[HN Gopher] Progress, Stagnation, and Flying Cars
___________________________________________________________________
Progress, Stagnation, and Flying Cars
Author : jseliger
Score : 36 points
Date : 2020-11-12 19:29 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (rootsofprogress.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (rootsofprogress.org)
| tuatoru wrote:
| > Hall's degrees are in computer science, but much of his career
| has been in nanotech,
|
| So why is he opining on structural and mechanical engineering in
| the large?
|
| Serious red flag straight away.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Keep in mind that any synoptic treatment _must_ exceed any one
| person 's expertise. As such, the criticism "but you're
| exceeding your specialisation" is simply stating the obvious,
| and becomes a universal, if rather unsatisfying, objection.
|
| Noting that the author's _treatment_ fails to take into account
| multiple factors would be more compelling. I see several such
| opportunities.
| tuatoru wrote:
| On investigation I see he also opines at length on economics
| and politics, also outside his expertise.
|
| My own equally-qualified opinion is that we don't have flying
| cars primarily because we don't want them very much.
|
| As people richer they spend an increasing share of their income
| on services (e.g. eating takeout instead of making our own
| food), on intangible positional goods, such as living in
| sought-after neighbourhoods (sometimes in worse material
| circumstances) and wearing fashionable clothes (which are often
| poorer quality than no-name equivalents), and on seeking to
| control the behaviour of others (e.g. homeowner associations in
| the USA).
| njarboe wrote:
| My own equally-qualified opinion is related to a comment
| above on the great increase of lawyers and lawsuits.
| Basically anything that can kill a person that was not
| already invented by 1970 gets sued into oblivion. Medical
| devices are a bit of an exception and even they are very
| expensive due mainly to liability costs.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| The dynamic of opposition to innovation is covered in depth and
| across numerous fields and time in "Resistances to the Adoption
| of Technological Innovations", by Bernhard J. Stern (1937):
|
| https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/pag...
|
| Markdown: https://pastebin.com/raw/Bapu75is
|
| One of the research assistants assisting in literature searches
| applied concepts from the piece to his own writing. His name was
| Isaac Asimov.
|
| A key element is that much of the reward of market-property based
| systems comes _not_ from increased productive capacity but by
| asset inflation and cost externalisation.
|
| On other factors putting brakes on adoption of technology:
|
| 1. Negative externalities. Flying cars carry noise, safety, and
| complexity costs, many not borne by the owner, operator, user, or
| beneficiary.
|
| 2. Conflicting constraints. Ground and air craft have different
| requirements, and the compromises between them make for designs
| which are far from optimal to either task.
|
| 3. Transportation addresses the problem of movement through space
| ... which is one that can be addressed through other means:
| increased density, more sensible land use, telecommunications,
| improved delivery and logistics.
|
| 4. All innovations and technologies combine intended and
| unintended effects, apparent and covert consequences, and
| immediate and latent impacts. With time, unintended covert long-
| term impacts become more apparent, and are most often negative.
|
| 5. Complexity costs, a/k/a technical debt, are unintended,
| covert, latent, and negative.
|
| 6. With increased complexities, risks tend toward systemic,
| global, and catastrophic. Technological societies are complex.
|
| 7. Mature political systems tend away from executive power ---
| the capacity to get things done or make them happen --- and
| toward _veto power_ --- the capacity to _prevent_ progress. It 's
| interesting to note that widespread ground-transport expansion,
| most especially railroads, has most often occurred either in
| newly-industrialised nations, or those recently disrupted by
| major warfare. High-speed rail in particular emerged in postwar
| Japan France, and Germany, as well as industrialising China. It
| has lagged or failed utterly in the UK and US, where wealthy
| landowners can exert veto power. High land values are the natural
| enemy of transportation megaprojects.
|
| 8. Risk in technically-complex projects can be divided into
| technical and human-factors risks. As technical risks are more
| completely addressed, the residual risk is dominated by human
| factors, which are by definition not technically addressable.
| claydavisss wrote:
| Too much easy credit keeps zombie companies alive. Our world
| would be a much better place if we didn't place such a high value
| on keeping a dinosaur corporation solvent.
|
| The stagnation will get worse. The insane amount of capital
| accumulated by market leaders means they cannot be challenged. It
| probably isn't even possible for Intel to go away - they have too
| much cash. You're stuck with them.
|
| Stimulus for impacted workers will make it worse - a lot of the
| money goes back to dinosaur corporations.
| sam_goody wrote:
| Amazing review.
|
| > the cost of the U.S. tort system consumes about two percent of
| GDP, on average. If we assume this mostly started around 1980
| when lawyers skyrocketed... without it our economy today would be
| twice the size it actually is... more than a million of the
| country's most talented and motivated people [are] filing briefs
| against each other... instead of inventing, developing, and
| manufacturing things which could have made life better.
|
| This is the best way to describe the patent system.
|
| I know a company that advertises help for people that have
| inventions. I spoke to them once, and they advised me to take a
| patent, bury it, and then sue the next guy who develops a similar
| item, as it is more lucrative and less risky than developing a
| product and then fighting whoever else has created a similar
| enough product that they can sue me.
|
| > One, the success of industrial civilization at meeting
| everyone's basic needs for food, clothing and shelter pushed
| people up Maslow's Hierarchy to seek self-actualization, which
| they did in the form of social activism.
|
| Take a look at the "Rats of NIMH"[1]. At some point when a
| society becomes well to do enough, it is set up for a significant
| percentage to identify themselves by identifying and destroying
| what they immaturely assume to be wrong in others without
| understanding the advantages of mutual understanding.
|
| (slightly off topic, but IMO "woke", "cancel culture" and "white
| supremacy" all fall in that category. There are definitely things
| that should fought against, but democracy is designed to have
| mature ways of fighting about ideas instead of just being
| vigilante.)
|
| https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-doomed-mouse-utopi...
| jpm_sd wrote:
| > True nanotech, he says, was killed by federal funding.
|
| Uh, no. Drexler nanotech was "killed" by being a completely
| impractical fantasy. "True" nanotech is chemistry and biology,
| fields that are both doing just fine, thanks.
| petermcneeley wrote:
| If you read the original "plenty of room at the bottom" feynman
| specifically argues against chemistry.
|
| http://www.nanoparticles.org/pdf/Feynman.pdf
| jpm_sd wrote:
| That essay is 60 years old. A lot of these ideas have been
| developed further and thoroughly tested. We now have
| extremely ridiculously high resolution lithography, using
| electron beams and ultraviolet light. We have atomic force
| microscopes, which we can use to shove around individual
| atoms to spell out IBM and other such nonsense.
|
| But atoms ain't Lego bricks, and you can't turn cute 3D
| animations [1] into real mechanisms by wishful thinking.
|
| [1]
| https://chem.beloit.edu/classes/nanotech/nanorex/index.html
| petermcneeley wrote:
| Right but in this area the actual physics hasnt changed
| much if at all in 60 years.
|
| As for the reference animations I am not sure if they
| actually correspond to real physics even if you could
| arrange the molecules in such a fashion.
|
| Of course biology does such things but the scale here is a
| different. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYt5135_0bs
|
| I think if you wanted to do what Feynman wanted you would
| need extremely accurate simulations that would include your
| mechanism for construction.
|
| I ran into these issues when doing electrochemical
| deposition for copper microstructures. The effect had an
| interaction with the double layer that drove the
| deposition. This basically meant that the mechanism for
| construction was very fickle.
| cs702 wrote:
| The OP is supposed to be merely a review of a book that describes
| and wonders about the causes of technological stagnation in
| recent decades.
|
| But I found the OP to be more than "just a review:" It's a
| thought-provoking narrative that stands on its own.
|
| Rather than summarize its key points here, or voice any
| agreements or disagreements I may have with it, I will instead
| recommend you read it in its entirety before passing judgment.
|
| I ordered a copy of the book after reading it.
| philipkglass wrote:
| The review doesn't spend much time on the flying car question
| specifically. Most of it is devoted to saying that energy should
| be cheaper and that we should use more of it.
|
| Let's imagine that the higher specific energy consumption and
| correspondingly higher fuel cost of flying cars is not a problem.
| For example, American households in the top income decile could
| quadruple their consumption of gasoline and it wouldn't be a
| financial hardship.
|
| So why don't high income Americans have flying cars? Why are
| $100k+ cars from luxury brands still stubbornly earthbound?
|
| _Hall quotes a post on a message board suggesting that even if
| you had built a flying car and were ready to take to the air,
| you'd be shot down by the FAA, the mayor, the news media, the
| insurance company, and your neighbors._
|
| I can easily imagine some objections from the FAA, insurance
| company, and neighbors. There's nary a word here attempting to
| rebut them. Nor to explain how cheaper energy would solve any of
| these problems.
|
| It's nice to imagine that cheap energy would enable the dreams of
| science fiction authors circa 1970. In a few cases it would even
| be true. But probably not in most cases. There are already a few
| petro-states that have very cheap energy for all citizens. They
| don't have flying cars either.
| jpm_sd wrote:
| Indeed. Wave your magic wand and replace every car in America
| with a helicopter, every garage with a helipad, and while
| you're at it, throw in free fuel. Why not?
|
| What results? Most likely, huge increases in accidents and
| fatalities.
|
| https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/06/are-helicopters-...
| mjevans wrote:
| Indeed. Though for a more luxurious experience (for everyone)
| imagine that all roadways were subways and vehicles were
| electric instead of combustion powered. Additionally they
| could all be on rails and fully self driving in a pedestrian
| and accident free environment. That's where I'd like to spend
| all that energy.
| Animats wrote:
| Level 5. Hmm.
|
| We should be able to get a view of Level 5 by looking at, well,
| lifestyles of the rich and famous. When you get the helicopter,
| the private jet, and a house big enough to have a helipad, you're
| there on high energy consumption transportation. Still can't get
| to the office that way, though.
|
| Flying cars, of the big electric quadrotor variety, are in test.
| Battery energy density is still too low, but they do work.
|
| There's plenty of room for progress on the bio side. It's
| interesting that it's not widely accepted that aging is a
| disease. It may be possible to re-engineer humans so that they
| just go on with the resiliency of twentysomethings until accident
| gets them.
|
| We're seeing a resurgence of nuclear power, in China.
|
| Perhaps we're just seeing the stagnation of the US. The same
| thing happened to Japan, but it started about a decade earlier.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-11-12 23:02 UTC)