"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78)
12/18/2019 at 12:30 • Filed to: None
3
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"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78)
12/18/2019 at 12:30 • Filed to: None | 3
| 14 |
I thought it was an interesting read...
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gmporschenut also a fan of hondas
> Ash78, voting early and often
12/18/2019 at 12:38 |
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I’m sure they’ll remake it in the next software patch.
RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> Ash78, voting early and often
12/18/2019 at 12:45 |
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Future Heap Owner
> Ash78, voting early and often
12/18/2019 at 12:49 |
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The greatest minds of my generation are figuring out how to get you to click on more ads.
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Ash78, voting early and often
> Future Heap Owner
12/18/2019 at 12:57 |
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TUCSON, ARIZONA companies are boosting their SEO returns by 300% using this ONE. SIMPLE. TRICK.
*stock image of businessman on a cell phone*
The Ghost of Oppo
> Ash78, voting early and often
12/18/2019 at 12:59 |
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functionoverfashion
> Ash78, voting early and often
12/18/2019 at 13:07 |
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Excellent read, thanks for sharing.
TorqueToYield
> Ash78, voting early and often
12/18/2019 at 13:17 |
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It’s cliche but hardware is hard. It costs a ton more to make physical things than to make digital things.
And infrastructure, forget about it. Pretty much only the gubmint is interested in massive multi-billion or trillion dollar projects with dubious monetization potential. And the gubmint (and by extension the people who vote) haven ’t been interested in real infrastructure building for 80 years or so.
Silicon Valley is responsible for a lot of bullshit but it’s a stretch to blame them for lack of movement on massive infrastructure projects.
Mid Engine
> Ash78, voting early and often
12/18/2019 at 13:44 |
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I’ve worked in semiconductors (NPU, MCU, DSP, CPU, FPGA) for a long time, it strikes me as very strange when companies like Facebook and Netflix are referred to as tech companies. They don’t produce a damned thing and contribute nothing to advancing technology IMHO
MrSnrub
> Ash78, voting early and often
12/18/2019 at 13:52 |
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This reflects what I’ve felt about the so-called “third industrial revolution” for some time.
What enabled the actual industrial revolution(s) and the massive increases in productivity and living standards that followed were the exploitation of new energy sources - coal, then oil and gas - that were orders of magnitude more powerful than the ones powering society up to that point. The computer revolution, ultimately, is still powered by those same energy sources, so it’s never going to be the same kind of step-change. It’s really just a continuation of the original industrial revolution.
And that original industrial revolution is slowing down because we’ve mostly figured out how to use those new sources of energy by now - steam power, internal combustion etc. Now that we’ve figured that out, what’s left are refinements and efficiency gains, like computerization, electrification and automation. In other words, the low-hanging fruit has been picked, and what’s left are diminishing returns. That’s what underlying the slowdown in productivity growth the article talks about, in my opinion. In the absence of a new, vast energy source to exploit, there will be little incentive for technological innovation to the degree we’ve become used to, and productivity and economic growth will, at best, return to the slow and plodding rate that was the case for most of history.
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Ash78, voting early and often
> MrSnrub
12/18/2019 at 15:56 |
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I agree — I often refer to everything we’ve done in the past 30-40 years (despite massive leaps in underlying tech) as just refinements of old concepts.
For example, we already had TV. Just because we can hang them on a wall or carry them in our pockets isn’t really as “disruptive” as the actual invention of the CRT and broadcasting itself . Ultimately things like email and texting are just a refinement of the telegraph. Broadly speaking, the internet is just a two-way communication mode with an easier interface than TV/radio/newspapers.
As amazing as all of this modern stuff is, I can only imagine how many bricks must have been shat when new things were truly invented or accomplished with no precedent (powered flight, moon landing, the CRT, telegraph, phonograph, wireline telephony , light bulb, electrical generation, etc ).
3point8isgreat
> MrSnrub
12/18/2019 at 16:07 |
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On the bright side, we are at least aware of possible energy advances like fusion. Sure they’re pretty far from actual use, but it’s nice at least having a pretty good idea of where to look.
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MrSnrub
> Ash78, voting early and often
12/18/2019 at 17:15 |
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It’s incredible to think that just 66 years separate the first powered flight and the moon landing. 67 years ago the B-52 took its first flight, and it’s still in service.
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MrSnrub
> 3point8isgreat
12/18/2019 at 17:21 |
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Fusion would be the next big step but I’m skeptical that it’ll ever happen. Fission really seemed like the next step after fossil fuels, but we all got cold feet after Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. I think ultimately a large nuclear buildout will be a necessary part of addressing climate change.
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Ash78, voting early and often
> MrSnrub
12/19/2019 at 09:03 |
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In modern terms, 66 years is like an eternity, but we had to remember these people (and governments) were mostly doing all of that innovation with pencil and paper, trial and error. The most amazing timeline to me is going from Mercury to Gemini to Apollo in about 8 years during the 60s, all while having to redirect our national efforts towards fighting in Vietnam, plus deterring Cuba, Russia, and the rest. The two go hand-in-hand to a degree, but still.
Two other things hamper modern progress -- and those are our collectively lower risk tolerance, especially with human life; and the risk tolerance of the people doing the funding (that’s my wheelhouse). Many large lenders/backers won’t even touch a project unless it’s a sure thing. Or in the case of VCs, paid back at a very high interest rate or guaranteed equity.