In a message dated 5/13/2001 5:09:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
mail@HarveyNewstrom.com writes:
<< I'm afraid this is how I see most of our predictions. After watching the
moon landings, I regularly saw predictions of Moon bases by 1980, Mars bases
by 1990, flying cars in the year 2000. AI such as HAL was predicted to be
this year, as well as a manned mission to Jupiter. I really thought I would
live to visit other planets, but now that hope seems unlikely unless a major
breakthrough in life-extension allows me to go farther into the future. >>
Visiting other planets ought to depend on propulsions and life-support
technology alone and have nothing to do with life-extention; baring travel
out past Jupiter.
<<Predications such as these are routinely overoptimistic. Although
technology is advancing at a phenomenal rate, most people underestimate the
inertia of most human's desires that things remain the same. Our biggest
threat is not the inability of technology to progress, but the antagonism
most people feel toward technology. Most people actively oppose all this
neat stuff we are talking about.>>
Technology, aside from computer technology, is advancing, but not at a
phenomenal rate. The problem is not "people's inertia" it is every science
research institution, and business research center claiming "breakthrough's"
at every research development. This is their means to pimp for more research
money. But not every new discovery is useful, not every new experiment seems
to get us where we wish to go.
<<Look at what happened to the space program once people decided that we
didn't want a space race anymore. Expect the same apathy toward other
technologies. How fast can progress occur in a capitalist system if nobody
wants it?>>
It comes down to this. Companies and inventors and university research center
pimp their discoveries, their inventions, their research. Lets look at costs.
Why are Fuel Cells so expensive? Why is always 20 years till nuclear fusion,
why is it always 10 years till solar break through?
It either works or it doesn't, it's either marketable or its not. Its not the
public, its the researchers and the companies and institutions that suck, not
the public. Let them come, not with promises, but with working products that
people can afford. Give people choices, don't scrounge money, give us
products that are buyable.
Harvey, the problem lies not in the stars, or ourselves, but in the minds and
egos of technological researchers and the people that employ them.
Mitch
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