Musing Whether It's The End Of The Future

Peter Thiel National Review October 4, 2011

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Peter Thiel

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October 3, 2011 4:00 A.M.

When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come and see.” So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine.” (Revelation 6:5–6)

Modern Western civilization stands on the twin plinths of science and technology. Taken together, these two interrelated domains reassure us that the 19th-century story of never-ending progress remains intact. Without them, the arguments that we are undergoing cultural decay — ranging from the collapse of art and literature after 1945 to the soft totalitarianism of political correctness in media and academia to the sordid worlds of reality television and popular entertainment — would gather far more force. Liberals often assert that science and technology remain essentially healthy; conservatives sometimes counter that these are false utopias; but the two sides of the culture wars silently agree that the accelerating development and application of the natural sciences continues apace.

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Yet during the Great Recession, which began in 2008 and has no end in sight, these great expectations have been supplemented by a desperate necessity. We need high-paying jobs to avoid thinking about how to compete with China and India for low-paying jobs. We need rapid growth to meet the wishful expectations of our retirement plans and our runaway welfare states. We need science and technology to dig us out of our deep economic and financial hole, even though most of us cannot separate science from superstition or technology from magic. In our hearts and minds, we know that desperate optimism will not save us. Progress is neither automatic nor mechanistic; it is rare. Indeed, the unique history of the West proves the exception to the rule that most human beings through the millennia have existed in a naturally brutal, unchanging, and impoverished state. But there is no law that the exceptional rise of the West must continue. So we could do worse than to inquire into the widely held opinion that America is on the wrong track (and has been for some time), to wonder whether Progress is not doing as well as advertised, and perhaps to take exceptional measures to arrest and reverse any decline. The state of true science is the key to knowing whether something is truly rotten in the United States. But any such assessment encounters an immediate and almost insuperable challenge. Who can speak about the true health of the ever-expanding universe of human knowledge, given how complex, esoteric, and specialized the many scientific and technological fields have become? When any given field takes half a lifetime of study to master, who can compare and contrast and properly weight the rate of progress in nanotechnology and cryptography and superstring theory and 610 other disciplines? Indeed, how do we even know whether the so-called scientists are not just lawmakers and politicians in disguise, as some conservatives suspect in fields as disparate as climate change, evolutionary biology, and embryonic-stem-cell research, and as I have come to suspect in almost all fields? For now, let us acknowledge this measurement problem — I will return to it later — but not let it stop our inquiry into modernity before it has even begun.

II.

When tracked against the admittedly lofty hopes of the 1950s and 1960s, technological progress has fallen short in many domains. Consider the most literal instance of non-acceleration: We are no longer moving faster. The centuries-long acceleration of travel speeds — from ever-faster sailing ships in the 16th through 18th centuries, to the advent of ever-faster railroads in the 19th century, and ever-faster cars and airplanes in the 20th century — reversed with the decommissioning of the Concorde in 2003, to say nothing of the nightmarish delays caused by strikingly low-tech post-9/11 airport-security systems. Today’s advocates of space jets, lunar vacations, and the manned exploration of the solar system appear to hail from another planet. A faded 1964 Popular Science cover story — “Who’ll Fly You at 2,000 m.p.h.?” — barely recalls the dreams of a bygone age. The official explanation for the slowdown in travel centers on the high cost of fuel, which points to the much larger failure in energy innovation. Real oil prices today exceed those of the Carter catastrophe of 1979–80. Nixon’s 1974 call for full energy independence by 1980 has given way to Obama’s 2011 call for one-third oil independence by 2020. Even before Fukushima, the nuclear industry and its 1954 promise of “electrical energy too cheap to meter” had long since been defeated by environmentalism and nuclear-proliferation concerns. One cannot in good conscience encourage an undergraduate in 2011 to study nuclear engineering as a career. “Clean tech” has become a euphemism for “energy too expensive to afford,” and in Silicon Valley it has also become an increasingly toxic term for near-certain ways to lose money. Without dramatic breakthroughs, the alternative to more-expensive oil may turn out to be not cleaner and much-more-expensive wind, algae, or solar, but rather less-expensive and dirtier coal. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Next >

COMMENTS 56

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Interesting article. I think the author is essentially right but a little too pessimistic.

I think the roots of the decline are varied.

1. Regulation. It's harder to do things in the real world which I believe helped push the IT world so strongly.

2. Lack of big wars. Like it or not war seems to stimulate science. Look at the advances that came out of WWII. The developed world has been in relative peace for over 60 years. By the way I am not advocating a war to stimulate science. I will gladly take slower scientific progress over war.

3. In the last 20 or so years a lot of the best minds have been drawn into the financial industries because there was more money. That might just be reversing now.

4. A lot of low hanging fruit has been picked.

That being said, we have had some advances. Here are two.

The author mentions cancer. I cannot support this, but I believe I read somewhere that the overall survival rate for cancer was about 20% in the 70's and is now over 60%. We have not cured it but we have slowed it drastically.

Nuclear power. We have not been building new plants but designers have been at work. There are now designs for much more efficient fast neutron reactors. Fast neutron was a problem in the past partly because part of the fuel cycle resulted in weapons grade material. A smart guy recently fixed that. Fast neutron is about 9 or 10 times more efficient than slow neutron that we mostly use today producing dramatically less waste, a large portion of which can be reprocessed into new fuel rods.

I think we may be in a lull but I don't think we are down and out. One byproduct of the IT revolution is the much easier transfer of knowledge in all fields. One byproduct of this economic downturn is that a lot of people are going back to school and getting a lot more technical degrees.

I think it is possible that we might just see a real explosion of progress in the not to distant future especially if we can get a handle on the regulation.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse Mr. Integrity : 10/03/11 17:25

The worry for me is that certain groups seem to relish a return to a nature "red in tooth and claw." The idea that we are simply ignoring science because of politics is true, but misleading, and an effect of both sides.

To use medicine as an example, yes, medical advancements are severely slowed because of a complex and overly-cautious FDA. This is true, but misleading, and only part of the fact: While that may slow the progress of individual medications, what grinds to a near standstill is the idea that when there is more money to be made by treating than by curing, then treating is the way to go.

Progress is slowed by people who have too much "invested" in money or in philosophy in the status quo.

I want to move towards the future, not merely continued stagnation overseen by two self-serving enterprises. We need a plan, on either side, that advances beyond "Beat the Other Guy[s]".

Unfortunately for our society, beating the other guys is just so much fun. And certainly so much easier than doing what is actually needed, but much harder and a lot less fun.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse Widening Gyre : 10/03/11 16:24

Quote: "We need high-paying jobs to avoid thinking about how to compete with China and India for low-paying jobs."

Last time I checked, "we" were competing against persons from India and China right here in the USA, for admission to science programs and those high-paying jobs.

And, two of the three times I was called to jury duty while living in a tech area of California (years ago), a person from Asia (now a US citizen) requested to be dismissed because he was too busy at his tech company to serve on a jury (the judge let each of them go, more likely because the person's command of English was a bit deficient).

And, while interviewing for one of those high-paying jobs at a company located in Cupertino, California (1985 or so, and it wasn't Apple), I was asked to provide the name of a person from India among my references. I refused, and later located the (Taiwanese) person who quit that job. It seems that he was concerned that the Indian boss was trying to replace the Taiwanese with Indians.

Folks, may I suggest that one reason for the growth in "studies" departments, and in government jobs, is that they are places of refuge? I blame private industry. Think about that.

I am sure many readers know of immigrant couples from India or China, where one of them (usually the mother) takes out US citizenship to ensure that they stay, and the other (usually the father) does not take out US citizenship, partly to avoid the duties of citizenship, and partly so that the children are dual citizens. You never know when going back to India or China might come in handy, especially if your only concern with the US is for it to send in the military if your company gets in a jam.

I shouldn't complain. After thinking about it, I discovered that due to a fluke of law, I can be recognized as a citizen of Italy (and thus EU) without losing my born-here US citizenship (so says the US Supreme Court). Maybe I'll do it. And that remands me: If Herman Cain is so upset about the N-word on a rock in Texas, I want him to know that's I'm upset about a pizza joint named "Godfather's."

Back to science: Seems to me that a lot of it is totally useless and very expensive. What do I care about subatomic particles, stellar atmospheres, and the like? While the conservatives are busy complaining about the national Endowment for the Arts, let them start by abolishing the National Science Foundation. Fund research privately! You like private, don't you?

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse vitalcenter : 10/03/11 15:52

This is one of the best commentaries I've read in a long time and it completely hits the mark. Other than information technology, progress has stalled on all other fronts, including politically and culturally.

I'm also intrigued by Thiel's remark "I wonder whether the endless fake cultural wars around identity politics are the main reason we have been able to ignore the tech slowdown for so long." Perhaps, but social conservatives are just as much to blame for this as the "politically correct" left. The religious right is the conservative variation of identity politics and the right wing expression of the idea that the "personal is political."

Which is why it's time, as Mitch Daniels suggests, to give the culture war a rest and focus on the economy and innovation (or as my libertarian father calls it, the "important stuff").

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse James Pierce, Jr. : 10/03/11 15:27

A couple of small points.

While others have noted the negative impact of regulation on the economy, I would add another point. Mr. Thiel drew the analogy between the start of wage stagnation and the quadrupling of petroleum prices in the early 70s. I believe that one should look as well to the the fact that major regulatory initiatives occurred at that time as well.

1971 saw the creation of OSHA for the oversight of industrial workplace safety (and the subsequent creation of MESA, which became MSHA in 1977, in 1973 to oversee mining).

1972 brought the Clean Water Act and with that the explosion of environmental compliance regulation.

In my opinion these are far more responsible for the flight of manufacturing overseas and the decline in 'blue collar' jobs/income.

The desire for safe work places and a clean environment is understandable. However the excesses of environmental protection/mitigation have drastically increased the costs of production. Increasingly this is coupled with little to no gain in actual health, safety, or environmental quality.

Secondly, it was of interest to note the reference to the hippies of the 60s in the final paragraphs as current decision makers. My brother and his wife attended a town hall meeting on the expansion of the San Juan Wilderness area in SW Colorado. His comment on returning was that all of the supporters of the expansion in attendance were 'upscale hippies.' Well dressed in expensive casual/outdoor clothing and discussing the rafting trips, etc. that they had recently enjoyed. Very antithetical to mining and other productive activities.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse SukieTawdry : 10/03/11 14:55

Interesting read, Mr. Thiel, but I think I'll file your "End of the Future" in the drawer with Fukuyama's "End of History."

Love your service!

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse roboturkey : 10/03/11 14:27

I have read this column twice now. I suggest that PT's premise is pretty thoroughly explained in his first few graphs when he bemoans the intensity of study it takes to master, or even be aware of the complexity of a given field. THis tends to make developments within a technological field invisible until a practical application is brought to the public.

I would submit that the rampaging progress in biogenetic engineering, robotics, electronics, and medical technology is actually accelerating That it is happening "in the wings" so to speak, is a function of the casual observer's lack of access to a view of the cutting edge.

For a good example of applied technology on the move, I would only point to dentistry, a field in which the accoutrements of a US dental clininc in 2011 would be incomprehensible to a pracicing DDS 20 years ago.

So goes everything else. Perhaps PT needs to changes his periodical subscriptions to include some good survey periodicals of his favorite fields. THe pace of development is breathtaking, as is the pace of change filtering through society.

One of the main factors contributing to complaints that science and technology just don't seem to be doing anything is that common malady: O-L-D.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse C_Taylor : 10/03/11 13:41

It is much easier to determine the state of progress or decay of science. The root of all science is the rejection of "appeal to authority" in favor of the of replicated experimental results with no regard for the political connections or prestige of the experimenter. One of the famous examples is when a pamphlet of 100 notables condemning Einstein's theories on physics was published he supposedly commented "If I were wrong, one would be enough." All the progress in increasing our body of knowledge and the accuracy of our understanding of the universe and developing tools to allow us to engineer the world to better suit us... that is the fruit of the tree. But if you kill the root then eventually you lose the rest. You don't need to be an expert in all or even one scientific field... Just ask yourself a few questions: Are the questions about scientific theories answered with less regard to the popularity of the men who propose them or more. Are they answered with less regard for the political expediency of the answer or more? Are experiments and data being made more open and accessible with others encouraged to test and replicate them, or are they more hidden away and obscured by a priesthood who just insist that others trust them because they are smart, credentialed 'scientists?'

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse carlosincal : 10/03/11 12:50

All you have to do is look at how the stimulus was spent. All that money could have gone to modernize our infrustructure - but instead we get cash for clunkers, solyndra, and road signs commemorating the stimulus.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse Vader : 10/03/11 12:43

Students interested in science, engineering, and mathematics are dismissed by their peers as geeks or nerds. Activities that cater to their interests, such as chess clubs, astronomy clubs, or science fairs, scramble for funding, while the football team has relatively little trouble finding funding for equipment and playing space.

Everyone knows who is playing in the Superbowl. I doubt more than 10% of the population can tell you who won the last Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, or medicine or the Field Medal in mathematics.

We have sent a clear message to our kids on what is admirable and importnat and what is not. And they have listened.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse moonunit30 : 10/03/11 12:10

Alvin Tofler Mr. Theil is NOT. True story here: This last Saturday I had a leaky garbage disposal. I Googled 'leaky garbage disposal' and within minutes I completely diagnosed my problem, went to Lowe's and SOLVED the problem with a new unit (yes, that was necessary) within three hours. I wouldn't call myself Mr. Fixit, but that's the point, isn't it? In this one inconsequential episode, I quickly and efficiently used information to take care of an issue that 3/4 of the world doesn't even HAVE yet. How great is THAT?

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse carlosincal : 10/03/11 13:00

I told this young girl mopping the floor at Carl's that she looked like Winona Ryder. So she pulls out her ipod to find out who that is and what she looks like. A couple of seconds later she responds, "Edward Scissorhands!"

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse Bob Sacamento : 10/03/11 11:56

"Moore's Law, which predicted a doubling of the number of transistors that can be packed onto a computer chip every 18 to 24 months, has remained broadly true for much longer than anyone (including Moore) would have imagined back in 1965."

I probably shouldn't add more water to the wet blanket, but in an important sense, we slipped below Moore's Law almost a decade ago and there doesn't seem to be any chance of getting back up to it. Moore's Law in terms of the number of transistors you can put on a chip continues to hold. Chips are still getting bigger and more complex. But, early on, Moore's Law was recast into a statement about how fast computer CPUs could get. CPU speed leveled out maybe seven years ago and the increase in speed since then has been only incremental. Sorry.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse Mike Puckett : 10/03/11 13:08

Graphene:

External Link

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse Bob Sacamento : 10/03/11 14:18

Well, fingers crossed, then.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse Albigensian : 10/03/11 11:35

Technological progress is surely continuing, but not at the pace it was in the 20th century. And it may not do so for some time.

In the space of sixty years or so there were: automobiles, airplanes, electricity, telephones, radio, movies, central heating, vaccinations (other than smallpox). It took some time for these to become commonplaces, but arguably the aggregate changes wrought by these are not going to be topped anytime soon.

That's not to say that semiconductor technologies, and the computer revolution they enabled, are insignificant. Or that biotechnology does not have the potential to produce revolutionary changes. But for now, technical improvements seem to be mostly incremental and are simply not of the same order as those introduced in the 20th century.

Perhaps technology will save us. But then again, perhaps it won't. It could be that there will be no replacement for petroleum, and while decline in oil production can be postponed it cannot be postponed forever. It could be that the low-hanging fruit has been picked, and true technological breakthroughs on a level of those introduced in the 20th century will not occur for centuries, if ever.

In the meantime, the pace has surely slowed. And it seems wise to have a "plan B" that assumes it will continue to do so- even if more money is invested in it.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse The Raven : 10/03/11 11:33

You should take a hard look at how we have organized ourselves as a people ... Every one of us is entitled to a good living wage, and to hear the Libs describe it, that is something well north of the minimum wage.

Even in this protracted slowdown, with 14 million unemployed and perhaps 50 million underemployed, you still hear cries to liberalize the immigration laws to legitimize the low skilled labour force we have imported to do the jobs that Americans won't do. in India you still have vast armies of very low wage earners manually cutting grass ... In the USA it's one guy with a riding mower. So what do you do with the rest of the labour force that either could not or simply would not upgrade the skills to function at a higher level of economic activity?

Travel slowed down and space exploration ended due to political will, not a deceleration in technological advance. Medical advances are slowing because people have been promised and now expect free health care.

The problem is not a lack of progress ... It is a lack of will. A lack of will to work and pay for the progress we have all taken for granted.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse Matt B : 10/03/11 16:06

Couple comments- 1. I'm not sure anyone is "entitled" to a good living wage. Everyone is certainly entitled to pursue it.

2. Creating more efficient work practices has always given rise to the concern that we'll put people out of work. However, we always seem to find better ways to utilize talents of every kind, and increase demand for workers (growth in job market), so creating a swath of unemployed "lower achievers" should not be a problem, if people are willing to work at it. In otherwords, if someone is chronically unemployed, their is likely a reason to be found within that person themselves.

3. Travel slowing down is both a technological and an economic reality, even if we'd rather not admit it. Supersonic or transonic air travel? Very costly because of fuel, maintenance, training, not to mention designing/producing the technological components themselves. The level of difficulty is very high. Even with our best aerospace tech we have today, not enough people "want" or "need" to travel that fast to make it worth doing from a business standpoint. The Concorde was supported by government money for a long time before the plug was pulled. We really don't have much better technology than that even now (though perhaps fuel use would be ~10% lower, but that would still not make it affordable).

Land travel- similar problems (note the high-speed rail systems, where employed, are not really making money).

So, from my viewpoint, not lack of will but rather lack of need (we don't have a good reason to go fast) has limited our travel technology advancements. Safety has improved quite a bit in the last several decades, however (autos and aircraft). But the function and speed of cars and planes has not changed.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse The Raven : 10/03/11 16:45

I was trying to be sardonic ... It is a a widespread sense of entitlement that is a big part of the problem, as it leads a large number of underachievers to believe they should have the fruits of someone else's amours.

Maybe you don't need to get somewhere so fast, but I cross the Atlantic at least a dozen times a year, and it gets quite tedious and even painful by hour 10.

Finally, the slowdown in the leap of technology is keeping us chained to this rock in a very real and species-limiting sense. Consider that the asteroid Apophis is predicted to pass Earth within twenty thousand miles or so with a error factor of roughly 2 Earth diameters in 2036. Maybe we will be hit, maybe not, but you can't escape the fact that we have no plan B. We worry about the possible effects of climate change over the next two centuries, but have no worries it seems about a far more real danger. Lack of will, I tell you.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse MRippin : 10/03/11 11:32

Not to distract from an otherwise erudite debate, but I must point out:

The Sabbath in the THIRD Commandment. #4 is honoring your parents.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse River : 10/03/11 17:34

No, the Sabbath is the fourth. #3 is not taking the Lord's name in vain. Honoring parents is #5. Sorry to extend the tangent.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse lemnos philoctetes : 10/03/11 12:44

Good point. But it is Monday night for me.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse The Hammer : 10/03/11 15:19

I respect your ability to self-reflect and to accept yourself.

That's my nice comment to you for the day.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse UpNorthOutWest : 10/03/11 11:22

Grim but interesting article. One would think the hope for America at least is the development of its own energy sources -- not inefficient expenditures on "green energy" that are really just crony capitalism in disguise, but true all-of-the-above energy development with an emphasis on the kinds of energy that actually drive our economy - oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear. Is there anyone anymore who makes an argument against this? Even far-left eco-nuts seem to acknowledge that sending billions of dollars to regimes that don't have our best interests in mind for our energy doesn't make sense. But the eco-nuts want us to pour trillions into green energies that aren't market competitive or efficient. Like everything else, improvements in this sector will come as the market demands them, as emphasis and investment is placed in the field in general.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse QBeamus : 10/03/11 11:00

Supply-side economics is the opposite of Keynsianism. Macroeconomic theory is completely dominated by demand-side concerns. The default assumption is that all economic slow-downs are the result of people getting fearful and hoarding their money. The very name, "supply side," denotes recognition of the fact that the primary driver of economic growth in America has historically been improvements in productivity. And, of course, technological innovation is one of the primary forces behind that improved productivity.

As for the slow-down in medical research, speaking as a professional patent attorney, I can tell you that a primary driver of that has been growing hostility to allowing private companies to profit from their investments in research. The law has been steadily eroding the effective length of a pharmaceutical patent, and pushes for changes to the law like drug re-importation threaten to effectively eliminate drug patents entirely. The last company in the world that invested significant amounts of private capital into pharmaceutical research is winding down those operations; the new model for pharmaceutical companies is to harvest discoveries that happen on the public dime, at universities, through acquisition.

In other words, the function of drug companies is no longer to discover new drugs--it's to shepherd drugs through the regulatory nightmare of the FDA. We even passed a law (Hatch-Waxman) that gives them a 5 year patent for doing it. Whether they contributed anything to the discovery of that drug is completely irrelevant.

No doubt our spectacularly aweful education system, which has been completely conquerred by the teachers' unions, is a contributing factor to stagnation in science and technology. But different systems produce different outcomes. It is no coincidence that the decline in technological innovation has happened along side of the rise of the regulatory nany-state.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse billkapes : 10/03/11 10:54

As an electrical engineer I would have to disagree with the premise that there is a technological slowdown. Science and technology are progressing well, however, as a society how we are allowing technology to be used has changed. As others have noted, much of what science and technology is capable of offering has been "refused" by a Government held captive to powerful anti-technology special interests. The environmental movement has evolved from a force for good, advocating clean air and water, to an "anti-technology" religion desperately trying to roll back the clock in "worship" of mother nature. The counter culture of the 60's has become the establishment of today. It is those in power today who don't understand technology and have strangled its implementation through oppressive regulations.

Historically this is not new. There have always been those who fight progress, and almost always this is done out of fear and ignorance. It is especially ironic, however, that those fighting progress the hardest, label themselves "Progressive", perhaps trying to use rhetoric to inoculate themselves against their own anti-technology positions.

Science continually progresses as it builds on past knowledge. Our knowledge is on a forward march, however, our will to apply that knowledge to solve problems has waned. I think that this is because, as a society, we can not agree on what the problems are in specific terms. We can agree on symptoms (bad economy, increasing health care costs, etc) but there are fundamental disagreements over the root causes since everything is seen through the prism of politics. In engineering, the first step in solving a problem is identifying the root cause, and this must be done based on facts and a scientific assessment of the issues surrounding the problem.

There have been no shortages of amazing technological and scientific accomplishment over the last few decades, and as an engineer I see many more on the horizon. Our ability to translate these breakthroughs into the kind of fundamental changes that people readily recognize is hampered greatly by the dichotomy in society today. I find it perverse that those on the left that most loudly trumpet their "support" of science, are precisely those who understand it the least and have regulated it down to the point where we are in gridlock. Unfortunately there are too few in Washington who have the slightest clue about the application of technology to solve today's problems. Simple concepts like energy density seem beyond their grasp so they look to "feel good" solutions, rather than the best technical solutions. There is also an incredible arrogance of "we know what is best" at work on the left, while on the right we tend to acknowledge that the genius of the marketplace is in the collective wisdom of millions of discrete decisions. The market can only function optimally when the heavy hand of Government is not trying to steer it.

There is much more to write on this, but this post is already too long, and more than most would care to read.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse JTand80007 : 10/03/11 15:53

billkapes,

You seem quite convinced that the political right has a monopoly on technical literacy. There should be room for a legitimate debate within society on the role of technology without one side accusing the other of being luddites. The correlation between technological progress and the self-reported well being of US citizens is not so strong anymore. The risks we are taking with the current uncontrolled experiment of our impact on our environment are worth considering against what seems to be a blind pursuit of "progress."

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse WalkingHorse : 10/03/11 12:14

I don't have any fundamental disagreement with your take, "billkapes". As you rightly state, what we have is the bulk of society acting in fear of innovation/change, while the historically tiny fraction of humanity that creates labors in isolation. The widespread adoption of innovations is seriously inhibited by the waste of capital in quixotic quests to purchase votes with other people's money.

Robert A. Heinlein offered what is arguably the best summation: "Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded "” here and there, now and then "” are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as 'bad luck'."

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse rimfrel : 10/03/11 12:10

I agree that we are not particularly united in our views of what the problems are, and that those in DC (for instance) are relatively clueless about science. Root cause identification would certainly help a lot in providing a common basis for discussion of potential solutions.

I'll submit as a root cause the general self indulgence of our nation. Many of us (myself included) like the toys that we see offered for sale, and the tolerance that lets us get away with many things that used to be considered reprehensible. This self indulgence also drives an unwillingness to pay attention to what the government is doing, as long as they aren't killing people or taking "too much" money from our personal paychecks. Why worry about that when Chaz Bono is on Dancing With The Stars? When we actually elected a black President? And these things could happen, I think, without impacting the economy, but the economy is impacted by our unwillingness to get involved with politics. Perhaps we just feel we have more influence on the outcome of DWTS than on an election.

It's only progress if it gets you closer to where you want to go.

Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse Dudeman : 10/03/11 10:29

No mention of the coming robotics revolution, which is being driven by military research just like DARPA and the Internet. Robotics will fundamentally change all menial work.

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