I’ve sometimes wondered if it’s possible that computing has so much unclaimed low-hanging fruit that it’s currently sucking up the majority of innovative brains, and that progress in other fields will resume to a certain extent once it becomes more difficult to make world-changing inventions in computing.
edit to add: this would line up with my experience that there is a massive undersupply in competent computer programmers relative to available opportunities
Elon Musk is perhaps another piece of evidence for this. Turns out spaceflight, vehicles, and perhaps tunneling and brain-machine interfaces too can all be revolutionized if you get the right team of people working on it. Instead of just saying Elon is amazing, we could say: There are lots of low-hanging fruit to be picked outside computing because computing has sucked up so much of the talent. Elon is good at finding those fruits and attracting talent to work on picking them.
Elon Musk is an interesting example (at least with SpaceX and Tesla) because neither of those companies are really developing new technology but (thanks to Musk’s money) overcoming the local equilibriums that they were stuck in (a ULA monopoly and an internal combustion engine paradigm, respectively). There are certainly some smaller inventions and first real proofs of technology (eg. landing a rocket upright), but the core of the technology isn’t new. Of course, this is a necessary step to advancement, but it still seems fundamentally different.
I’m not sure I agree. Propulsively landing rockets, especially orbital-class rockets, seems pretty freaking new and awesome. Making an electric car that is actually good… well, it doesn’t require anything mind-bendingly new, but it requires a ton of small innovations adding up, many more small innovations than normally occur in product development cycles. As for money, Musk has less money than Bezos, for example, but it’s SpaceX, not Blue Origin, that’s revolutionizing the industry. And of course the established companies have way more money than either Musk or Bezos. I think really it’s what I said it was: The ability to attract and motivate top talent.
Would you agree that if Starship gets working, then SpaceX will have developed new technology in the relevant sense?
I’ve sometimes wondered if it’s possible that computing has so much unclaimed low-hanging fruit that it’s currently sucking up the majority of innovative brains, and that progress in other fields will resume to a certain extent once it becomes more difficult to make world-changing inventions in computing.
edit to add: this would line up with my experience that there is a massive undersupply in competent computer programmers relative to available opportunities
Elon Musk is perhaps another piece of evidence for this. Turns out spaceflight, vehicles, and perhaps tunneling and brain-machine interfaces too can all be revolutionized if you get the right team of people working on it. Instead of just saying Elon is amazing, we could say: There are lots of low-hanging fruit to be picked outside computing because computing has sucked up so much of the talent. Elon is good at finding those fruits and attracting talent to work on picking them.
Elon Musk is an interesting example (at least with SpaceX and Tesla) because neither of those companies are really developing new technology but (thanks to Musk’s money) overcoming the local equilibriums that they were stuck in (a ULA monopoly and an internal combustion engine paradigm, respectively). There are certainly some smaller inventions and first real proofs of technology (eg. landing a rocket upright), but the core of the technology isn’t new. Of course, this is a necessary step to advancement, but it still seems fundamentally different.
I’m not sure I agree. Propulsively landing rockets, especially orbital-class rockets, seems pretty freaking new and awesome. Making an electric car that is actually good… well, it doesn’t require anything mind-bendingly new, but it requires a ton of small innovations adding up, many more small innovations than normally occur in product development cycles. As for money, Musk has less money than Bezos, for example, but it’s SpaceX, not Blue Origin, that’s revolutionizing the industry. And of course the established companies have way more money than either Musk or Bezos. I think really it’s what I said it was: The ability to attract and motivate top talent.
Would you agree that if Starship gets working, then SpaceX will have developed new technology in the relevant sense?