a telegraph and the internet. They both send data over an electrical wire, so it must be 'incremental progress'. If that's your definition of incremental, then you will probably never see something that you consider innovative in your lifetime.