Has progress finished?

[ram1964]

Would have thought cables and plugs will become a thing of the past at some point. Batteries will become ever smaller ,lighter and more efficient especially for cars and transport. technology will allow more things to be recycled so we don't become as dependant upon the earths natural resources.

[Carl Sagan]

What a fascinating thread. It's not a viewpoint I've come across often.

Today we have the sum of all human knowledge just a phone tap or a voice command away. A car drives me from London to Derby by itself without me touching the pedals or steering wheel, and it's powered by sunlight rather than petrol. In my recent thread we're building a Starship factory to take thousands of Humans to Mars. 

In the last few years we've found thousands of planets beyond the solar system and the next big telescope (being launched next year) will be able to analyze their atmospheres. Today's 3D printers are the forerunners of the essential devices that will be in every home within two decades, effectively a Star Trek replicator. You won't buy outfits in shops. You'll choose a design and your device will print it at home. 

Artificial intelligence will change the future more than any other technology. If you think computers are fast now, they continue to double in speed every 20 odd months. 

The Blockchain was the solution to a problem not many realized we even had. It will give us a decentralized beautiful future when we're back in control and not products being farmed by the giant tech companies. 

I'm biased as a future-phile, but I think there's a lot of progress and it's just getting faster. 

[DarkFruitsRam7]

4 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

What a fascinating thread. It's not a viewpoint I've come across often.

Today we have the sum of all human knowledge just a phone tap or a voice command away. A car drives me from London to Derby by itself without me touching the pedals or steering wheel, and it's powered by sunlight rather than petrol. In my recent thread we're building a Starship factory to take thousands of Humans to Mars. 

In the last few years we've found thousands of planets beyond the solar system and the next big telescope (being launched next year) will be able to analyze their atmospheres. Today's 3D printers are the forerunners of the essential devices that will be in every home within two decades, effectively a Star Trek replicator. You won't buy outfits in shops. You'll choose a design and your device will print it at home. 

Artificial intelligence will change the future more than any other technology. If you think computers are fast now, they continue to double in speed every 20 odd months. 

The Blockchain was the solution to a problem not many realized we even had. It will give us a decentralized beautiful future when we're back in control and not products being farmed by the giant tech companies. 

I'm biased as a future-phile, but I think there's a lot of progress and it's just getting faster. 

What do you think about Neuralink?

[Carl Sagan]

4 hours ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

What do you think about Neuralink?

Aha, the third pillar of the Musk masterplan. He created Tesla and subsumed Solar City into it as a way to save the planet by accelerating the transition to sustainability. Tesla is now a decade ahead of every other car company because it combines electric vehicles with self-driving and its own global charging infrastructure.

He created SpaceX to build a Human colony on Mars to safeguard the species from extinction as much as possible. SpaceX is now a decade ahead of all its competitors and innovating far faster than any of them. They have captured the global satellite launch market that is genuinely a free market, rather than those launches protected by states for national security interests.

But Musk's biggest fear for Humanity is an AI takeover leading to our extinction and the Mars plan cannot protect against that. It protects against almost all other existential risks but not that one, because an AI Superintelligence would be focused on resource acquisition so would go after Mars and beyond (expanding across the Universe). So the reason for Neuralink is to allow Humans to merge more successfully with computers and be better placed to exercise control over advanced artificial intelligence.

What I love about Musk is he looks at the core science from first principles to evaluate what is and isn't possible. And he sees an opportunity to effectively build the next layer of the Human brain artificially to dramatically increase bandwidth. Neuralink is still in the early phase of being dismissed by conventional experts, but so were Tesla and SpaceX at the same stage. Can he pull it off yet again? The world's finest engineers all want to work for him at Tesla and SpaceX because they are building the future like no other companies. Would you rather design a tiny new portion of the next iPhone or work out how to land rockets on Mars?

Similarly, I think the world's finest young neuroscientists will move to neuralink and the mathematization of neuroscience over the last decade has made a lot of things appear possible that once would have been dismissed. Some aspects of the initial demonstration were impressive (ie reporoducing the movement of pigs simply from studying their brainwaves) but there;s a long way to go, but I would love to see it come to fruition. While I think they are secondary to the fundamental mission of the company, the possibilities to cure blindness, deafness, Parkinson's, pain, and so on, and to store dreams and memories, are all likely necessary steps along the way and would certainly be "progress" into the future.

[DarkFruitsRam7]

3 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

Aha, the third pillar of the Musk masterplan. He created Tesla and subsumed Solar City into it as a way to save the planet by accelerating the transition to sustainability. Tesla is now a decade ahead of every other car company because it combines electric vehicles with self-driving and its own global charging infrastructure.

He created SpaceX to build a Human colony on Mars to safeguard the species from extinction as much as possible. SpaceX is now a decade ahead of all its competitors and innovating far faster than any of them. They have captured the global satellite launch market that is genuinely a free market, rather than those launches protected by states for national security interests.

But Musk's biggest fear for Humanity is an AI takeover leading to our extinction and the Mars plan cannot protect against that. It protects against almost all other existential risks but not that one, because an AI Superintelligence would be focused on resource acquisition so would go after Mars and beyond (expanding across the Universe). So the reason for Neuralink is to allow Humans to merge more successfully with computers and be better placed to exercise control over advanced artificial intelligence.

What I love about Musk is he looks at the core science from first principles to evaluate what is and isn't possible. And he sees an opportunity to effectively build the next layer of the Human brain artificially to dramatically increase bandwidth. Neuralink is still in the early phase of being dismissed by conventional experts, but so were Tesla and SpaceX at the same stage. Can he pull it off yet again? The world's finest engineers all want to work for him at Tesla and SpaceX because they are building the future like no other companies. Would you rather design a tiny new portion of the next iPhone or work out how to land rockets on Mars?

Similarly, I think the world's finest young neuroscientists will move to neuralink and the mathematization of neuroscience over the last decade has made a lot of things appear possible that once would have been dismissed. Some aspects of the initial demonstration were impressive (ie reporoducing the movement of pigs simply from studying their brainwaves) but there;s a long way to go, but I would love to see it come to fruition. While I think they are secondary to the fundamental mission of the company, the possibilities to cure blindness, deafness, Parkinson's, pain, and so on, and to store dreams and memories, are all likely necessary steps along the way and would certainly be "progress" into the future.

I have mixed views on Musk. I think he's clearly a genius who's doing great work with Tesla and Space X, but I also think he's said and done a lot of problematic things. That's fine, as I don't believe we should view people in a binary way (with Musk, I think too many people either worship him as the saviour of humanity or see him as a nasty, privileged evil genius).

I've done very little research into Neuralink, so forgive me if this question could easily be answered, but my worry with with it stems from an observation Joe Rogan made in the most recent podcast he did with Musk. He raised the idea of Neuralink only being made available to the richest in society (because of how expensive it will be to develop and produce), resulting in a massive increase in inequality, and potentially creating two classes of people (the minority who have it and the majority who don't). Musk was far from convincing in his answer, and I'd like to know his (or the government's) solution to this potential issue.

[Carl Sagan]

14 minutes ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

I have mixed views on Musk. I think he's clearly a genius who's doing great work with Tesla and Space X, but I also think he's said and done a lot of problematic things. That's fine, as I don't believe we should view people in a binary way (with Musk, I think too many people either worship him as the saviour of humanity or see him as a nasty, privileged evil genius).

I've done very little research into Neuralink, so forgive me if this question could easily be answered, but my worry with with it stems from an observation Joe Rogan made in the most recent podcast he did with Musk. He raised the idea of Neuralink only being made available to the richest in society (because of how expensive it will be to develop and produce), resulting in a massive increase in inequality, and potentially creating two classes of people (the minority who have it and the majority who don't). Musk was far from convincing in his answer, and I'd like to know his (or the government's) solution to this potential issue.

It's an interesting moral question. If there was a treatment whereby Humans could live forever, but only 1% of the population could afford it, is that a good thing or not? There's the follow-on more general question of what's the point of working really hard to make money and become rich, if you're not able to benefit from it in some way? And if you can't, if we're to live in a socialist utopia, what incentives are there for people to work hard and innovate?

For neuralink all the applications along the way in the early days are beneficial, in terms of cures for pain and disease. The American health system is even more screwed than ours (the two outliers in Western systems) so there are no guarantees, but the device will likely be doing a lot of good as it's developed. Even if that's paid for by American health insurance policies.

The cost of space travel has been prohibitive. It's the preserves of nation states or the super rich. Musk is democratizing space travel making it available to everyone. Branson will charge you $250k dollars for 6 minutes in low Earth orbit; for the same price Musk gives you a return ticket to Mars, because he isn't in it for the profit. However, early Tesla adopters and early SpaceX private astronauts have to pay a lot, but that's to enable the development to roll out to everyone further down the line.

This is a "thinking aloud" response, but I think the track record is that Musk's goal is always the widest most accessible user base for the technologies he develops, but to make that succeed the rich get them first. It's practical and realistic, maximizing the chance that the technology succeeds which maximizes the chance that Humanity doesn't go extinct.

[Normanton Lad]

13 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

What a fascinating thread. It's not a viewpoint I've come across often.

Today we have the sum of all human knowledge just a phone tap or a voice command away. A car drives me from London to Derby by itself without me touching the pedals or steering wheel, and it's powered by sunlight rather than petrol. In my recent thread we're building a Starship factory to take thousands of Humans to Mars. 

In the last few years we've found thousands of planets beyond the solar system and the next big telescope (being launched next year) will be able to analyze their atmospheres. Today's 3D printers are the forerunners of the essential devices that will be in every home within two decades, effectively a Star Trek replicator. You won't buy outfits in shops. You'll choose a design and your device will print it at home. 

Artificial intelligence will change the future more than any other technology. If you think computers are fast now, they continue to double in speed every 20 odd months. 

The Blockchain was the solution to a problem not many realized we even had. It will give us a decentralized beautiful future when we're back in control and not products being farmed by the giant tech companies. 

I'm biased as a future-phile, but I think there's a lot of progress and it's just getting faster. 

You paint an optimistic picture but all those technological "advances" will probably be used to diminish the quality of our lives. All I see is decline.

I often think about a play I heard on the radio about 10 years ago. Two people are in a garden looking out over a far-ranging landscape. In the distance they can see fires and signs of war but they are not too bothered because it is far away. Each day as they chat about mundane matters, such as how nice the flowers are looking in the garden, it seems that the disturbances are getting nearer. Eventually they become resigned to their fate. A pillaging horde will soon be upon them. I missed some of the play so I couldn’t tell where or when it was set, but I assumed the two people were Ancient Romans being approached by a massive Barbarian army. One night as they chat  they say it will all be over in the morning. You then hear the Barbarians in the garden shouting and smashing things. But the play has a strange twist. The people were in fact statues which, of course, get smashed to pieces.

When I was a kid I assumed that by the year 2000 we would all have flying cars and that robots would be doing all our work. But instead of that things seem a bit the same only worse. We are not as happy as we used to be and I think things will get far worse. I feel like the statues in the play.

[Comrade 86]

Errrrr....

[Carl Sagan]

6 hours ago, Normanton Lad said:

You paint an optimistic picture but all those technological "advances" will probably be used to diminish the quality of our lives. All I see is decline.

I often think about a play I heard on the radio about 10 years ago. Two people are in a garden looking out over a far-ranging landscape. In the distance they can see fires and signs of war but they are not too bothered because it is far away. Each day as they chat about mundane matters, such as how nice the flowers are looking in the garden, it seems that the disturbances are getting nearer. Eventually they become resigned to their fate. A pillaging horde will soon be upon them. I missed some of the play so I couldn’t tell where or when it was set, but I assumed the two people were Ancient Romans being approached by a massive Barbarian army. One night as they chat  they say it will all be over in the morning. You then hear the Barbarians in the garden shouting and smashing things. But the play has a strange twist. The people were in fact statues which, of course, get smashed to pieces.

When I was a kid I assumed that by the year 2000 we would all have flying cars and that robots would be doing all our work. But instead of that things seem a bit the same only worse. We are not as happy as we used to be and I think things will get far worse. I feel like the statues in the play.

Hi Normanton - you might be surprised that I agree with so much that you say.

It can look as if we're heading towards a horrible polarized future controlled by gigantic faceless tech corporations who make their trillions by fostering division that leads to ever greater unrest and unhappiness in society, and we seem powerless to do anything about it. But do not despair. The future can still be better than any of imagine. I mentioned Blockchain in my first reply and it might seem an obscure thing connected with those weird things called cryptocurrencies, but this is part of an underground revolution that I hope and believe can change everything. In a decentralized future where everyone has ownership and control of their own lives and can go at their own pace. All across the world some of the planet's finest minds are working to bring this change about. It's really inspiring.

I was the junior partner on a book about decentralization earlier in the year that's still with my co-author's literary agent trying to get a publisher. I really hope she finds one soon or we'll release it ourselves. It's called The Last Train to Utopia and it brings everyone a message of hope for progress to a bright future.??

 

[Normanton Lad]

15 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

Hi Normanton - you might be surprised that I agree with so much that you say.

It can look as if we're heading towards a horrible polarized future controlled by gigantic faceless tech corporations who make their trillions by fostering division that leads to ever greater unrest and unhappiness in society, and we seem powerless to do anything about it. But do not despair. The future can still be better than any of imagine. I mentioned Blockchain in my first reply and it might seem an obscure thing connected with those weird things called cryptocurrencies, but this is part of an underground revolution that I hope and believe can change everything. In a decentralized future where everyone has ownership and control of their own lives and can go at their own pace. All across the world some of the planet's finest minds are working to bring this change about. It's really inspiring.

I was the junior partner on a book about decentralization earlier in the year that's still with my co-author's literary agent trying to get a publisher. I really hope she finds one soon or we'll release it ourselves. It's called The Last Train to Utopia and it brings everyone a message of hope for progress to a bright future.??

 

Your posts are very interesting. I suppose some would call you a futurologist. Oswald Spengler would have seen you as a Faustian par excellence. You see technology as giving us unlimited power. Unfortunately, according to Spengler, technology will not be our saviour. After a deep analysis of the main civilizations in history Spengler concluded that Faustian civilization, the term he used for Western Civilization, is finished. He predicted in 1917 that the death throes of our civilization would start around 2000. The energy and cohesiveness of our society will disappear and we will be under the control of Caesar type tyrants with no interest in democracy or constitutions. That is the pattern he saw in all the previous civilizations he looked at and he saw no reason why our civilization should be any different. Our future will be wars and increasing chaos.

Not long ago I was looking up the record of Ralph Hann. I must have seen him many times in the mid 1960s when I used to go down Sinfin Lane to watch the team train but I can't remember him. His daughter was Judith Hann who told us about our exciting future on Tomorrow's World in the 1970s. She now lives on a smallholding and I would guess her lifestyle is more like than that of a 19th century agricultural worker than any of the futuristic developments they dreamed up on Tomorrow’s World.

I did some research into what kinds of houses our 1960s town planners liked to live in and I found that although they created futuristic hive type houses for the masses they themselves preferred to live in twee old cottages in the countryside.

Blockchain seems like a very clever idea but most of us prefer the traditional to the modern. If I were in your position I would use my knowledge of this technology to make enough money to buy a smallholding in the countryside and then I would learn to live like a peasant. When the physical network goes in the coming chaos there will be no use for blockchain unless you can think of a way of using it with pigeons.

[TimRam]

Maybe the future will be like 'Wall-e' where we all end up in a motorised commode type thing. 3 screens in front of us Amazon, Facebook and YouTube. Fed by robots. Eventually just becoming one blob-like brain as other human body requirements vanish.

[ram1964]

On 17/11/2020 at 12:02, Carl Sagan said:

Aha, the third pillar of the Musk masterplan. He created Tesla and subsumed Solar City into it as a way to save the planet by accelerating the transition to sustainability. Tesla is now a decade ahead of every other car company because it combines electric vehicles with self-driving and its own global charging infrastructure.

He created SpaceX to build a Human colony on Mars to safeguard the species from extinction as much as possible. SpaceX is now a decade ahead of all its competitors and innovating far faster than any of them. They have captured the global satellite launch market that is genuinely a free market, rather than those launches protected by states for national security interests.

But Musk's biggest fear for Humanity is an AI takeover leading to our extinction and the Mars plan cannot protect against that. It protects against almost all other existential risks but not that one, because an AI Superintelligence would be focused on resource acquisition so would go after Mars and beyond (expanding across the Universe). So the reason for Neuralink is to allow Humans to merge more successfully with computers and be better placed to exercise control over advanced artificial intelligence.

What I love about Musk is he looks at the core science from first principles to evaluate what is and isn't possible. And he sees an opportunity to effectively build the next layer of the Human brain artificially to dramatically increase bandwidth. Neuralink is still in the early phase of being dismissed by conventional experts, but so were Tesla and SpaceX at the same stage. Can he pull it off yet again? The world's finest engineers all want to work for him at Tesla and SpaceX because they are building the future like no other companies. Would you rather design a tiny new portion of the next iPhone or work out how to land rockets on Mars?

Similarly, I think the world's finest young neuroscientists will move to neuralink and the mathematization of neuroscience over the last decade has made a lot of things appear possible that once would have been dismissed. Some aspects of the initial demonstration were impressive (ie reporoducing the movement of pigs simply from studying their brainwaves) but there;s a long way to go, but I would love to see it come to fruition. While I think they are secondary to the fundamental mission of the company, the possibilities to cure blindness, deafness, Parkinson's, pain, and so on, and to store dreams and memories, are all likely necessary steps along the way and would certainly be "progress" into the future.

All good stuff but will we still be able to buy snickers?

[neil62uk]

ffs  - John Logie Baird  job is safe