[HN Gopher] It's time to build: a New World's Fair ___________________________________________________________________ It's time to build: a New World's Fair Author : camwiese Score : 175 points Date : 2021-03-16 19:05 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.cameronwiese.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.cameronwiese.com) | harles wrote: | > Unfortunately, this all started to change after the U.S. put a | man on the moon. While this was certainly a "giant leap for | mankind," we lacked an understanding of what our next step would | be. | | Is there supporting evidence of these assertions? There are some | interesting ideas in here, but I'm not seeing anything to back | them up. | kaycebasques wrote: | The post starts to share a vision for a new fair. Are they | proposing that the new fair should actually contain all those | elements? Or is it just an example? How were the visions in the | previous (successful) fairs agreed upon? Did space go to the | highest bidders? Furthermore, was the space divvied up so that | NASA had a section (for example) and Ford had their own space? Or | was it all intermingled? | camwiese wrote: | Great question. We're planning to compile the most compelling | vision of the future that we can. We'll shape the content to | suit the technologies available, but also need to ensure we | paint a picture of where we _can_ go. | | Most Fairs struggle with this because the organizing body has | no control over the content of most of the Pavilions. By | privately organizing and operating it, the new World's Fair | will function more like Epcot where we craft the experience | pulling in corporations, countries, and ngo's as we see fit. | | Lastly, the Fairgrounds are generally split up into themes with | each of the companies/countries hosting their own Pavilion. The | map from the 1964 New York World's Fair is a pretty good | example of this: http://www.nywf64.com/maps01.shtml | markdown wrote: | If you hold it in the US, it could have only American companies | represented and still call it the World's Fair. Just like | Baseball. | drivingmenuts wrote: | A World's Fair now would be like The Olympics, a ridiculously | expensive, corruption-laden affair that would cost many countries | more than they could ever recoup, benefiting only a few rich 1st- | world countries and/or multi-national companies. While the | average person would see "marvels", they'd be the corporate- | approved, mass-market-acceptable marvels that were cleared | through legal before being shown to the public. | | You can see more innovation in an afternoon spent on blogs than | you would ever see in a 6-month long, static display of corporate | bullshit. | koolk3ychain wrote: | Yeah no, we should use this money to fund energy research. Trying | to woo idiots is a stupid game already won by youtube, online | advertising and TikTok. | devoutsalsa wrote: | I'm imagining a future where you can get idempotently vaccinated | w/ legit antibodies for any in person event you attend for near | instant immunity to illness. | unixhero wrote: | Was Walt Disney's EPCOT vision ever part of the world fair? | lswainemoore wrote: | Nitpicky/unsolicited UI feedback: | | I do a lot of double/triple clicking to highlight text as I read | online (fidgeting, but also helps keep track of where I am). On | your site, triple clicking unintentionally hits the twitter share | button, which opens a new, unwanted window. Bit annoying. | | Medium does something similar, but they offset the button so you | have to move cursor in between clicks to actually trigger the | button. | namrog84 wrote: | I do similar things constantly as well. It makes me not enjoy | maybe "modern" apps and web apps. That think text highlighting | is somehow a bad thing. | hnick wrote: | Sometimes I like to middle click and move my house instead of | using the wheel (nicer on my joints). Sometimes I like to | even just move it a little and have it auto-scroll as I read. | It's a fun game to try and match my pace and more engaging | that way. So many websites break these too. | camwiese wrote: | Thank you -- I pieced that feature together. Will tweak! | jackson1442 wrote: | Might I suggest having a spot in the margin devoted to that | button, placed either halfway down the paragraph or (if you | have a really really long P or selection) halfway down the | screen? | ksm1717 wrote: | I'm fascinated by that phenomenon. I don't even notice I'm | doing it most of the time, and I'm shocked by how many other | people do it. | | Specific, common, digital tics. Another one is control-s after | a single line changed. Something immensely satisfying about | selecting that perfect block of text and making that "altered | document" asterisk go away. | ghostpepper wrote: | There are a handful of sites I've encountered that do this and | I hate it. Feels like a violation when I can't select text the | way I normally do, for some reason. | git_configured wrote: | Was very surprised to not see any mention of Expo2020, which has | been hailed as a "World's Fair for the 21st Century". UAE and | Dubai put tons of resources and capital into it but obviously had | to deal with the issue of in person events in 2020. As I | understand it has been rescheduled for the end of 2021... | | https://expo2020dubai.ae/en/ | camwiese wrote: | Expo 2020 is shaping up to be an incredible project, however | I'm still expecting it to fall victim to the same challenge | that all Fairs since 1970 have had: a lack of a unifying | vision. Since every country presents their own narrative, it's | hard to guarantee alignment. | | I'm heading out there next month and will hopefully find | something inspiring to help shape our efforts. | whatshisface wrote: | I'm not sure how you could have a unifying vision for | something as broad and diverse as "the future," or "the good | parts of the future," without projecting it down into a | simplistic, synthesized work of very fictional storytelling | where all resemblance to reality (and consequently all | authority) has been sacrificed in favor of comprehensibility | and persuasiveness. | | In other words, the clearest route to getting people excited | about a World Fair involves sacrificing the reason you'd want | people excited about a World Fair. | cmrdporcupine wrote: | Have you ever seen the photos from Expo 1937 in Paris? Or | read about it? | | The organizers put the USSR and Nazi Germany directly | across from each other... talk about "unifying vision" ... | | https://www.messynessychic.com/2016/09/21/when-paris- | invited... | camwiese wrote: | To clarify. There's no unifying vision because most of the | Pavilions are developed by large government committees | where everyone wants to show off a little bit of | everything. As a result, their Pavilions end up being a | watered down version of their vision for the future. | whatshisface wrote: | For better or worse, the future itself is to a large | extent developed by large government committees - or at | least the funding allocation for the cutting-edge | research projects that show up at World Fairs are. | mortenjorck wrote: | _> Today, World 's Fairs have been rebranded as "International | Expositions" that occur every 5 years, and are a hollow shell | of their former glory. They no longer showcase the promise of | the future or celebrate achievement. Instead, they serve as | national branding exercises, infrastructure development | projects masquerading as innovation, architecture competitions, | and an opportunity to promote tourism._ | | I don't know enough about Expo2020 to agree or disagree, but I | assumed the author's assessment above was in reference to the | series of which the Dubai exhibition is a part. | caslon wrote: | I really don't think Expo2020 counts. Rooting the future in the | UAE seems like a losing battle, and it seems like the amount of | entities that would choose _not_ to participate would outweigh | those that would. | diebeforei485 wrote: | I'm not sure this has any basis in reality, every single | country has committed to participating. | caslon wrote: | Countries are made up of _people and companies._ There are | _definitely_ people and companies that otherwise would | attend were it not at a country with massive human rights | issues (like, say, making homosexuality illegal). | mpalmer wrote: | Is there a place on Earth where that wouldn't be the case? | w-j-w wrote: | Given the inventions the author wanted to showcase, the | United States seems like the obvious place. While US global | dominance has been challenged, it is still very much home | to a lot of innovation. My biggest fear is that the fair | could wind up being killed by a political squabble about | globalism. | lambda_obrien wrote: | The internet? Make it a virtual event, so everyone can | attend. | camwiese wrote: | We fundamentally believe in the prosperity of our | physical world. The fair itself will be physical, but | will have a virtual component so that anyone with a smart | phone or, even better, a VR headset, can participate. | alexchamberlain wrote: | Switzerland? The Nordic countries? Even the UK hasn't | annoyed most countries to the point we wouldn't welcome | guests for something like this. | | It's basically the equivalent of the Olympics of the | business and science world; of you are granted the honour | of hosting, you go out of your way to extend an olive | branch. | adfm wrote: | Beyond Expo2020, you can find information on the upcoming | Expo2025 in Osaka on the Bureau International des Expositions | website[1]. | | [1]: https://www.bie-paris.org/ | Johnny555 wrote: | From the article: | | _...wait eagerly for Jessica Watkins to take the first step on | Mars_ | | There's an unfortunate name collision, I didn't know who Jessica | Watkins was so Googled her, and the top results are for a Jessica | Watkins who participated in the attack on the USA Capitol... I | spent a moment pondering what her link to Mars was.. but farther | down the results list is NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins. | | It's a shame that the astronaut has her search results cluttered | by the insurrectionist. Back when I was doing online dating, I | shared a name (and similar age and nearby city) with the brother | of a recently convicted serial killer, searching for my name | brought up articles about him... I warned potential dates that if | they looked me up online, I'm not _that_ guy (which, I suppose, | is exactly what the brother of a serial killer would say). | DoctorBonkus wrote: | Yes, a bit unfortunant, and I did the same thing. Being a non- | american I thought she was a congresswoman as well. But it's | such a minor detail and in the end no less, that it shouldn't | detere from the main point of the article | darig wrote: | The first result for DDG is the oath keepers article too, but | they feature the astronaut's wikipedia page covering the full | right column, including her picture. | | I can't compare with Google results because I don't appreciate | being spied on. | dgellow wrote: | > Now, flicking your wearable token with impatient fingers, you | feel a slight force as your Hyperloop pod comes to a stop. | | You lost me at "Hyperloop". How is that a vision of the future | when we know for a fact that the idea doesn't make practical | sense? | temp0826 wrote: | It's the monorail _of the future!_ | saalweachter wrote: | To be fair, most "visions of the future" are filled with | impractical ideas. | Scene_Cast2 wrote: | The US already has established air travel. And mass transit via | trains is not a technological problem, it is a political and a | marketing problem. Hyperloop has the potential to solve the | political and marketing problems. | dgellow wrote: | Hyperloop may solve political and marketing problems, but | doesn't solve the "cheap, safe, and fast transport problem" | in any ways. That's a completely impractical concept. | bluescrn wrote: | Until the first 'hypercrash' | jcranmer wrote: | Hyperloop struggles mightily with the "mass" part of "mass | transit." Its theoretical capacity is easily [?]th of an | equivalent rail line, and even then you're making some heroic | assumptions about how frequently the "pods" can be safely | dispatched. | [deleted] | albertTJames wrote: | World fairs were possible because labor was cheap and the west | was rich. | reactspa wrote: | YouTube is the world's fair. | [deleted] | xwdv wrote: | Why is the future always just a catalog of cool shit you might be | able to buy one day if they figure out how to make it? | jiofih wrote: | Did your parents buy a moon landing back in the 60s? | Aeolun wrote: | > They no longer showcase the promise of the future or celebrate | achievement. Instead, they serve as national branding exercises, | infrastructure development projects masquerading as innovation, | architecture competitions, and an opportunity to promote tourism | | I kind of feel that these were the exact goals of the original | world fairs too. | tomphoolery wrote: | This is true, and the reason for why they are no longer a thing | is the same reason why companies don't sponsor theme park rides | anymore. They simply don't need to. With the ability to reach | more people more quickly with less money over our mass media | networks, there's no real reason to sponsor an attraction of | any kind. | | At any rate, World's Fairs are still happening, just not in the | US... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_fair | _joel wrote: | Definitely, there's no difference. Just look at the 1937 Paris | Expo. | ipsum2 wrote: | No mention of Expo 2010, which had representation from 65 | different countries: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_2010_pavilions. I didn't go, | but the photos of the architecture from the different countries | were beautiful. | | > After the six-month run, the Expo had attracted well over 70 | million visitors. The Expo 2010 is also the most expensive fair | in the history of World's Fair, with more than 45 billion US | dollars invested from the Chinese Government | klenwell wrote: | > I didn't go, but the photos of the architecture from the | different countries were beautiful. | | Apparently, the American pavilion was not among them: | | _Now that the US Pavilion has been open for several days, its | reviews, to be generous, are mixed. Visitors, after a two-hour | wait, enjoy the upbeat attitude of the student "ambassadors" | who greet them in Mandarin -- but few are impressed by the | three films that constitute the US Pavilion's content. (One | reporter noted that the price for the three shorts, about $23 | million, is more than the production costs of the Oscar-winning | film, The Hurt Locker.) The "American people's" sole walk-on | are brief vignettes that flicker on the screen and then are | gone. Chinese visitors are reported to have remarked, | especially after the hype and long wait, "We expected more from | America." Visitors exit the theater into a large hall dedicated | to fawning over the 60-odd corporate sponsors whose names and | brands are the only aspects of American life and culture to | which the pavilion accords recognition._ | | https://www.huffpost.com/entry/an-epic-failure-of-planni_b_5... | jhu247 wrote: | Not necessarily for lack of effort. I was there and Obama | recorded a video specifically for the visitors to the US | Pavilion. | thepasswordis wrote: | The US seems to have largely decided that any amount of | national pride is something to be ashamed of. | WaxProlix wrote: | Is that sarcasm? American nationalism and over-the-top | expressions of patriotic pride border on the jingoistic. | markdown wrote: | Ordinary people hang US flags off the front of their | houses. In a bizarre indoctrination ritual, they make their | kids pledge allegiance to the state from a young age. They | think they're the greatest country in the world. | | Have you taken a good look at your own country. | [deleted] | jiofih wrote: | I don't get the fuss with the pledge of alliance (non | American here). | | > "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States | of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one | nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice | for all." | | Why is it bad to declare your commitment to the country | you're born in and it's values? It's not like you can't | leave (except for the IRS) if you don't like it. | orf wrote: | Borderline indoctrination. You're not pledging commitment | to it's "values" and young children are not at an age to | have a nuanced discussion or awareness about what those | exactly those values are, and make a decision about if | they should be declaring a commitment to them or not. | jiofih wrote: | Should everyone wait until their kids turn 18 to start | teaching them their own morals and values? You'd just be | auctioning their brain to random others who _are_ willing | to do that. | | I think we either have very different concepts of what | indoctrination is, or there is much more beyond the | pledge itself, and that is where the real issues are? | ipsum2 wrote: | Definitely, check out the photos on the Wikipedia article I | linked. USA looks very plain, compared to Thailand, Taiwan, | India, France, Portugal, UK etc. USA's architecture looks | closer to North Korea than the others. | alaxsxaq wrote: | Sounds like Disney. Disney World (? - the one in Florida, | USA) had a gift shop at the exit to every ride last time I | was there. The bean counters probably consider it a great | addition, and I'm sure it pays dividends, but that sort of | unadulterated cashing in puts me off. | jonathannat wrote: | How do you make sure that the utopian visions in this New | World's fair doesn't end up being dystopian? | | For example, China showing up with a whole bunch of companies | like hikvision or DJI (which are effectively state sponsored) | and tries to push for dictatorship enabling tools, tools they | are perfecting on concentration camps for Uighur muslims in | Xinjiang? Where forced labors/rapes are occuring. | jhu247 wrote: | The pavilions were truly incredible (from what I remember, | Saudi Arabia comes to mind, just look at that! https://en.wikip | edia.org/wiki/Expo_2010_pavilions#Saudi_Arab...) but like the | article says, it felt more like each country's branding | exercise rather than any unified vision of the future. | canadianfella wrote: | Was beautiful | grillvogel wrote: | i went to Expo 2005 in Japan which was also pretty cool | minikites wrote: | We as a species gave up trying to solve difficult problems and | now we're only concerned with inflating asset prices to feel | "wealthy". Smart engineers are working for HFT firms instead of | NASA. We've equated "wealth" with "progress" and we're now | discovering how hollow all these fake numbers are. | DubiousPusher wrote: | > We as a species gave up trying to solve difficult problems | | We live in an era of constant fascinating biological and | cosmological discoveries. In the past 3 years we have entered | the era of gene therapy healthcare with several genetic | treatments recieving approval by he FDA. We are on the cusp of | break even if not effective fusion energy. | | I cannot deny that the financialization of everything has | diminished the moral imperative of some of these efforts but to | act as if no one is attacking big problems is silly. | camwiese wrote: | Absolutely. Everyone wants to talk stagnation, but we don't | realize how much incredible work is being done in the | background. Then, because we live in filtered versions of | reality, we don't see it. The Fair serves as a showcase of | all of the incredible work being done to shape the future to | 1) give people hope and 2) inspire more people to help build | it. | minikites wrote: | The fact that every nightly news program includes a report on | the stock market (which they invariably conflate with "the | economy") but not any of the things you mention is kind of my | point. We used to glorify that work. Now the best we can hope | for is that it gets ignored lest some senator notice and cut | their funding to "eliminate government waste". | camwiese wrote: | One of the largest problems is due to the negative media | cycle and focus on things that drive engagement. Hopefully | by stepping out of this algorithmically generated world, we | can get experiencing the future and imagining their role in | it. | purple-again wrote: | I'm a pretty smart guy, or at least I keep getting told that, | and I work near HFTs in the finance world. I am also a huge | space nerd thanks to a love for things like Star Trek and Star | Wars in the 70's 80's. I would take a significant pay cut to | work for NASA because that work would feel amazing compared to | the grind I've been in. | | I am 100% confident I would not be hirable by NASA, confident | enough in that assertion to shut down without trying. I think | you may have some bias from your media bubble coloring your | perception if you truly believe what you wrote is true. | spacethrowaway1 wrote: | I have good news and bad news. The good news is you're | probably more hirable than you think. The bad news is it's | still just a job. | u678u wrote: | I'm pretty sure they are still going, though less frequently. | After 2020 Dubai, 23 is in Argentina and 25 will be in Japan. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_fair | camwiese wrote: | As stated in the essay, they now operate as "International | Exhibitions", not "World's Fairs." There's some nuance to this, | but the problem is still the same. These events are national | branding exercises & architecture competitions, not a place | where the future becomes real. | [deleted] | UncleOxidant wrote: | I'm not sure we can ever get back to the techno-optimism that | characterized much of America in the past. This article seems to | suggest that we as a country can become optimistic about the | future again by having a World's Fair. That by doing so we'll | recapture a shared vision of the future and a shared cultural | purpose that we had until it started to fall apart in the 90s. | It's a quaint idea, but it doesn't seem likely to succeed in | bridging the widening gaps between various tribes. Much of this | cultural disintegration was caused by technology. | mattowen_uk wrote: | Here in the UK (and Commonwealth) we had The Great Exhibition: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Exhibition | ngcc_hk wrote: | Talk to the U, Hk, and B people in Asia, ... sorry but | "collective vision" is the problem. NASA does not dominate but | individual. Collective is evil and commonness is a crime. Let | individual be individual. You do not need this for a steve job to | thrive. But any joint ignoring individual rights ... it would be | 1984 coming today, as it has and coming to a lot of human beings. | musicale wrote: | I miss the Maker Faire in its heyday, when it was mostly | individual inventors and crafters showing cool stuff they had | made and how they made them. | CaptArmchair wrote: | I feel the article is, at best, a nostalgic take to a Post-War | time between 1945 and 1970. And, at worst, merely an itch to | indulge in consuming modern technology. | | Both takes are missing the mark about what a World Fair is about. | Here's why. | | The 3 decades after 1945 were a time when economies of formerly | allied nations were booming. In France, these years are known as | the "Trente Glorieuses". Many more countries had their own | "economic miracle" during this time. Even West-Germany and | Austria had their own "Wirtschaftwunder" as their economies | bounced back. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_econ... | | Many parts of the world were still formal colonies to Western | nations, or their economies hadn't fully modernized yet to a | point where a sizable middle-class has access to democratized | /commoditized comforts of a Western lifestyle e.g. aviation, | healthcare, education, even sanitation, access to media and so | on. | | Not to mention the spectre of the Cold War that loomed over these | decades. | | Against this historic backdrop, the fair is notable because it | was a showcase of mid-20th century American culture and | technology. That shouldn't really come as a surprise since it was | firmly organized within the sphere of influence of America's | hegemony. | | Such were the times in 1965. And they are incomparable to 2021. | The organization of a World Fair in 1965 happened in a vastly | different context, with vastly different incentives, interests | and motives then it does in 2021. | | The author misses that completely and marches blindly onward | hence: | | > Today, World's Fairs have been rebranded as "International | Expositions" that occur every 5 years, and are a hollow shell of | their former glory. They no longer showcase the promise of the | future or celebrate achievement. Instead, they serve as national | branding exercises, infrastructure development projects | masquerading as innovation, architecture competitions, and an | opportunity to promote tourism. If anything, they're the perfect | representation of our current vision for the future: unfocused | and uninspiring. | | > But it doesn't have to be this way; we can't afford for it to | be this way. | | > The world has changed dramatically since 1984. We now live in | the most incredible time in human history. The internet has | brought billions of people together and tech companies have given | us supercomputers in our pockets. We're starting to build | hyperloops and supersonic jets. We're on the cusp of incredible | breakthroughs in genetics, biology, medicine, food science, | energy, transportation, manufacturing, computing, and robotics. | We're finally going back to the moon and then on to Mars. We've | once again seen the power of a collective vision with the record- | breaking development of the COVID-19 vaccine. | | The World's Fair is a reflection of the World in 2021 and the | future. With the complexity of representing 7.8 billion people, | an array of sovereign nations which didn't exist in 1965. It's an | event which competes with against the complexity of a exploding | plethora of modern mass media, new stakeholders, emerging | markets, and so on fueled by globalisation, digitization and | automatisation. | | A Fair isn't just an marketing event, it's a global forum that | aims beyond other events that present themselves as global fora | or gatherings. It's an opportunity for nations and peoples to | present a showcase to the world. It gives them the chance to put | a message out. In that regard, the World Fair is akin to that | other global event where the world gathers: The Olympics. | | The organization of the World Fair is no longer rooted in the | political or economical global hegemony of a handful of "first- | world" (for lack a better term) nations showing off their | industrial might and international prowess, such as it was during | the latter half of the 20th century. | | The Fair is now also home to many new nations and upcoming | economies or regional powers who are making their entrance to the | World's stage, and to whom the importance isn't plain | "technological innovation" but above all showing themselves to | the world, what they have to offer to the world, what their | aspirations are, what they hope for the futre, and taking part in | the global forum. | | In that regard, the vision for World Fair extends far beyond | technology per the offical website: | | https://www.bie-paris.org/site/en/what-is-an-expo | | For sure, there's going to the Moon or Mars, and there are | hyperloops and driverless cars, or there's even developing a | COVID vaccine. These are wonderful developments. But are they | really the developments that need to be put front and center at | World's Fair at the expense of everything else? Are these the | only developments that should matter to 7.8 billion people in | 2021? | | The second part from this article seems to voice a want for the | World's Fair to limit itself to showcasing technology, | engineering and media. To me, it sounds like not much more then a | want for being able to indulge in advertising when visiting the | Fair. And that comes across as, well, rather tone deaf. | | A World Fair isn't about merely basking in the marvels of | technology or innovation. It's about the humans and humanity that | are represented, visit and meet at a Fair. | jiofih wrote: | Technology and engineering are universal achievements, and a | main part of how society as a whole progresses. A sociology | focused world fair would just be the words most hated and | divisive fair ever, exactly the opposite of what it should set | out to achieve. | colecut wrote: | This will probably get some flack and I am not a hardcore burner | by any means, I went for a few days in 2010... | | But Burning Man to me seems like a bit of a World's Fair. I met | some people who brought a massive insect-inspired art car from | Australia.. | hyko wrote: | Does nobody remember the Millennium Dome? | | They had an exhibit called "MoneyZone" which included a tunnel | made out of PS1 million in crisp fifties. | | Good times. | fortran77 wrote: | The 1963-64 world's fair shaped my entire life. My earliest clear | memories were from that fair, and ever since I've been fascinated | by "futurism", technology, computers, space, architecture, etc. | | Every school and career choice I've made was based on some | inspirational spark that hit me there. | camwiese wrote: | Thank you for sharing this. Giving people hope and a belief in | the future is what the Fair is all about -- especially in the | face of extreme pessimism. | zestyping wrote: | Hmm. I fear that a World's Fair would be an extremely attractive | venue for quackery and pseudoscience. How would we avoid that? | poisonborz wrote: | I admire the optimism and motivational tone of the article, but | fairs and expos are a thing of the past. We don't need to build | elaborate, carefully constructed single-use cities to showcase | the scientific advances of the world. Those showcases happen day | by day on the internet and mass media. | postalrat wrote: | Nobody lives in the internet or in mass media. | [deleted] | foateaca wrote: | Yet international art fairs and specialty conventions had been | taking off for the 20 years before the pandemic. People still | like to travel and come together under well organized events. | The issue is the wisdom of a city or region pouring in billions | of billions for a week-long event. Maybe there's a new model to | be invented. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | The annual CES convention is still popular. I see it as the | modern equivalent of the world's fair, even if it is not quite | the same and missing some aspects. | kratom_sandwich wrote: | I don't think the argument is valid because it can be applied | to nearly every event where people come together, including | sporting events and concerts. But like with the Olympic Games, | the World's Fair can serve as a catalyst for urban development | projects. | | Also, the "science showcase" is a thing of the past, the BIE | switched to "individual country showcase" a couple of years | ago, which makes the whole thing a lot less appealing IMHO, but | that's another issue. | Fordec wrote: | I find this perplexing because the Olympic Games is | _notorious_ for draining an urban centers resources for years | and the result being a bunch of infrastructure that the | majority of the time just slowly decays due to the local | community not having the same volume of population to fully | utilize the utility. The handling of the 2016 games was an | especially bad case. | | It's overall a nationalistic country level flex at the | _expense_ of the local area. It 's part of why only big | countries host it, the side affects will only affect one city | and you have other places to sustain the nationwide economy | despite the hit. | labster wrote: | Speak for yourself. Los Angeles ran a profitable Olympics | in 1984 and we look forward to doing so again in 2028. And | nationalism is at a low ebb here, given our last four years | fighting His Nibs on everything. It's all about competition | and entertainment for us. And infrastructure that can be | reused for more entertainment. | Fordec wrote: | The 1984 Olympics, considered to be the most financially | successful Olympics ever, were ran on the basis of | renovating existing infrastructure, not building new | stuff in a new city _because_ the previous two Olympics | were financial disasters. Also, yes, if you mess up LA | the United States will still truck on. | | Also Nationalism isn't just flags, hate and hands in the | air, it's also an outward expression of ideas and ideals | raised on a pedestal to say look how great we are. Such | as getting to say "we are all about competition and | entertainment" as a story to tell the world as a form of | soft power. | gkop wrote: | > profitable | | > we look forward to doing so again in 2028 | | Oligarchs and capitalists benefit, the masses lose | though. Especially those most vulnerable | socioeconomically. | xeromal wrote: | The hope for the 2028 olympics in LA is more public | transportation which is currently being built. It's | exciting to see the new lines currently popping up. | pharke wrote: | That always confused me about the Olympic Games. I guess it | makes sense if you think about it as an opportunity for | pork stuffed building contracts. It would make more sense | for each country to have 1 or maybe 2 locations that are | reused whenever they host the games. They could also host | national level sporting events in the interim. That way | they can be maintained and upgraded over the years without | saddling municipalities with decaying and unwanted | facilities. | dstroot wrote: | I came to say this. Well put. Take my vote. | | https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/aban | don... | chha wrote: | The problem for most countries is that it can be decades | between hosting two Olympics, meaning that facilities are | either worn out not fulfilling the current Olympic | technical requirements. | | Also; very few countries has a need for facilities with | the capacity the Olympics require, so this would be a | huge burden for most of them. | nelsondev wrote: | Why bother showing up at the Olympics in person? We can just | watch it on TV right? :p | | But to refute more directly, the unplanned interactions with | other visitors, being able to talk directly with makers who | built the things you're seeing, the viral sense of wonder; all | are good reasons to have it in-person. | jhbadger wrote: | The vast majority of people do just that. The small number of | people who actually attend the Olympics in person are 1) | journalists covering it 2) relatives of the athletes 3) | people living near the venue who attend a few events out of | curiosity and maybe have discounted tickets because of where | they live 4) wealthy people who can afford the high cost of | decent tickets with a clear view of the athletes. | pjc50 wrote: | Who remembers the Millenium Dome? It was a self-conscious | emulation of the 1951s Festival of Britain, that ended up being | characteristically Blairite bland. | musicale wrote: | The Millennium Dome (notably the Millennium Experience | inside) was terrific. I don't know why nobody showed up, but | it was really uncrowded and enjoyable to visit! | | One futuristic thing that has stuck with me from the | Millennium expo was a demonstration of structural/mechanical | and electrochemical simulation of the human body with | computers, for example the skeletal, muscular, and | circulatory systems. Which of course can be augmented with | models of various organs and micro-level models of cellular | interaction and cell internals. The brilliant bit seemed to | be the idea of using a finite element and/or modular | decomposition, potentially at multiple levels of resolution | and abstraction. It seemed like the sort of thing that could | yield huge benefits in medicine, health/fitness, education, | and video games/animation. ;-) | basch wrote: | I am very much pro World Fair revival. | | But | | I am also very Cold War revival. We should be launching | competitive science wars with each other, not unlike the | Olympics. Set objectives, set time periods, when the time and | objective expire all knowledge gained is pooled and published | for the world, for free. National or International propaganda | campaigns to recruit for teams. Spies, espionage, moles. Not | just a science fair, but something a bit more dirty and fun. | UncleOxidant wrote: | > I am also very Cold War revival. | | Complete with threats of total annihilation? | | > We should be launching competitive science wars with each | other | | Don't we have this now with competitive global capitalism? I | guess it's not the nationstate so much now as the | multinational corporation, though, that are the entities | competing. | | I can kind of understand your wish for a Cold War revival - | we certainly had more of a sense of national purpose during | that period. But it was driven by fear of the other and I'm | not sure that ultimately that's a good motivation. | | You'd think that maybe something like a global pandemic would | give us a national purpose that would have brought us | together, but look what happened, just more fracturing: anti- | maskers, anti-vaxxers, even covid-deniers. | shadowofneptune wrote: | Slightly more seriously, something like the International | Geophysical Year could be interesting: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Geophysical_Year | cosmodisk wrote: | Yes and no. I do agree that probably nobody's going to build | another Eiffel tower or Crystal Palace any time soon,but we | need spaces to explore science, innovation,and simply have for | people to do something more interesting than just mindlessly | walking through shopping malls. Fairs and expos inspire. I | still remember going to a tech expo as a teenager and seeing | all these latest gadgets and thinking: I want to be part of it! | Now imagine going to one of these in the middle of last century | and seeing rockets, nuclear car prototypes and things like | that. You almost instantly want to sign up or at least show it | to your kids. | reaperducer wrote: | Naysayers always complain that these fairs cost too much money | and are entirely fluff events. History shows that's not true. | | For example, over a hundred years later, Chicago is still making | money from the economic, social, and infrastructure benefits of | its fairs. | whatshisface wrote: | > _over a hundred years later, Chicago is still making money | from the economic, social, and infrastructure benefits of its | fairs._ | | Because of the way the economy works, this can be said of | absolutely any expenditure anywhere anytime for any reason. If | even one project laborer buys a cup of coffee on the job, at | least $4 of value then gets sent out into circulation in a way | that has been plausibly colored by the construction of the Big | Money Pit of 1849. | mynameisvlad wrote: | And stimulating local economies is a problem... why? | whatshisface wrote: | All expenditures stimulate the economy equally, as measured | by the "marked bills" theory. That means the only way to | compare them is to evaluate opportunity costs. Spending a | million bucks on constructing a big hole in the middle of | nowhere, and performing an important infrastructure | revitalization, will both put dollars in the hands of | laborers, and thereby grocery stores and so on, at the same | rate. That's why all of the useful parts of the discussion | are on the specific, immediate consequences; the distant | consequences are the same no matter what you do. | iso1631 wrote: | > the distant consequences are the same no matter what | you do. | | Three things | | 1) Spend the money on blackjack and hookers | | 2) Spend the money on a new bridge | | 3) Burn the money on a bonfire for giggles | | Those three have very different "distant consequences" | whatshisface wrote: | 1) Money ends up in the local economy | | 2) Money ends up in the local economy | | 3) Currency deflates, making all owners of currency | richer, and as long as nobody expects deflation to | continue, stimulates the economy. | camwiese wrote: | Yes! Success for most Fairs depends on the timeline you're | looking at. Even the 1984 World's Fair in New Orleans (which I | know I call out in the essay), was considered a failure at the | time. Now 30+ years later, New Orleans has a thriving | waterfront district that wouldn't have been developed without | the Fair. | ant6n wrote: | How can you be sure it wouldnt have happened without the | fair? | neon_me wrote: | thought CCC is the worlds fair of the 20's ... :) | Animats wrote: | The last really prophetic world's fair was New York, 1939. That's | famous for GM's vision of the future of 1960, the original | "Futurerama" . Freeways everywhere. RCA had television. AT&T let | you make free long distance calls. All that stuff happened. | | The 1964 World's Fair had another GM exhibit. Colonization of the | Moon. Underwater cities. None of that happened. | | What could we have in a World's Fair now that looks ahead? | Colonization of Mars? Mars sucks as real estate. There may be | research bases there someday, but as a self-sufficient area, it | would be tougher than Antarctica or a continental shelf. Robots | may some day be a thing, but they still don't work well in | unstructured environments. | CobrastanJorji wrote: | GM was at least a little bit right. Their moon base had a moon | car and some sort of silvery structure. Five years after the | exhibition, we had some guys walking around on the moon and | returning to a silvery structure, and two years after that, we | had a lunar rover. | musicale wrote: | Certainly it's harder to get to Mars, but is the environment | more hostile than on the moon? | | Mars has something of a CO2 atmosphere, and might have more | accessible water. The soil may be more usable as well. | mminer237 wrote: | It's not physically more hostile than the moon, but we've | never colonized the moon for the same reason. It's really | hard to live there for not much benefit. There are plenty of | sparsely-inhabited deserts on Earth that are much nicer | places to live. | [deleted] | spankalee wrote: | We have a lot of environmental challenges ahead of us. A | forward-thinking World's Fair could paint a picture of how we | get from here to a carbon-negative economy: solar & wind, | battery tech, autonomous cars and less car-oriented cities, | better telepresence, carbon sequestering, architecture, etc. | potiuper wrote: | Build a dome over New Orleans or York; Call it the New Palace. | Or to be more optimistic a nuclear plant, maybe Governor's | island? or just finish Shoreham; recommission Indian Point, | along with district heating. | topkai22 wrote: | My mom went to the '64 worlds fair almost every day (according | to her, she had an uncle that worked there.) She told us | stories about various exhibits when we were kids, but the thing | she remembered the most was the video phone- that she should | see as well here someone across the planet. | | Fast forward to 2020 and she is spending hours every day on | video calls with her grandchildren. | | We might have missed on some of our dreams from 1964, but not | all of them. We'll miss more in the future if we don't | articulate them. | terse_malvolio wrote: | We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon...We | choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other | things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard | (...) | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon | jhu247 wrote: | It's amazing to me that the World's Fair gave us so many iconic | and wonderful structures, all of which are probably too | impractical to build otherwise: the Eiffel Tower, Space Needle, | Unisphere, Palace of Fine Arts, etc. It's unrealistic, but it's | worth having a new world's fair just for an excuse to build | another one of these! | alex_young wrote: | It's not exactly the same, but Burning Man comes pretty close in | a lot of ways. | | If you haven't been, there are thousands of art projects at a | grand scale, things that take up blocks of space a piece, and | they are built by artists from around the world, giving everyone | a global perspective of what is possible. | | I also love the idea of showcasing what is possible for a | society. There is a true sense of community, immediacy, and | collaboration where everyone there is an active participant. | | There are dozens of smaller events with similar properties, | likely one nearby. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-03-16 23:00 UTC)