• Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    I’m actually super mad at the stagnation in the way of life.

    The first manned flight was 1903, Apollo 11 was in 1969. I’m still going to work by chasing an exploding machine on four round dinosaurs, the same way someone in 1969 would. I still get hungry and homeless the same way someone in 1969 would. I have an 8 hour, five day work week just like someone in 1969 did.

    This is bullshit.

    • melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Almost like slave societies do not innovate, they just add slaves.

      If you want cool new gadgets; kill your masters.

      • supersquirrel
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        8 months ago

        On the other hand who cares when you can’t even afford housing or healthcare?

        • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          On the other hand having a supercomputer in your pocket is a direct example of one way we’ve made huge leaps in technology since 1969, directly countering the original premise of stagnation.

      • NaoPb@eviltoast.org
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        8 months ago

        The question is if it’a for the better or for the worse.

        I think both, and we need laws to protect us from the worse.

    • problematicPanther@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      first successful manned powered flight was in 1903. People have been killing themselves by strapping into gliders for centuries. there was also that French guy who flew in a hot air balloon in the 1800s.

      Also, fuck the wright brothers.

        • problematicPanther@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          they were patent trolls, essentially. tried to patent the entire concept of an airplane, and tried to sue Curtiss over him creating a plane that actually didn’t use the technology they had patented.

          • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            Oh right, gotcha. I think I’ve read somewhere that they were pushed into suing by other outside influences, and that at least one of the brothers was opposed to suing at all, but that very well may have been from a whitewashed source. Either way, fuck patent trolls

          • ArcoIris@lemmy.zip
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            8 months ago

            Wait, really? I heard that what happened is they’d decided to be sneaky by patenting the control system for a heavier-than-air flying machine since they couldn’t patent the idea of the machine itself. Do you have sources I can research?

    • bluewing@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Don’t you think that Commander Ryker had to get up and wade through all the paperwork, reports, and meetings every day for 8 hours, (plus mandatory OT), before he could get to screwing his way across that galaxy?

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Within your example, at least your four cylinders aren’t spewing lead and smog into your lungs and is massively more efficient. If someone runs a red in front of you, you are much more likely to survive. It can go much longer without any overhaul or tune up. You aren’t having to regularly manually adjust your valves. When you panic brake, you no longer have to pump your brakes. Your car is adjusting breaking to motivate roll over by vectoring brakes too. For other people, they have cars that can largely drive themselves, avoid combusting any gasoline at all, and are more likely to avoid some accidents altogether with automatic emergency braking.

      Going outside that, you have pervasive data connectivity, cheap high definition 100" screens, watches that would put the computers of 1969 to shame, a massively improved prognosis for many diseases notably including a whole bunch of cancers, brain implants that help Parkinson’s patients have better motor control. Air conditioning is much more likely to be available, affordable, and effective.

      Different areas have certain difficulty curves, basically moving a car is constrained by physics, the heavier than air flight and rocketry similarly have physics challenges that reared their heads quickly. Massive medical, computing, electronics, and connectivity have happened over the last 50 years, as well as a huge number of other advances I’m not thinking about. We have a number of issues that we haven’t fixed, or really can’t be fixed by tech.