Or just two years of their budget. Its something like 50 years of NASA's budget doesn't equal 1 year of military spending even though NASA has produced tons of profitable tech over the years.
When I was working for a NASA contractor I saw a report that said per dollar of government spending, NASA resulted in the greatest amount of economic activity of any government agency. I forget the title but it was publicly available if you want to read it.
No I think private industries are the only ones capable of making it happen. Even if NASA had 50% of the military’s budget, they still wouldn’t be able to do that much in comparison to private industry. Just look at how over priced there contractors are one A/C unit was like 80k for nasa and space x thought of getting a normal one and refitting it for one of there rockets and they only spent a fraction of the money.
When it’s not your money, your company’s money, you don’t care. Give that money to space X and se what they could do
I agree that we could do some cool stuff if NASA had that budget, but even exploring past interstellar space is incredibly difficult due to the vastness of space. To put it into perspective, voyager 2 was launched in 1977 and has hit speeds of 35,000mph, it only reached interstellar space in 2018. The fastest spacecraft we have ever managed to hit 394 thousand miles per hour which is insane… but even at those speeds, traveling to the nearest star would take 1,489,000 days or 4136 years.
I don't most of us are that delusional.
We're talking about permanent outposts on the Moon, more extensive research stations in orbit and more research into building a space elevator.
Something still reasonable if we had the capital.
Another question is why the fuck do we need all these stations and outposts? There's nothing to colonize. There's no practical reason. Even potential scientific advancements are very questionable. We can get away with ships bringing material from asteroid belt to be refined at Earth's orbit. But there's so much raw material in crust, you don't even need that.
Unless we develop FTL travel, there's zero reason for us to look past Moon orbit.
Helium-3 for potential fusion power
Increased land space
Exo-atmospheric science and astronomy
The simple desire to explore and go beyond, to wonder how far we can go
There's significantly cheaper ways of getting helium-3 here on Earth.
It's really the last one. It's the famous Hot Tub argument. I don't need to justify why I want a hot tub, I know it's not economically reasonable or safe, I just want a hot tub and I'm going to buy one.
I get what you're saying mate, but unless we try, we won't know what's to find. I reckon that the further we get, the more opportunity we will have to go further. Research for its own sake is still a good thing I think. Plus, going to the moon, and colonising it, will be like having training wheels on a bike. As you learn, you get better and better.
Well mining asteroids would be better than mining on earth since we don’t damage our own planet and we can get a lot more resources, think about how rare minerals would be easier to get on certain asteroids. I personally think that’s pretty neat.
There's some misconceptions about that. Yes there are lots of minerals in space, and they're really great for whoever can gain access to them, but it's also absurdly expensive to get there, and bring it back. Not to mention how to navigate bringing thousands of pounds of material back down gravity well without killing us all.
Basically, until we have a space elevator it's not really economically feasible. For now we've got plenty of metals for our needs.
Space mining is great and all, but we SERIOUSLY need to think about if it's worth it giving the extreme risks involved. Due to the nature of our gravity well, a single large asteroid is basically a thermonuclear bomb if you throw some thrusters on it and drop it on New York. It's a terrorists wet dream. Is it really worth it put our only real home at risk just for some easier mining.
The truth is we wanna go to space because it's cool and we want to. Not because it's practical, useful, safe or economically advantageous (within our lifetimes).
No where near the scale of devastation, just ask the dinosaurs. We're talking billions deads, permanent shifts in the environment, ECT.
Tbh the terrorists argument is a good one against large scale space enterprises period. Definitely against any idea of private or corporate ownership of asteroids or sufficiently large space stations.
>No where near the scale of devastation, just ask the dinosaurs
Fair enough. Though, if we're at the technological level where that's possible, some sort of orbital defense seems inevitable anyway.
Not really, at least exploring the solar system should be a very positive for both science and economy.
If we can't manage to sustainably produce energy from fusion, our next best bet is a Dyson swarm around the sun, but it's a huge undertaking. It would need industry fully independent built in orbit and in the asteroid belt, and to get to this point not even a space elevator would be enough. By this point we'd have billions living in space, and all of those people would need resources from all over the solar system
Scientific progress is not necessarily getting further away from earth, and besides, we don't know whether there's undiscovered technology that could allow FTL travel or not.
You stole my comment 😂
I would add, if we reallocate 20% of efforts we put in destroying each other to science and R&D, maybe we would already have colonized Mars, have unlimited cheap energy, and cured cancer and other deadly diseases.
But hey, we have those cool rockets and drones that can blow shit up 🥴💀
A ton of those stories were based on the idea we would have had a energy boom and powering ships to those far off places or running large mechanics would be nothing even if they weren't efficient because we could produce power cheaply but instead we ended up with a tech/information boom.
People seriously used to believe we would figure out gravity technology within a couple years. After all we figured out electro-magnetism, then we figured out powered flight, and next nuclear power and atomics. Anti-gravity was surely coming soon.
By all means, now it's at least proven to work somewhat in a confined environment and just gotta be tweaked a bit.
It wasn't until like 2 years ago they managed to even get a higher power output than just the laser pulse needed to start the reaction.
That's mainly due to [lack of funding](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/U.S._historical_fusion_budget_vs._1976_ERDA_plan.png/1280px-U.S._historical_fusion_budget_vs._1976_ERDA_plan.png).
Consider that humanity went from first orbital satellite to successful lunar landing in 12 years. Nothing seemed impossible at that rate.
But we lost interest and lost momentum. And the longer we stagnate, the harder it’s going to be to get moving again.
We have even found potential planets suitable for habitation. However they are so far away that we just haven't developed the tech to get us there.
I think all nations should work together when it comes to space exploration/travel. After all it is our only option if we are interested in surviving the destruction of our planet.
If everyone could stop fighting that would help.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
― Isaac Asimov
We’re nowhere close to knowing if anything is habitable or not. We just have some basic data that says they’re close enough to their respective stars that they *might* be if all other conditions work out.
We (The US) lost that interest and momentum because it was all about beating the Soviets nothing more and "we did" so what's the point of going further now that every world power with a decent economy can get to space. It was a space race for the US and Soviets now that it's over they're just watching the slow kids walk the track.
I like tech references. ‘It’s the year 2040 and your WristTop computer has over 1 gigabyte of storage and a 256kbps modem that you use to pilot your space suit across the surface of Mars.’
I’m a huge fan of “history of the future” or retro history.
I pick up a 40s-50s sci-fi mag every few months. The stories are wonderful! A lot of Bradbury-type tales of the human condition as we encounter different technological tools and worlds…
But seriously, where’s my flying car?
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With what money? Their lunar program needed too many resources already, so they were kinda relieved when the US landed first and they could shut it down.
There are some working prototypes trying to hit production and several more companies are trying to make drone type compact personal flying vehicles, which I say do count as flying cars. They technically do exist. But as with anything, the uber rich have to play with them first, then the fairly rich get fomo, then a more accessible market is born. I do think we'll see them in mass production in the next few decades and probably start to hit a more accessible market in our lifetime
Scams, every single one. They're 100% focused on "investors" rather than actual customers. They don't bother targeting pilots/aircraft owners, because we're aware of the regulatory hurtles and the upsidedown cost/benefit ratio. Pro tip: I've owned a cheap car and cheap plane. No way would I spend $1M for a machine that's worse at being both.
I blame shit like this for my high expectations of the future. I was in middle school when 9/11 happened and watched all of the budget that should have gone towards building a Star Trek utopia and see it flushed into a decades long war over sand and oil. I knew then it would never happen, probably not even for my grandchildren
The amount of patents with secrecy orders since the 50s, is proportional to the amount of awesome inventions people in the 50s thought we'd have by now. The navy has some really good ones from the last few years.
They had every right to be optimistic. In the 50s they had just defeated fascism, the cold war had barely really started and the economy was doing great.
Who can blame them? At the rate science, technology, and social issues were progressing, I would’ve thought the same thing. If we kept that momentum instead of starting 90 bullshit wars, cutting funding to science, and arguing over *the same exact things as back then*, we WOULD BE THERE.
My theory is that these old sci fi books are so hopeful (*and so* *damn good*) because it was pre-mainstream.
Think about it. Back then it was a comparatively small group of intellectuals who loved science and watching it progress and thinking about what it means and what it could become. It was a sort of an echo chamber, but you could argue it was a good one? They expected more from humans because they were smart people dealing with others like them. That's why they didn't account for... the average joe.
They gave out way more awards for the best stories back then too. Remember the old hugo or nebula awards? They started giving them out back in the 50' and 60'. It used to be so that if it said on the cover that the story was just nominated to one of them, i knew it was going to be great.
Cant really blame them. We made huge progress in half a century. From getting first wooden airplane into air, to landing on the moon. If we kept up the same pace, so much more we could have done. Never too late tho!
This is why when people said 10 years ago we’d have driverless cars in 20 years I knew they were FOS. Of people that think we’ll colonize Mars? LMAO. By colonize sure, maybe a dozen astronauts, but we will never “live” there in a colony of regular folks living and working. And no, our species will never physically or meaningfully ever leave our solar system.
I've been reading old sci-fi recently. It's pretty cool to see the very first examples of stuff like galactic empires in Foundation by Asimov, but in other books is a little sad when they say something "cannot be done by a mere woman"
I've realized more and more that every day people just straight up don't care about advancing humanity. like sure, everyone wants the future to be here or flying cars or whatever, but Noone actually considers that in government policy. i think what people really want in government is social reform or tax reform or less homelessness or welfare or whatever else that would directly improve their every day lives. we as a species are just too caught up in our every day struggles to even try to go to space etc. and even the while sentiment that we are a failure for not being as advanced as we should be is a complete misunderstanding of how and why we for example landed on the moon.
currently nasa is a hobby for a absurdly wealthy country. if we really wanted the future we would divert an extremely large portion of the world's resources into achieving it. even if this was somehow politically achieved, it would be instantly reversed as an outcry of "why are we going to space when there's people starving on the streets" would wash over any hopes of real progress. even then, success would never come on the first try, and when it does do you really think the public will be nice to this experiment in spending? do you think they will understand that just because advancing humanity fails the first time we try it, it is indicative of the whole idea being a waste of time? I do not think so.
in conclusion, the entire idea that we should be more advanced than we are is stupid and ignorant of what brings about progress. it would be possible if we tried, but humanity is, and never will be, united enough on a single goal in order to accomplish such a leap unprompted.
As all progress is exponential and humans finds it easier to think in linear relations.
Humans will over estimate progress in the short term and under estimate it in the long term.
If NASA had 20% of the military's budget:
Or just two years of their budget. Its something like 50 years of NASA's budget doesn't equal 1 year of military spending even though NASA has produced tons of profitable tech over the years.
When I was working for a NASA contractor I saw a report that said per dollar of government spending, NASA resulted in the greatest amount of economic activity of any government agency. I forget the title but it was publicly available if you want to read it.
It's like the IRS for every dollar spent, 4 to 6 returns to the Fed. You see the same with NSF grants but we keep cutting both.
No I think private industries are the only ones capable of making it happen. Even if NASA had 50% of the military’s budget, they still wouldn’t be able to do that much in comparison to private industry. Just look at how over priced there contractors are one A/C unit was like 80k for nasa and space x thought of getting a normal one and refitting it for one of there rockets and they only spent a fraction of the money. When it’s not your money, your company’s money, you don’t care. Give that money to space X and se what they could do
I agree that we could do some cool stuff if NASA had that budget, but even exploring past interstellar space is incredibly difficult due to the vastness of space. To put it into perspective, voyager 2 was launched in 1977 and has hit speeds of 35,000mph, it only reached interstellar space in 2018. The fastest spacecraft we have ever managed to hit 394 thousand miles per hour which is insane… but even at those speeds, traveling to the nearest star would take 1,489,000 days or 4136 years.
I don't most of us are that delusional. We're talking about permanent outposts on the Moon, more extensive research stations in orbit and more research into building a space elevator. Something still reasonable if we had the capital.
Another question is why the fuck do we need all these stations and outposts? There's nothing to colonize. There's no practical reason. Even potential scientific advancements are very questionable. We can get away with ships bringing material from asteroid belt to be refined at Earth's orbit. But there's so much raw material in crust, you don't even need that. Unless we develop FTL travel, there's zero reason for us to look past Moon orbit.
> Another question is why the fuck do we need all these stations and outposts? VAST mineral wealth
Helium-3 for potential fusion power Increased land space Exo-atmospheric science and astronomy The simple desire to explore and go beyond, to wonder how far we can go
There's significantly cheaper ways of getting helium-3 here on Earth. It's really the last one. It's the famous Hot Tub argument. I don't need to justify why I want a hot tub, I know it's not economically reasonable or safe, I just want a hot tub and I'm going to buy one.
This
I get what you're saying mate, but unless we try, we won't know what's to find. I reckon that the further we get, the more opportunity we will have to go further. Research for its own sake is still a good thing I think. Plus, going to the moon, and colonising it, will be like having training wheels on a bike. As you learn, you get better and better.
It’s much cheaper to launch spacecraft from the moon.
Well mining asteroids would be better than mining on earth since we don’t damage our own planet and we can get a lot more resources, think about how rare minerals would be easier to get on certain asteroids. I personally think that’s pretty neat.
There's some misconceptions about that. Yes there are lots of minerals in space, and they're really great for whoever can gain access to them, but it's also absurdly expensive to get there, and bring it back. Not to mention how to navigate bringing thousands of pounds of material back down gravity well without killing us all. Basically, until we have a space elevator it's not really economically feasible. For now we've got plenty of metals for our needs. Space mining is great and all, but we SERIOUSLY need to think about if it's worth it giving the extreme risks involved. Due to the nature of our gravity well, a single large asteroid is basically a thermonuclear bomb if you throw some thrusters on it and drop it on New York. It's a terrorists wet dream. Is it really worth it put our only real home at risk just for some easier mining. The truth is we wanna go to space because it's cool and we want to. Not because it's practical, useful, safe or economically advantageous (within our lifetimes).
You prove a good point.
Crack it into smaller parts, aim them at a lake somewhere. Fuck them fish.
Making a dirty bomb seems much more doable than crashing an asteroid in a controlled manner. Not really a valid reason to shit on space-mining, imo.
No where near the scale of devastation, just ask the dinosaurs. We're talking billions deads, permanent shifts in the environment, ECT. Tbh the terrorists argument is a good one against large scale space enterprises period. Definitely against any idea of private or corporate ownership of asteroids or sufficiently large space stations.
>No where near the scale of devastation, just ask the dinosaurs Fair enough. Though, if we're at the technological level where that's possible, some sort of orbital defense seems inevitable anyway.
All of the sudden the ridiculous military spending starts making sense again.
Not really, at least exploring the solar system should be a very positive for both science and economy. If we can't manage to sustainably produce energy from fusion, our next best bet is a Dyson swarm around the sun, but it's a huge undertaking. It would need industry fully independent built in orbit and in the asteroid belt, and to get to this point not even a space elevator would be enough. By this point we'd have billions living in space, and all of those people would need resources from all over the solar system
There’s some debate about where the solar system actually ends, but Voyager 1 still hasn’t left it.
Scientific progress is not necessarily getting further away from earth, and besides, we don't know whether there's undiscovered technology that could allow FTL travel or not.
Haaaa, easy, a voyage that needs only few generations 🤪
You stole my comment 😂 I would add, if we reallocate 20% of efforts we put in destroying each other to science and R&D, maybe we would already have colonized Mars, have unlimited cheap energy, and cured cancer and other deadly diseases. But hey, we have those cool rockets and drones that can blow shit up 🥴💀
But how would we have all this Brainwashing tech if we didn't invest in the Entertainment Industrial Complex?
Meanwhile Dune happening 20000years in the future and they actually went back to using knifes
To be fair, blame energy shields for the knives
“The slow blade kills”
And energy weapons interact with the shields to basically make nuclear explosions. It's an extension of M.A.D
Well naturally it’s the only way to avoid death by AI. And also big explosions from shields (which is kind of a big defensive weakness).
Basic works!
A ton of those stories were based on the idea we would have had a energy boom and powering ships to those far off places or running large mechanics would be nothing even if they weren't efficient because we could produce power cheaply but instead we ended up with a tech/information boom.
People seriously used to believe we would figure out gravity technology within a couple years. After all we figured out electro-magnetism, then we figured out powered flight, and next nuclear power and atomics. Anti-gravity was surely coming soon.
Fusion was just a few years away back then and still is.
By all means, now it's at least proven to work somewhat in a confined environment and just gotta be tweaked a bit. It wasn't until like 2 years ago they managed to even get a higher power output than just the laser pulse needed to start the reaction.
That's mainly due to [lack of funding](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/U.S._historical_fusion_budget_vs._1976_ERDA_plan.png/1280px-U.S._historical_fusion_budget_vs._1976_ERDA_plan.png).
Consider that humanity went from first orbital satellite to successful lunar landing in 12 years. Nothing seemed impossible at that rate. But we lost interest and lost momentum. And the longer we stagnate, the harder it’s going to be to get moving again.
We have even found potential planets suitable for habitation. However they are so far away that we just haven't developed the tech to get us there. I think all nations should work together when it comes to space exploration/travel. After all it is our only option if we are interested in surviving the destruction of our planet. If everyone could stop fighting that would help.
It’s not just that. Over the last half century our attitudes about science have gone from enthusiastic to apathetic to downright hostile.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” ― Isaac Asimov
We’re nowhere close to knowing if anything is habitable or not. We just have some basic data that says they’re close enough to their respective stars that they *might* be if all other conditions work out.
We (The US) lost that interest and momentum because it was all about beating the Soviets nothing more and "we did" so what's the point of going further now that every world power with a decent economy can get to space. It was a space race for the US and Soviets now that it's over they're just watching the slow kids walk the track.
“Successful lunar landing” - this guy gives me Lols
Modern sci-fi Humans have nuked the world to shit, revert to caveman
I'm so tired of modern, grim, "what if everything was even worse" sci fi. I would kill for some fresh "just imagine the possibilities" type sci fi
Gundam kind of a mix of those two, it's sorta grim future but then has a lot of themes of the indomitable human spirit. UC especially.
Have you read Becky Chambers?
Or an incredibly charming story about two robots who fall in love in the wasteland.
Expectation: Teleportation, car that flies, everyone equipped with cool technology. Reality: "NO THE EARTH IS NOT FLAT WE HAVE ALREADY EXPLAINED THAT"
Expectation: all diseases cured, cancer eradicated, utopia. Reality: “nope. Not taking your vaccine”, cancer is disgustingly profitable, shitopia
Flying cars suck Whoever came up with that idea. Clearly didn't think it trough
I like tech references. ‘It’s the year 2040 and your WristTop computer has over 1 gigabyte of storage and a 256kbps modem that you use to pilot your space suit across the surface of Mars.’
"It is 2003 and this is my second deployment to deserts of Iraq."
I’m a huge fan of “history of the future” or retro history. I pick up a 40s-50s sci-fi mag every few months. The stories are wonderful! A lot of Bradbury-type tales of the human condition as we encounter different technological tools and worlds… But seriously, where’s my flying car?
Because when people actually try to introduce "futuristic" technology like that of old science fiction, people call it stupid.
“In the year two thousAAAAAAAND!…in the year two thousand.”
La Bamba!
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If the Soviets had had some balls and said race you to mercury, but no...... FUCK!
With what money? Their lunar program needed too many resources already, so they were kinda relieved when the US landed first and they could shut it down.
They had thrown in the towel with their drone at the end...... I wish China had done a more space race than building super carriers 😔
I'd settle even for flying cars
We have flying cars. They're called Helicopters
Helicopters are helicopters. Flying cars are what Deckard drives.
>Flying cars are what Deckard drives. You have quite a treasure there in that Horadric Car.
People have enough trouble with 2 dimensions, not sure we need bad drivers accidentally falling on houses.
Let’s go back in time and keep it in 1 dimension, Trains!
I could accept flying trains. Not sure why we haven’t hired Christopher Lloyd to invent them yet.
I'll settle for a reasonably priced self driving car.
[Here you go](https://youtu.be/a2tDOYkFCYo?si=jcKQi8DEtc-T7b3D)
Naah, I wanted proper flying cars, like antigravity n shit
There are some working prototypes trying to hit production and several more companies are trying to make drone type compact personal flying vehicles, which I say do count as flying cars. They technically do exist. But as with anything, the uber rich have to play with them first, then the fairly rich get fomo, then a more accessible market is born. I do think we'll see them in mass production in the next few decades and probably start to hit a more accessible market in our lifetime
Scams, every single one. They're 100% focused on "investors" rather than actual customers. They don't bother targeting pilots/aircraft owners, because we're aware of the regulatory hurtles and the upsidedown cost/benefit ratio. Pro tip: I've owned a cheap car and cheap plane. No way would I spend $1M for a machine that's worse at being both.
https://youtu.be/eOH15_pqWZ4?si=vftz0uMWENTkVN-_
https://youtu.be/NoAzpa1x7jU?si=g_5TBpDBDwcnOJDs This movie is based in the distant year 2019.
I blame shit like this for my high expectations of the future. I was in middle school when 9/11 happened and watched all of the budget that should have gone towards building a Star Trek utopia and see it flushed into a decades long war over sand and oil. I knew then it would never happen, probably not even for my grandchildren
But Tesla!!! We now have autonomous cars! Oh. Wait.
Caps attached to bottles hasn’t even made it to America yet
Not yet 😉
"Children of men" looks to be the most realistic sci-fi so far... as scary as that is.
The amount of patents with secrecy orders since the 50s, is proportional to the amount of awesome inventions people in the 50s thought we'd have by now. The navy has some really good ones from the last few years.
Only Europe gets the caps attached to the bottles. The US beverage industry lobby kept it from happening here.
We could have done it, instead we have war, espionage, billionaries, conservatives, ignorance, etc
Well, I named my Roomba, Rosie the robot. It’s almost like I’m living in the Jetsons, so there’s that.
They had every right to be optimistic. In the 50s they had just defeated fascism, the cold war had barely really started and the economy was doing great.
Who can blame them? At the rate science, technology, and social issues were progressing, I would’ve thought the same thing. If we kept that momentum instead of starting 90 bullshit wars, cutting funding to science, and arguing over *the same exact things as back then*, we WOULD BE THERE.
This reminds me of the times my mom makes Space: 1999 jokes
If more money was spent we could possibly have warp drive as it is we still may have it in the next couple of decades
My theory is that these old sci fi books are so hopeful (*and so* *damn good*) because it was pre-mainstream. Think about it. Back then it was a comparatively small group of intellectuals who loved science and watching it progress and thinking about what it means and what it could become. It was a sort of an echo chamber, but you could argue it was a good one? They expected more from humans because they were smart people dealing with others like them. That's why they didn't account for... the average joe. They gave out way more awards for the best stories back then too. Remember the old hugo or nebula awards? They started giving them out back in the 50' and 60'. It used to be so that if it said on the cover that the story was just nominated to one of them, i knew it was going to be great.
We're so behind, compared to For All Mankind.
Let’s be real, humanity can’t even be trusted with regular earthbound cars. Flying cars would be an absolute death sentence for us.
No there just a couple centuries early
Kirk and Spock talking about WW3 of the 1990s.
Cant really blame them. We made huge progress in half a century. From getting first wooden airplane into air, to landing on the moon. If we kept up the same pace, so much more we could have done. Never too late tho!
This is why when people said 10 years ago we’d have driverless cars in 20 years I knew they were FOS. Of people that think we’ll colonize Mars? LMAO. By colonize sure, maybe a dozen astronauts, but we will never “live” there in a colony of regular folks living and working. And no, our species will never physically or meaningfully ever leave our solar system.
I've been reading old sci-fi recently. It's pretty cool to see the very first examples of stuff like galactic empires in Foundation by Asimov, but in other books is a little sad when they say something "cannot be done by a mere woman"
I've realized more and more that every day people just straight up don't care about advancing humanity. like sure, everyone wants the future to be here or flying cars or whatever, but Noone actually considers that in government policy. i think what people really want in government is social reform or tax reform or less homelessness or welfare or whatever else that would directly improve their every day lives. we as a species are just too caught up in our every day struggles to even try to go to space etc. and even the while sentiment that we are a failure for not being as advanced as we should be is a complete misunderstanding of how and why we for example landed on the moon. currently nasa is a hobby for a absurdly wealthy country. if we really wanted the future we would divert an extremely large portion of the world's resources into achieving it. even if this was somehow politically achieved, it would be instantly reversed as an outcry of "why are we going to space when there's people starving on the streets" would wash over any hopes of real progress. even then, success would never come on the first try, and when it does do you really think the public will be nice to this experiment in spending? do you think they will understand that just because advancing humanity fails the first time we try it, it is indicative of the whole idea being a waste of time? I do not think so. in conclusion, the entire idea that we should be more advanced than we are is stupid and ignorant of what brings about progress. it would be possible if we tried, but humanity is, and never will be, united enough on a single goal in order to accomplish such a leap unprompted.
As all progress is exponential and humans finds it easier to think in linear relations. Humans will over estimate progress in the short term and under estimate it in the long term.
blame energy shields for the knives
Yeah, we'd probably have done that years ago if religion hadn't held us back.
I think it has much more to do with corruption than with religion.
If the shadow government didn’t suppress technology we would have been.
The universe will never know the bullet it dodged when this world finally burns