Perhaps the cycles of humanity are necessary to keep us alive. After all, intelligence and tool use isn't a prerequisite for survival. Bacteria will out live us all.
Unfortunately the limiting mechanisms are unpredictable. For example, look at how far we progressed in the sixties and seventies in many different ways.
Thirty years later:
-Still no cure for cancer.
-Still using 100 year old technology to power our automobiles.
-Still using 100 year old technology to bring power into our homes.
-Kids are still being told that the exact same technologies that I was told to expect in grade school are just "five years away!"
-Schools are still teaching outdated fifty year old models of chemistry even though quantum physics has radically changed our understanding of the "stuff" of the universe.
It's almost as if as a group we stopped to watch TV and forgot to start again.
I'm not trying to diminish the digital age mind you, but wouldn't it be nice to at least have a space station run by a private company instead of by (for all intents and purposes) the military? Wouldn't it be nice to save up for a vacation in orbit instead of a cruise ship where you'll probably get sick from ingesting fecal coliform from someone's unwashed hands? Wouldn't it be nice to have supersonic flights again since the sonic boom problem has been solved (at least in wind tunnels) for years? These aren't fancies of sci-fi authors. They're eminently doable with reasonable amounts of resources.
About Me
- R.
- I'm a househusband and stay-at-home dad. What I need are more attentions of the amorous variety. What I get are more entries on the honey-do list. I take stuff apart to see how it works. Sometimes it still works when I put it all back together again.
3 comments:
I suppose you can see the glass as half empty. But 30 years is a mere blink of the eye in history.
Pfft. The glass isn't even perceivably wet. We haven't come close to reaching our potential as a species. All the crabs are pulling back the crabs trying to climb out of the gravity well.
In the eye of history yes. I mean sure it has been a long strange trip since amoeba first appeared.
When compared to the amazing progress made over the course of the previous thirty years though, no. We can keep going. The species isn't tired. People are still blowing each other up and fighting over Sky Gods; we still have juice left.
Somewhere, somehow, human kind needs to keep pushing out. The future is so close I can smell it. For us Americans the future keeps being tripped up by the usual bureaucratic power struggles. It can't happen here. Elsewhere, who knows?
It's quite maddening to read MIT and CalTech press reports about the things they're coming up with and have them disappear without a trace because the projects are either military funded or no one has the talent and power to make them commercially viable.
Interesting note that scientists have observed that Chimpanzees share man's tendency to fight not just to defend territory or protect one's family, but for the desire to dominate.
Don't expect intellect to overcome instinct over night.
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