It’s because capitalism drives them. Rather investments in them. This is how we get boner pills and baldness treatments and insulin is thousands a month. Tech and science are slaves to the dollar.

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Wait… making capitalists richer isn’t the most urgent problem for the capitalists that control science tech and innovation! Bullshit!

You mean the people making the decisions with those things, and the system in which they operate under?

You don't blame the tool for the tool users deeds.

Yeah because it's stagnated by corporate cronyism too afraid of competition so the buy out any ideas and companies worth a damn and bury all the innovative secrets in the basement because they don't want to hurt investments and dividends so they play the same old game over and over.

Imagine what solar power could be if...

I nearly shit my pants when I found out solar has been around since before Regan was president, I literally thought it was something recently invented. Over 40 years of technical stagnation...

that's not just science or technology, my sweet child. that's how this entire world operates

If the tool was designed specifically to facilitate those deeds you blame both.

>technology and innovation research is not focused on the world’s most pressing problems including taking climate action

i distinctly recall over the past several decades that scientists told us that the climate was warming and they had studies and warned that it would be bad.

everybody said, "fuck you."

i also remember being warned by scientists that the new corona virus was coming and it was going to be bad.

everybody said, "it's just the flu. fuck you"

then, when it looked like millions of people would die, we all said, "oh shit, we need a vaccine!"

then the scientific community broke records putting together a new vaccine in several month's time. i don't recall any awards ceremonies over this. no nobel prize. no medals of honor for saving our stupid asses.

a good deal of the population took the vaccine but a sizeable minority wanted to roast dr. fauci alive and our on-the-ground medical staff experienced the worst days of their careers.

now we want science to "address our most urgent issues."

science: "fuck you"

You blame science?

You blame technology?

You blame innovation?

How's that working for you?

Hmm. This article is sus.

Yup. Carter had panels installed on the White House, but ole' Hollywood had them removed.

Well, that’s why they’re still our most urgent problems. If science & technology were adequately addressing them, they wouldn’t be urgent.

Which is where the government should step in and pay for said research and development.

Agreed. Used to. The public university system and extended research labs did the work and it was public domain right? That system was systematically killed off in large part to privatize it, by the two parties who control our government policies. Watch the changes over the last 40 years or so.

I just skimmed the article, but the way I see is that the world's #1 biggest problem is that the powerful people in charge don't listen to science...

Tools are made by people for a purpose. They are not neutral objects borne out of thin air. Science, technology, and innovation are concepts not relevant to this discussion.

You don't seem to be following the conversation, so I'll just leave you to do whatever it is you're doing.

Sure isn't... but we've found out how to give old people elections so clearly thats a W for mankind.

1. Erectile dysfunction shouldn't be a joke.

2. Insulin is expensive because of how insurance works in the US, not because more money was spent on baldness.

The last 100 years have seen by far the greatest improvement in the standard of living than any other. Average human lifespan has increased by DECADES and extreme poverty has gobe from bring the norm to being nearly completely eradicated. All the facts point to a massive triumph of science over the problems humanity is facing.

Name one Communist country in all if History that hasn't been a total disaster? Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

Communism is the only alternative? 😆

What I’m trying to point out is the vast majority of the science and tech are focused on what can make money more that what can we do to fix x.

The company who sells insulin raised the prices to maximize profit. Insurance industry had nothing to do with their choice to raise the price. Proper regulatory control would not allow this.

Marylou Jepsen said in a keynote some 25 years ago: "The three P's of engineering are peace, poverty, and pollution." I would add a 4th P, population, which is the root cause of them all.

Science and technology innovation is basically warfare innovation. This is exactly what first world countries do because this is what makes money. The people of those countries support it to the fullest.

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That's because very directly they've sort of already solved them now it's up to the people to build the infrastructure

Legitimately at our current tech level we know how to build sufficient geothermal power plants to power the entire world and use that with vertical farming to feed the entire world I could keep going

Very directly we have the technology to solve all of our existing problems

Ground pollution hypercumulators

Pfas chemicals and plastic pollution we have fungus that eat them and break them down

Geothermal powered desalinization would solve that problem

It's also worth noting we could also do this with nuclear power geothermals just the better long-term option

There's also several entire industries we could fully automate if we put our minds to it with our current tech level

The Moley kitchen combined with a few others for serving and cleaning could replace the entire restaurant industry

The truth is automated cars are already better than the average person as is a lot of the other automated vehicles and we absolutely have stuff that can unload them

All the tech we need for post scarcity basically exists

However it's a matter of getting It built which well it does have a long-term payoff it has a very high starting price

Geothermal has the lowest maintenance cost for example but the highest starting price of any power generation

Currently food grown in vertical farms call several times as much as food grown elsewhere

But that's the thing once we set all this up we're golden

The tech we need to solve All our problems exists (okay I lied we don't have medicine completely solved yet but outside of that)

I love the smell of whataboutism in the morning.

Salient points. It's not the tech or even really resources holding us back. It's power (the desire to attain and retain), greed, and tribalism.