NovaVeles

I have a gut feeling that SerenityOS is going to have the same kind of progress that Linux had. Started as a little hobby side project "but nothing serious" but could eventually become something that ends up being a really useful. We will see where it is in another 5 years. Coming from a completely fresh base means that it has not gather the same technical legacy as others and that could really play to its hands in years to come.

Alan Watts said it about LSD - but equally applies to MDMA. Use it like a scientist uses a microscope. Use it to observe but then you go away and work on what you have experienced. Don't get fixated on the observation stage.

It is one of the easiest things to do that has a sizeable impact on the world.

I don't want to defend the Hiltons but that is just one example of something that was very common during that time period. In the 50's/60's - the idea that we would not solve the fundamental issues of the era over the coming decades would have been laughable.

When it comes to material shortages, fusion power, limits of computer chip scaling, global warming, over fishing, plastic waste, hyper effective battery storage, nuclear deescalation etc... have all been answered a lot with - they will think of something. Yes, there have been improvements but with most of these things, we have also missed the mark by a long shot. And decades later, we haven't. Sometimes it is right, look at what we did with CFC's. But it is by no means something I would hitch my wagon to.

John Michael Greer calls phrases like these 'Thought-stoppers' Little saying that we have that mean we don't have to face the ugly truth of something or are just trying to be a little too optimistic about the future in the face of hard times. "Housing prices only go up", "They will think of something", "Stock prices only go up", "It is different this time", "The fundamentals don't matter any more" etc.

No as has already been answered. The example I can directly think of is modelling of specific weather patterns across Australia. A model that works in predicting weather 2 weeks out may work today but not work so well in 5 years.

Global Warming is happening, that is not just a realm of modelling but is directly observable today. The models on a broad scale look to be working very well, specific locations and reactions not so much.

It is possible to make broad engines that work but also get the finer details wrong. Signal : Noise ratio and all of that.

I feel for the Weather pattern folk. All of the one I have spoken to over the years are pretty cool. They are trying to model an insanely complex system - oh but thanks to global warming they are struggling to make models that work for longer than a few years because it all keeps changing!

Depends on the examples you use I guess. I mean early last year King Gizzard dropped The Dripping tap. an 18 minute prog rock jam thing where there is a good 5 minutes where they repeat this 41 times like a mantra.

"Drip, drip from the tap don't slip Drip, drip from the tap don't slip on the drip"

The repetition is through the roof on that gem.

Do not mistake technical viability with economic viability. The 1st Breeder reactor went into service in 1962, there have been many after and they have all meet the same fate.

Yes, they can breed their own fuel but the total cost of doing it is wildly prohibitive.

You can get gold/uranium/lithium from Ocean water, try and do it at a price people will actually pay for it. You can get minerals from space, so long as the market rate of $10 million a ton is viable... etc.

As always, if I get proven wrong - that will be a great day!

Sorry this may seem a little snarky but - "They will think of something" - the universal band-aid for I want it to be true but I rationally don't know how.

When ever I hear that, the optimist in me wants it to be true. The pessimist thinks otherwise and nowadays the pessimist usually wins.

We will have hotels in orbit by the 1970's - they will think of something! That was a legitimate thing that the Hiltons proposed back in the 1960's.

I think the big thing is that all those original achievement don't defy physics to achieve them. It was a case of ignorance and the belief that we just were not that smart. And while there was a big period of exponential growth - there is an upper limit.

We aren't going to Galaxies in a few hundred years - the time to Andromeda is 2.5 Million Light Years. Unless we fundamentally have physics wrong, we aren't doing that any quicker no matter how hard we try.

It is a reasonable conclusion. Resource limitations means civilizations, burn up too much of their energy/materials before they ever get truly space bound.

They could all be just like us. A few space probes manage to escape the energy well but they are so small that no one else ever detects them again. I mean, it is not uncommon to sight life ending asteroids days after they have passed earth, the odds of us detecting any sort probe/device the size of a fridge - is nearly zero.

Best analogy I heard came from Stephen Harrod Bruhner. Civilizations are just like plants. A plant is at its fullest just as it is about to produce seed and die off. During the peak of our energy use, we have been sending probes into space. It is a neat thought experiment.

Ready to play Quake 3 and then someone decided to bring a G4 Mac. Easy to communicate right "It just works!"... :D

Actually that would make sense. I usually eat much later 8-9pm and so that crash would come after the work day is done.