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ihateshadylandlords t1_iwxxq7r wrote

So how much further have we gone since the moon landing?

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VeryOriginalName98 t1_iwxz11j wrote

Honestly we stopped doing curiosity based research after that. Everything is incremental and derivative now. But the iterations are fast at least.

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SineApps t1_iwygato wrote

This comment made me think. In your opinion, if we were to do “curiosity based research”, what would it look like?

I’m assuming nothing like the JWST or the large hadron collider?

I think as we gain more knowledge of our surroundings everything has to be incremental no?

I’m not trying to be a dick with this comment. I work in NLP and it feels like every day I’m following my curiosity.

I’d be curious to see where we could look?

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VeryOriginalName98 t1_iwz6ir1 wrote

JWST is an exception to my statement. Large Hadron Collider is only serving to confirm what is already "known", and improving the accuracy of existing models. It's not a new field, they aren't creating new elements or discovering new particles since the Higgs boson, and that was already effectively known.

There are still a lot of unknowns in high energy physics, but few projects related to that research. With enough energy, we could separate elements from trash, to recycle perfectly with something like magnetic resonance. But it's not cost effective because of the energy involved. Nobody is looking at it.

Nobody is looking at the deep sea except as a rich person's hobby. We aren't devoting a lot of effort to understand how some animals perceive things we cannot. Every time we do, it becomes news and people think it's some kind of indication we know a lot about it. We really don't, and we are losing species faster than we can study them.

We can print vaccines now, but this was only funded because it was a necessity. Now that covid is effectively solved it's not cost effective to lose your lifetime medicine revenue to actually solve long term illnesses. So it doesn't get funded.

Material properties aren't being researched much. For instance there was talk of holographic storage in crystals for a while but it never became a product because small improvements in current tech was easier to sustain.

Also where the hell is my flying car? We haven't even bent space yet. We aren't getting FTL before we do the fundamental research on that.

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Redvolition OP t1_iwzvgti wrote

On the plus side, a lot of resources are being poured of late on AI and Longevity research.

If I had a magic wand to control the global economy, my research priorities would be:

  1. Artificial intelligence

  2. Keeping isolated brains alive

  3. BCI via nerve interception

  4. Large scale genetic data gathering

  5. Longevity

  6. Artificial wombs

  7. Cell to egg conversion

  8. Non-invasive embrio selection

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SineApps t1_ixbccj8 wrote

Cool - I can sleep well knowing I’m working on number 1 on your list 😊

The only thing I’d possibly say is that there are millions of people dying because they fall outside of our rapidly advancing society and that we should divert some effort to bringing the whole world with us.

How? No idea 😂 just saying

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SineApps t1_iwygrnj wrote

Oh and just because this sub is weird at times (this isn’t directed at you), by NLP I mean Natural Language Processing and not Neuro Linguistic Programming

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botfiddler t1_iwyinks wrote

Made some nice pics of Pluto with a probe. Sending another probe outside of our solar system. Found some exoplanets using telescopes, up to 10k-25k light-years away from us (sources vary). Also, doing gravity astronomy now, looking back close to the beginning of the universe.

Edit: Better grammar.

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guidospeedmeister t1_iwymkzi wrote

Going to the moon probably made us prioritise addressing our problems here on earth first....

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