Quantum was popular as “oh god, our cryptography will die, what are we going to do”. Now post-quantum cryptography exists and it doesn’t seem to be clear what else quantum computers are useful for, other than PR.
Blockchain was popular when the supply of cryptocurrencies was kinda small, now there’s too many of them. And also its actually useful applications require having offline power to make decisions. Go on, tell politicians in any country that you want electoral system exposed and blockchain-based to avoid falsifications. LOL. They are not stupid. If you have a safe electoral system, you can do with much more direct democracy. Except blockchain seems a bit of an overkill for it.
3D printing is still kinda cool, except it’s just one tool among others. It’s widely used to prototype combat drones and their ammunition. The future is here, you just don’t see it.
Cloud - well, bandwidths allowed for it and it’s good for companies, so they advertised it. Except even in the richest countries Internet connectivity is not a given, and at some point wow-effect is defeated by convenience. It’s just less convenient to use cloud stuff, except for things which don’t make sense without cloud stuff. Like temporary collaboration on a shared document.
“AI” - they’ve ran out of stupid things to do with computers, so they are now promising the ultimate stupid thing. They don’t want smart things, smart things are smart because they change the world, killing monopolies and oligopolies along the way.
#1 is like tactical nuke tech available for all civilians, #2 would make sense if all the production line and consumers are in space too, #3 would make sense as part of the same.
Earth gravity well is a bitch. We live in it. Sending stuff up is expensive, sending stuff down is stupid when it’s needed up there, but without some critical complete piece of civilization to send up at once, you’ll have to send stuff up all the time.
It’s too expensive and the profits are transcendent, as in “ideological achievement and because we can”. Also they may eventually start sending nukes down.
Thus it all makes sense only when we can build and equip an autonomous colony to send at once. Self-reliant with the condition that they will get needed materials from wherever they are sent.
I suggest something with gravity though. Europa or Ganymede or Enceladus. Something like that.
Yes? Not the principles behind them, but our understanding of them as a species.
You’re a boring doomer who thinks humans will never find, create, or invent something we’ve never done before? Seriously? What kind of boring hill is that to die on?
I disagree. It just won’t be fancy. It has to be an enormous project with existential risks. And you have to really send many people at once with no return ticket. “At once” is important, you can’t ramp it up, that’s far more expensive. It has to be a mission very deeply planned in detail with plenty of failsafe paths, aimed at building a colony that can be maintained with Earth’s teaching resources, technologies and expertise, and locally produced and processed materials for everything. So - something like that won’t happen anytime soon, but at some point it will happen.
The technologies necessary have to be perfected first, computing should stop being the main tool for hype, and the societies should adapt culturally for computing and worldwide connectivity.
These take centuries. In those centuries we’ll be busy with plenty of things existential, like avoiding the planet turning into one big 70s Cambodia.
Quantum was popular as “oh god, our cryptography will die, what are we going to do”. Now post-quantum cryptography exists and it doesn’t seem to be clear what else quantum computers are useful for, other than PR.
Blockchain was popular when the supply of cryptocurrencies was kinda small, now there’s too many of them. And also its actually useful applications require having offline power to make decisions. Go on, tell politicians in any country that you want electoral system exposed and blockchain-based to avoid falsifications. LOL. They are not stupid. If you have a safe electoral system, you can do with much more direct democracy. Except blockchain seems a bit of an overkill for it.
3D printing is still kinda cool, except it’s just one tool among others. It’s widely used to prototype combat drones and their ammunition. The future is here, you just don’t see it.
Cloud - well, bandwidths allowed for it and it’s good for companies, so they advertised it. Except even in the richest countries Internet connectivity is not a given, and at some point wow-effect is defeated by convenience. It’s just less convenient to use cloud stuff, except for things which don’t make sense without cloud stuff. Like temporary collaboration on a shared document.
“AI” - they’ve ran out of stupid things to do with computers, so they are now promising the ultimate stupid thing. They don’t want smart things, smart things are smart because they change the world, killing monopolies and oligopolies along the way.
Well that’s a lot of words that I wasted time reading.
Too bad
No room-temperature superconductor fusion reactors, space-based solar, or private space mining? Luddite.
#1 is like tactical nuke tech available for all civilians, #2 would make sense if all the production line and consumers are in space too, #3 would make sense as part of the same.
Earth gravity well is a bitch. We live in it. Sending stuff up is expensive, sending stuff down is stupid when it’s needed up there, but without some critical complete piece of civilization to send up at once, you’ll have to send stuff up all the time.
It’s too expensive and the profits are transcendent, as in “ideological achievement and because we can”. Also they may eventually start sending nukes down.
Thus it all makes sense only when we can build and equip an autonomous colony to send at once. Self-reliant with the condition that they will get needed materials from wherever they are sent.
I suggest something with gravity though. Europa or Ganymede or Enceladus. Something like that.
Are you a Space Nutter?
It’s not going to happen. No one is going to move to space or send nukes down or mine asteroids.
Ever.
Are you a round earth nutter?
It’s not going to happen. No one is going to get past the edge of the world or sail the whole world or find new land.
Ever.
If you don’t see how that’s a completely dumb comparison, this is hopeless. I’m reality-based, you are not.
Sure, friend. You can see reality thousands of years into the future and know exactly what happens.
My bad.
Do you think physics and chemistry have changed in some significant way over the last thousand years?
Yet somehow, YOU can see reality in a thousand years, and it matches the sci-fi mindrot you watched as a kid…
Yes? Not the principles behind them, but our understanding of them as a species.
You’re a boring doomer who thinks humans will never find, create, or invent something we’ve never done before? Seriously? What kind of boring hill is that to die on?
In practice my comment means that it’s far too early to think of space colonization.
Far too late as well. It will never happen.
I disagree. It just won’t be fancy. It has to be an enormous project with existential risks. And you have to really send many people at once with no return ticket. “At once” is important, you can’t ramp it up, that’s far more expensive. It has to be a mission very deeply planned in detail with plenty of failsafe paths, aimed at building a colony that can be maintained with Earth’s teaching resources, technologies and expertise, and locally produced and processed materials for everything. So - something like that won’t happen anytime soon, but at some point it will happen.
The technologies necessary have to be perfected first, computing should stop being the main tool for hype, and the societies should adapt culturally for computing and worldwide connectivity.
These take centuries. In those centuries we’ll be busy with plenty of things existential, like avoiding the planet turning into one big 70s Cambodia.
Um, OK.
Quantum computing has incredible value as a scientific tool, what are you talking about.
OK, sorry.