Waiting for the lights to go out
POSTED BY: citizen
UPDATED: Monday, May 27, 2024 15:33
VIEWED: 2329
PAGE 1 of 3
I saw this article a little while ago in the Sunday Times but it's taken me this long to find a web address for it, I've got the article here (that's where the image is from), but didn't want to type it up myself, it's a little long.
Quote:
We've taken the past 200 years of prosperity for granted. Humanity's progress is stalling, we are facing a new era of decay, and nobody is clever enough to fix it. Is the future really that black, asks Bryan Appleyard
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-1813695,00.html
What do you think?
Personally I believe advancement of technology is increasing, while innovation is dropping.
Do you agree, why do you think this is?
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
For the same reason there's only one movie like Serenity, while mindless comedies and garbage like Sith abound: Assured profitability is the main thing in sight. Innovation does not guarrantee this, improvement in proven products with a niche does.
Computer control of the workforce will also advance computer technology without necessitating innovation.
Chrisisall
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Oh innovation isn't dead, it's just relocating.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Personally I believe advancement of technology is increasing, while innovation is dropping.
Do you agree, why do you think this is?
I think you're right...but even the technology is frequently held back,
by powerful corporations that stifle competition
or the laws of many countries which restrict experimentation...
would we have flying cars by now if the car manufacturers & oil companies didn't discourage non fossil fuels?
And if the government wasn't quite so careful about 'air space'...(for public safety)
it does seem like it is harder to get new ideas a chance to develop
personally I've always wanted that flying car.
**********************************************
watch the R. Tam Session vids: http://www.hittarivertam.nu/
and buy the 'Serenity' comics published by Dark Horse,
and have you joined the Browncoats yet?
http://browncoats.serenitymovie.com/serenity/?fuseaction=tools.invlink
&u=embers&linkID=36
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Dreamtrove:
What do you mean?
Everyone else:
Innovation is the unknown. The unknown is bad for business, so I think Capitalism has a share in the responsibility here.
Companies know that X will make them money so they flog X to death and refine it to the point of stupidity, but Y they don't know about, so Y is risky, it may cost them so they leave it alone...
Edit: Edited for exceptionally poor grammar and spelling, what, I've had my Sunday beer, leave me alone 
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Citizen, you're copying what I said, except, well, you said it more better than I.
Originally posted by citizen:
Innovation is the unknown. The unknown is bad for buissness, so I think Capitalism is has a share in the responcibility here.
Companies know that X will make them money so the flog X to death and refine it to the point of stupidity, but Y they don't know about, so Y is risky, it may cost them so they leave it alone...
Chrisisall, mumbling incoherently...
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Yep, I guess we agree here 
.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Innovation is accellerating to new dazzling heights, but in different areas.
No one is out there craving for new types of consumer goods and household conveniences. The sci-fi vision that the kitchen debate of the 60s would perpetuate into the future to the robo-household is just not the direction innovation took.
The new levels are in advancement within whole new fields with no personal appliance application. The few that pop up, like iPod, are irrellevent, but clearly, this is what's pictured, so this person is in the kitchen debate mindset.
Here's where innovation is now:
1. Programming. Internet and office automation, etc.
2. Biotech. Bear in mind that the medical advances of the last couple of decades exceed all of history that come before them.\
3. New ways to do old things. Recently there have been dozens of advancements in alternative fuel cars, non-fatal alternatives to guns, etc. The typical even most advanced M16s and AK47s are really not that different in mechanism to the blunderbus, but things are definitely changing.
4. Transportation, new types of trains, planes, spaceships.
5. Other countries, particularly Japan, Korea, are taking the lead. Only when product come to market from those may the west even know they exist. I was once in the Seiko Inc. lab, and the number of products they had under construction there that had not yet even been leaked to the western press.
So, it may look like innovation is dead, but it's not. Mainstream America is dying, and quickly. But the spirit lives on. I mean seriously, what would you expect from a society that thinks the 21st century is a time to start rolling back evolution for creationisms and the mad rantings of a lunatic in 14th century BC.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I'm not sure Dreamtrove.
Computers haven't seen a major innovation since the x80 IBM produced in 1980, and the basic core design hasn't changed since Charles Babbage. Programming hasn't changed since the introduction of the Object Oriented Paradigm with C++ in the 80's either.
Similarly all the technologies of the internet have been around since the 60's, nothing new there.
Planes, trains spaceships, again, nothing new, just refinement of old tech.
Quote:
Originally posted by Dreamtrove:
I mean seriously, what would you expect from a society that thinks the 21st century is a time to start rolling back evolution for creationisms and the mad rantings of a lunatic in 14th century BC.
I have to agree with you there
.More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
mmhmm.
We do seem to be stuck. Refinement and specialization seem to be the thing to do these days. Innovation went out with the craft-matic adjustable bed...
www.thatweirdgirl.com
---
"...turn right at the corner then skip two blocks...no, SKIP, the hopping-like thing kids do...Why? Why not?"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME