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I can believe it. I'm only in my early 30s but I can still look back to when i was a kid and compare it to today, and I don't see anything all that amazing. Mostly we've changed socially. Gay marriage was unthinkable back when I was in elementary school, when "fag" was the go-to insult. So I think culturally we've changed. But you're asking about technology, and I don't see anything all that impressive. When i look back to when I was a kid in the mid-and-late 90s, it's basically the same as now. There were already cell phones and personal computers back then, they've just gotten a bit better. There was already the internet and websites and email and all that stuff; it's just gotten more ubiquitous and all-encompassing, and again, it's mostly our culture that has changed. We've got more social media, and we can call each other at any time, and do our banking at home, and order stuff online. That's about it. I don't necessarily think this is a good or bad thing, though. Maybe it's good that we don't have all this whiz-bang whatever stuff. Look at what we do with the internet: we just get into stupid arguments with strangers, doxx each other, harass each other, etc. Women and minorities get death and rape threats. And the climate's going to poo poo because of our technology. So maybe it's good that something is putting the brakes on it.
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Jan 27, 2016 03:31
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Batham posted:To the guy who's 30 years old and "didn't see much change in his life", did you never play video games or something? Or listen to music? Did you not notice anything about the screens you're looking at? Never read up on medical progress? Like gently caress, even how far prosthetics have progressed is mind loving blowing. How about cars? Have you stepped into a newer car the past 20 years? Or even the past 5 years? What are your measuring points for progress? I think you're referring to me. Progress in video games isn't exactly life-changing, though. It's neat, but it's not exactly like going from horse and buggies to cars and airplanes in one's lifetime. When I was a kid, the Super Nintendo was the most advanced home console. Now it's PS4 and XBox One. That's kinda neat but it doesn't revolutionize the world. Medical progress has been pretty stagnant in my lifetime, too. Now people are talking about stem cells, growing new organs and tissues from scratch, gene therapy, and even crazy poo poo like extending lifespans and giving ourselves cybernetic implants. I don't think any of that is going to happen, though. Wasn't it Nixon who declared a War on Cancer? And here we are. There's been some progress but it seems kind of step-by-step, little by little. I remember hearing about how drug development has gotten harder and more expensive. I honestly don't expect anything too exciting to happen in my lifetime, medical-wise, and I've still got 40 to 50 years left to live (optimistically).
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Jan 29, 2016 03:00
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Dirk the Average posted:You're a moron. Well that hardly seems necessary.  But going back to the topic: have you guys heard of something called a complexity break? It's something I've heard of but i can't remember where. But the idea is that, the more we discover about the world, the more complicated everything gets. So it becomes harder and harder to make more breakthroughs and discoveries. That's why everything is slowing down right now. One example I saw was about the human genome. We sequenced the genome...and it turned out that just sequencing the genome isn't enough. The genes turned out to be more complecated. And then there's Moore's Law: it used to be that we could improve performance by shrinking the chips down and putting more transistors on them, but that can't be done anymore. What's left? Nothing, really. We've taken computers as far as they can go. I think this may explain why we don't see any aliens out in the universe. Because they inevitably run up against hard physical limits to progress so they can't "advance" beyond planetary limits and go to outer space.
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Jan 31, 2016 01:22
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Pussy Cartel posted:Moore's Law was never actually a law, and no one ever said that simply sequencing the genome would actually accomplish miraculous things all by itself. I know Moore's Law wasn't literally a scientific law; it was just an observation. But the point is that the pace of progress has definitely slowed down. This might not be so bad for consumers, since our smartphones and tablets are about as good as we would need them to be for our emails, texting, Youtube watching, etc. But I remember reading that there are difficulties with reaching exascale supercomputing. This isn't a huge deal for consumers but it's going to be harder to advance in any field that requires better and more powerful computing power. As for the genome, you're right that nobody said that just sequencing the genome would "accomplish miraculous things", but people have been hyping "personalized medicine" for like 20 years now, and it still seems to be this far-future thing. Same goes for stem cells, "regenerative medicine", and so on.
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Feb 1, 2016 06:09
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Pussy Cartel posted:A bunch of people have already pointed out all sorts of advances that have been made. Just because we aren't living in the hyped up cyberfuture that dumbshit futurists and the likes of Wired and RU Sirius always try to promote doesn't mean that we haven't seen phenomenal advances, and if you can't see past flying cars and instantly regrown limbs and organs, I don't know what to tell you. Feel free to wallow in stubborn pessimism, I guess. i havent seen any of these avddances, Besides, I'm not 'wallowing'. I said in my first post itt that I think it might be a good thing to have a "stagnation" period. Look at climate change and pollution. The oceans are acidifying. Look at how extinct everything is getting. Aren't rhinos extinct now, or something? Maybe it's good that we're having a decline, the planet might actually recover a bit.
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Feb 1, 2016 08:15
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