In my teens, the year 2000 was unreal. It embodied THE FUTURE - it was so far away.
Edit: centuries even.
They didn’t expect bigotry to basically hold us hostage for 100+ years.
Radiant indeed, but then Chernobyl happened and we got a lot more cautious about nuclear power. Also about trusting other countries. Well, we didn’t trust them before but that coverup didn’t help.
Three Mile Island was a near melt down years before Chernobyl.
And it’s a shame that we became scared of one of the greatest technologies we ever created.
Nuclear accidents have killed using the most extreme number 45,000 people. Directly meltdowns have killed less than 100. The middle ground estimates average out around 5,000, but let’s give the most extreme number possible for the sake of the argument. These numbers are including projected cancer rates.
Cars annually kill 1.19 million people in comparison.
Even if you were to add nuclear weapon usage to the numbers you’d still barely be close to these numbers. Plus every time there’s been an nuclear accident new technologies and safe guards are deployed. 40,000 of that estimated/projected death toll is from Chernobyl.
Nuclear energy was subsidized to make atom bombs seem less threatening.
If we’d spent as much on renewables and improving the power grid we’d have been off the fossil fuel addiction years ago.
Nuclear energy is both sustainable and safe. It was given a bad reputation by the fossil fuel industry to keep us buying oil.
Well here we are. We could have eliminated the vast majority of fossil fuel use by the 1960s when solar and wind energy were in their infancy.
The exact same people run both the fossil fuel industry and nuclear power.
They ‘compete’ the same way professional wrestlers do.
Technology had been advancing at a breakneck pace for over a century. It’s not crazy for them to think that would keep happening.
Isn’t it though? Each age has had its technological advance that defines that age. But at no time did the next age come immediately. It was always reasonable to assume that after electricity there would be yet another lull before the next paradigm shifting innovation. It seems to me that the great lie of capitalism has been convincing people that every new product is that next great innovation.
Steam power gave way almost immediately to electricity, which gave way to nuclear technologies, which gave way to information technology, all building on what came before.
And then there’s all the various transportation technologies that happened at the same time. Going from the first flight to the Moon in under 70 years it’s no wonder, to me at least, that people thought we’d be on Mars by now.
Especially with Walt Disney putting a Nazi rocket scientist on TV a bunch of times.
… all building on what came before.
That was my point though. Metallurgy gave way to cannons and guns but we don’t have a “cannons and guns” age. Everything is iterative but occasionally we have something come along that changes everything and starts the iterations anew. But that has never continued after, just been followed by more iteration.
Also, it took over 1000 years to get from the first steam experiments to a useful engine.
I mean, we do have a cannons and guns age.
I agree that it’s been iteration, but the pace of iterations seems to be slowing down. Since the Internet was invented there hasn’t been a game-changing technology created.
Lots of things that claim to be it - Bitcoin, metaverse, now AI - but nothing like what we saw in the 19th and 20th centuries.
And I think that’s because huge population growth and a relatively unknown world led to huge advances very quickly. Now to make similar advances you can’t be a polymath like Newton or Tesla. You need huge investments.
Case in point: Physics. A lot of the fundamental physics from the 19th and 20th centuries can be re-created with simple materials and a little expertise. People can replicate the double slit experiment with a $2 laser pointer and a piece of foil.
But to make new advances in physics you need particle accelerators and supercomputers, and many highly educated people working together.
I’m not sure if we are talking past each other this point or what, but take the Internet since you mentioned it;
Let’s compare to transistors for instance. You could have (and did have) the internet without transistors and you could have transistors without the internet. Nobody would argue that either are not massively impactful inventions but neither would exist without electricity. Electricity is the paradigm shifting breakthrough. In the same way neither cannons nor guns were the breakthrough themselves.
…but the pace of iterations seems to be slowing down.
I thought that was the whole conversation we were having. My main point was not only that innovation is slowing down but that we should expect it to slow based on the trajectory of previous paradigm shifting breakthroughs.
I think we are, but by your logic the real breakthrough was fire, because without that we wouldn’t have electricity.
I wouldn’t go quite that far but yeah, in my view there have only been a handful of main paradigm shifting changes; Language, fire, tools, husbandry, agriculture, metallurgy, electricity.
The primary separation between humans and pretty much everything else on earth is the passing of knowledge from generation to generation so if I had to pick the innovation I would probably pick language.
I don’t think that’s a fair comparison to modern day.
People were experimenting with steam engines for 1,000 years sure, but this wasn’t 1,000 years of dedicated research.
It was more like someone discovered the principle, then someone re-discovered the same principle 200 years later in a different, and repeat. Every time interest was lost. It wasn’t until much later that people started to build off of each other and actually pursue technology.
The industrial and technological revolutions were a cause of radical change in human civilization. It was inspiring to think we would continue to grow instead of monetizing every last vestige of this world and our psyches?!
Pretty much, I struggle to see any real human achievement in my lifetime. Sure we invented phones and computers are faster than ever before. We haven’t really done anything worthwhile. No real improvements in the human condition.
We have fun content, but our planet is going to cook
But their computers are still the size of a room and everyone smokes
When you saw how they managed to put a person on the moon with room sized computers and about 145K lines of code, yeah I can see how they think it’d be possible.
Don’t forget the reels of tape lmao
Our phones are just screens wirelessly attached to computers the size of buildings now. If Altman and Nvidia get their way data centers be the size of sport stadiums by next year.
Hey, my phone can do a lot just being the size of a phone. Running games, reading, voice synthesis and recognition, image and text generation, etc
You jest! Asimov’s computers are the size of planets.
The ones that aren’t people, at least.
Everyone still smokes. Our computers are the size of an apartment block; they make you not xall customer service and have wild new mental illness instead.
Well, we have lots of building-sized computers out there right now.
For tasks your phone and 50 MB/s would be totally sufficient for.
Their computers have AGI already. Our computers consume more energy than entire countries to make studio Ghibli fakes and autocomplete on steroids.
“The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress” is one of the best self-aware computer novels.
I love that in the novel the computer has already become self aware before it attempts something really difficult - creating a CGI face for itself
I watched the first Moon Landing on our neighbors’ TV. I was so disappointed because I’d been reading my Dad’s and big brother’s Asimov Magazines since I was six, and I couldn’t believe our real technology was so primitive.
Looks like they’re exploring the Pyrenees.
One of my favourites.
What’s this from?
A trip to the moon. 1902
“Journey to the Moon”, I believe - a silent movie from the 20s (?).
It’s the 20s right now. Need the 19-
Oh snap, yes indeed.
And the heroes were scientists
In ‘Starship Troopers’ the narrator is amazed that the military has musical instruments that sound like the real thing, but can fit in your pocket. One major plot point hinges on the hero getting a hand written letter delivered by a FTL craft.
Old sci-fi be like
We’ve discovered a technology that explores the fundamental truths of human nature, gaze into the black mirror and reflect upon your modern folly.
…Also all the scientists are straight white men and we invented new ways for our women to cook dinner.
To be fair; the less commercial stuff was better at that.
The people writing science fiction were trying to make a living.
They wrote for magazines and TV shows that depended on advertising. A bunch of midcentury advertisers weren’t going to have a Black wom,an President.
Another thing to consider is how much change you can put into a story and still expect the average reader to keep up.
There was an article about an early Star Trek episode. One scene involved a couple of lines about a salt shaker. The production team went out and brought a bunch of wild looking salt shakers. [1960’s, remember?] None of the ‘futuristic’ looking salt shakers was any good for the scene, because they realized the TV audience wouldn’t understand what that funny looking thing was. In the end they used an ordinary looking shaker.
A bunch of midcentury advertisers weren’t going to have a Black wom,an President.
And neither did 21st century American voters.
Ba-dum tssssss
And then they repurposed the weird-looking salt shakers as medical instruments.
Read the same book…
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_World_of_Star_Trek
My favorite story is the one where a company that made automatic doors sent a letter asking how they got their door to move so smoothly…
Naomi Klein wrote about how older sci fi was so optimistic and how she thinks the current trend of depressing dystopian sci fi is bad for society, which was an interesting take I thought.
I think she’s right. There is certainly a space in fiction for depressing dystopias, but personally, I think that it is also important to make space for hopeful stories about the future. Else it’s just too dark. Our news are depressing, our lives are depressing. Our fiction is depressing. If there isn’t much positive stuff to look forward to, then what’s the point? In the 1930s, 40s and 50s where war and crisis and recovery was on the menu, fiction tended to be more comforting and hopeful.
That’s why Disney’s Snow White was such a massive success in 1937. It gave people a break from their lives and allowed them to dream themselves away to a different world where everything was a bit simpler, where the downtrodden, yet hardworking and kind herione is rewarded for her efforts in the end. Many people may nor have had that happy ending themselves, but it must have given them some hope to watch a film about someone just like them who managed to pull through in the end and have her worth validated.
I agree.
you can see it in stories as simple as Star trek.
the after TNG it was about world building and character development.
then the reboot movie happened and it was about booms, zooms, and dooms after that.
the only thing that was remotely similar was season 2 of Picard. I haven’t watched 3 yet so IDK about it.
discovery is(and I mean this in the most platonic way), common TV garbage. I get the same feeling from it as I get from any other modern “syfy” show.
What about SNW?
The vibe I’m getting is “we’re eager and optimistic, but also, things get bad, the larger landscape is kinda bad and we are trying to hold straight faces?”
It feels very 2020s.
I haven’t seen SNW, from what I’ve seen(clips/reviews) it’s probably the most spirited successor to fit todays viewers.
Herzog said ‘we are running out if images’ and that shit’s real.
Both are saying the fire of our imaginations is dead, and strongly implying that we have forgotten how to even hope.
And, like… We have. We have forgotten how to imagine better, to want better, to build a tomorrow, because tomorrow is on the far side on this raging river of blood that is rapidly flooding, and the time we could have built a bridge is so very long past.
And proposing we switch the terror from white to red for five seconds is a thing you’re not allowed to say.
Now recontextualize this using modern sci-fi that looks toward multiple centuries from now. Star Trek’s egalitarian socialist utopia would never come to pass and the most likely future is that of Frank Herbert’s Dune, where nearly 8,000 years from now we have a galactic feudal society where the ultra wealthy fight for control over limited resources while using religion to manipulate the poor into being their cannon fodder.
Foundation is also a sort of techno feudal society.
There were significant lows before the highs of the 23rd and 24th centuries of Star Trek. Incidentally the dark parts happen right around where we are now.
Humanity is exploring the deep corners of the universe to discover more resources to exploit.
