Where is my flying car? I don’t want a freaking drone with a seat. I want something that defies gravity without any visible external mechanism and makes little to no noise while moving.
Ah! I want the Jetsons high-pitched flying saucer sound!
I think the most sobering thought is that everything we are dealing with now will someday be reduced to a cliffnotes version that some bored teenagers are supposed to learn about in school to get a passing grade. In one ear, out the other.
That is literally the best outcome. The worse it gets the longer the chapter on this era gets, until eventually there is no textbook at all.
This hit me hard ten years ago.
I’ve always been fascinated by space, as a teenager I wanted to be an astrophysicist, in my early twenties I fully believed Thant humanity was going to explore the solar system and that it would start happening in my lifetime.
I was studying mechanical engineering and I did everything I could to work in aerospace: picked the right specialities, I got two master of mechanical engineering specialized in aerospace manufacturing (France and Czech Republic). I worked in the manufacturing of critical parts of Arian’s rocket engine and designed new manufacturing technique for future aircraft engine parts.
I was working towards one goal: being part of the people who will build the spacecraft that will explore the solar system, maybe even be in one.
Then in 2015 after few years working this hit me, I realized all that was never going to happen. Instead of witnessing the exploration of the solar system I am going witness the collapse of it thermo-industrial civilization.
We are running out of resources and energy to maintain the growth of it civilization, so we will witness a slow rise of fascism and extreme as countries start fighting for resources. My dream was to go in space in a few decades, now I realized that I’ll consider myself extremely lucky if I have enough for and water to survive in a few decades.
I lived through the late 80s and 90s in eastern europe… there were some optimistic historical moments there, i’d say a good 10-15 years. then it went (back to) to shit.
I never thought I’d be in the president sucked a dick and Russia has the pictures so now we’re owned by Russia timeline
Born to late to explore the world.
Born to early to explore the cosmos.
Born just in time to finance a pizza from Domino’s.
Born to late to explore the world.
Exploring the ocean is like trying to explore the desert, in the middle of the night, and you just know it’s going to be miles and miles of empty sand and you can only see about 4 ft in front of you at any one time.
Exploring the ocean is extremely difficult and to be honest not very rewarding 99% of the time.
It’s still way more than what you would get by exploring the cosmos.
I can look at into the stars with a pair of binoculars and see interesting things. The ocean is an impenetrable murky mess
Not true. Sometimes, there are the horrors.
Nope, it’s McNazis.
I am not lovin’ it.
I have never heard this term and immediately love it. Having worked at a McDonald’s for a long time, it’s the absolute perfect spot for them to meet.
It’s Trump’s favorite food, naturally.
This is because he’s never developed past an 8-year-old.
Nice double entendre.
It was the popularization of the Internet. McNazis, and every other niche group that coagulated in online spaces, are a side effect.
Every space age humanity setting starts after WW3. Deal with it.
What else is going to drive corps to build faster rockets? Without WW3, the profitable strategy is to keep building the same rockets, just cheaper & crappier.
Oh no, this WW3 we are going to get tockets developed with ‘AI’ controls, which inevitably run off course due to their vibe programmed co-ordinate control and are launched by AI threat detection models after falsely detecting a credible threat by a world leader spewing nonsense on social media and accidentally nuking every major city or food bowl on the planet.
Just think about the profits that weaponized ftl technology would bring!
Maybe because making they more capable makes them cheaper by an exponential rate?
It was supposed to be nuclear fusion. Cheap plentiful clean power.
turns out we already got nuclear fusion, we just have to learn to harness it effectively. :D
It was supposed to be renewable energy, and it almost was until the fascists slammed the brakes.
Cheaper, more plentiful, and cleaner. Plus it doesn’t take decades to increase capacity like nuclear does, and it won’t become less safe and efficient due to climate change like nuclear is already starting to.
I hope you know there is a difference between nuclear fission and nuclear fusion, because your comment doesn’t read like it.
Oops, misread as fission lol
They both are “just two decades away”. One exists but takes that long to build a plant. The other is still under development and might exist by then.
Although the race for fusion is getting more exciting every day. We may actually see it happen! And it feels like soon!
Don’t talk as if it was ever funded, that’s the whole point.
I always got a kick out of that graph and realistically it can apply to so many worthwhile projects we start but can’t commit to. For example: California High Speed Rail, or really any high speed rail In the US. Preventing climate change
My eye is immediately drawn to the “fusion: never” investment and how far we are below it.
But realistically for fusion whether that would have been true or not, we’ve made huge advancements in computation and modeling, lasers, materials, that just never could have happened on those timelines. Maybe the Tokamak would have worked but the stellarator or laser ignition never could have. While we still don’t have an answer, it might not be the tokamak
You are applying funding for research to funding for infrastructure? You either have no clue or are discussing in bad faith. Or both.
Best we can do is America 2.0 fascist boogaloo
The Chinese were right to say that “living in interesting times” was a curse…
I’m pretty sure that the origin of that curse was the Counterweight Continent, actually 😉
Space travel?
Best I can do is a remake of the lead-up to WW2 on top of a remake of WW1.That ancient chinese curse.
as the curse says, “may you live in interesting times”
Feel like this image is older than I’d be conformable with.
