MIT Has Predicted that Society Will Collapse in 2040

submitted by EthnocratArcheofuturist from self.debatealtright

sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Forget about the future, where's our current day Newton?

There are probably people smarter than Newton in STEM nowadays. The thing is that there are no low-hanging fruits left. All the relatively easy pickings: laws of gravitation, elasticity, laws of magnetism, etc were picked by 1900. The scientific advances in the 20th century were much harder and required much more effort by contrast(quantum mechanics, relativity, genetic engineering).

The more science progresses, the harder innovations and breakthroughs become. You see few major breakthroughs or inventions nowadays. In the last 20 years, most progress has been in the pursuit of improving or updating existing tech. This is despite the immense amount of money, manpower, and institutional push behind STEM nowadays.

There is little room for any major breakthrough in physics now. The fruits are too high up the tree and too difficult to grasp. Despite 100 years of effort by the world's greatest minds, no unified field theory has yet come about. No one knows how what's inside a black hole, why time moves forward, or how to achieve interstellar travel or faster than light travel.

The field of electronics has seen a massive revolution in the last 50 years but the limits to that may be on the horizon. TSMC is attempting to make 1nm chips, can chips be shrunk any more than that? Wouldn't quantum effects make further shrinkage impossible?

What would come next after quantum computers?

Nothing has really come out of AGI.

IMO, the field where there's real potential for revolution is genetic engineering, cybernetics, and life extension.

China is throwing the fight on genetic engineering by banning human genetic modification. East Asian propensity for hyper caution. The west is throwing away human genetic engineering due to nonsensical attachment to humanism, equality, and other remnants from Christianity.

India subscribes to the same humanist nonsense.

Russia and Japan are interesting candidates in this field. But Russia's technological prowess in lackluster and Japan is hyper-cautious as well.

[–]CarlDungCrypto-fascist and eugenicist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The more science progresses, the harder innovations and breakthroughs become.

True, albeit it is a vague possibility, that it is the sheer amount of progressive politics that weight down our societies. In agrarian societies around 75% of population was tied to food production. After industrialization it was something like 2% of population. Our problem is that the freed manpower is not used wisely. They are only seldom producing something of value.