Why is it taking so long for humans to advance technologically

Astral is right. We are moving break-neck into the future and you're getting impatient because you still have to buy tires for your car?
In 100 years we've gone form correspondence and radio to broadband internet. Cars put out 4 times as much power and are 4 times as fuel efficient. Projectile weapons are on their way out. Fossil fuels are on their way out. Pen and paper correspondence has almost totally given way to email and telephone.

There is a lag between knowledge and production. This is not due to "politics" whatever the heck that means. What is going on is simply that the infrastructure we have in place is not prepared to accept certain new technologies. It takes a lot of money to break the inertia of a system already in place. Look at cars; it took a long time to get the interstate system built to fully exploit them, and only then was there enough of a market for the industry to get where it is.

When we really -need- these advances so badly that we have to let the government put money into them. For example, if the government was being allowed to dump enough money into it, I've heard buzz that we could get paralyzed people walking again within 10 years. It would take a ton of cash though- when will we OK that?

The other thing you have to realize is that just because we imagined something doesn't mean it's possible. We may very well get anti-grav some day, but maybe it will be impossible to pack it into a small enough device to use in a car.

Ive been thinking about it, and...

I belive it is because we are just not catching on, If you got a group of 20scientists and 100 workers, then tecknology will chatch on realy fast, with no neet for mass production.

also our finace system is flaud, "you do stuff, you get MONEY then you give money to someone else" "how mutch do i get?" "as mutch as i think your sirvice is worth"
you see, what he might think coulde be not what it is worth, and that is what is happining.
There fore science does not get enough money to pull these things off.

We can now see all organs as they function without ever touching the skin.

Originally posted by portfreezer
I was wondering why it is taking so long for us to advance technologically i mean in the 1980's everyone was like ya by 2004 were going to have houses on mars and the moon and have developed and found the formula for Anti-Gravity!!!!

[edit on 24-10-2004 by portfreezer]

[edit on 24-10-2004 by portfreezer]

what are you talking about? we are advancing faster then at any other time period technologicaly. i think we just think the future is supposed to come faster then it does. if that makes sense

even so, it still SEEMES slow, even though it may not be.

In the 1800 we had allot of important tecknalogical descovorys, in about 50 years, and because they were so practical, the cought on realy quickly. Now we are onto stuff like computers, i mean if we were going slowly we would all still b using 386s and B&W 12" screens (BTW that is waht they use in naval targeting systems, Realy!)

dependency on oil... Oil companies are blocking every technology from maturing which can take them out of bussiness and will take them out of power .. because they have control and might over the world .

The undertone I am picking up on here is that a command economy would work better in terms of how well new technologies were developed and implemented. To be fair, that is true. In some cases, it would be nice to have the government step in and bring order.

Imagine if everyone in the auto industry got together and agreed not to develop any new restraint/safety systems for 5 years, and to combine their research efforts during that 5 years so that they could all come out with a new system that reduced accident fatalities by 50%. A command economy can do that- a free market prevents it.


On the other hand you run into 2 problems in a centralized system- 1. lack of creativity. If we all go one way then nobody ever checks out the dozen other ways that may exist. 2. Transitioning into one can be very messy. When you try to create order from a mess, things get a lot worse before they start getting better.


Eventually (although it may take a very very long time) certain industries must inevitably be socialized. Basic infrastructure such as housing, electricity, and medicine are implied by the right to "LIFE, Liberty, yada yada yada". These are not luxuries that ought to be denied to some and lavished on others. I think people understand this at heart and when it is practical they will demand that the right thing be done.

Some of this will require government regulation: for example I think if prices on certain drugs were capped the demand for them would go up dramatically and the drug companies could turn a profit while selling more of it cheaper.
Some of this will simply require the coordination of research and some gentle pressuring on the industry: I think it is inevitable that we will develop cleaner and more abundant means of generating electricity. As the cost goes down and the companies profits go up, there will be outcry and socialization will be the result.
Some of it is only natural, like roads. When a technology is so vital to the advancement of the nation that it has to take hold, the government builds the infrastructure on tax money and everybody gets to have it. This happened with roads, it SHOULD have happened with phones, and I believe other major advances will naturally take this path as well.

Human race advance faster as earth has become more populated, border lines between countrys fade away, for example current globalization makes billion $ business corporations to put more and more to research while markets get bigger and bigger, its logical more inventions come out, some of em bad some good, also always will happen that even bad inventions run over good ones.

Future picture is that big corporations will run the world across the borders, countrys will fall and fall due economic reasons. Thats for sure that advancing wont slow if based on fact how much spent to research technology. but possible some form of slowing will come eventually due fact everything become very complex.

Just hope that fossile energy could be replaced effectively before it run out totally and pollutes our fresh water sources, water will be the future fuel and most valued thing as it should be already.

We have cell phones that are more powerful then the Eniac that occupied a building just a few decades ago and the cars we drive are only moderately better that the cars we drove then.

We have building materials that are far superior to what we had in the 50's, but yet a vast majoriy of us live in structures that are prone to fire, insects and still use enormouse amouts of energy to provide comfort. (Exclude Historic structures though you can improve them also while preserving heritage).

We've known the benefits of a democracy for quite a long time and spout retoric about spreading it around the globe, but yet we fall back into an older form of governing, a republic. Politics is the thorn that is dragging down good science.

Refrigeration is based on the phase change of gas. Carrier built the first electiric refrigeration systems in the early 1900s, the systems in use today are more efficient, but it's the same tech. This same phase change can be created with soundwaves and lasers but where is that technology.

There is tech. that allows us to use radioactive emmision at lower levels, that tech. went into space on several probes and they lasted better then 20 years although these nuke batteries are only a few 100 watts, larger arrays could be stacked and produce modest abouts of power at low cost and low maintenance. Another benefit is that the lifespan of the fuel is exponentially longer that enriched U-rods, and less danger of meltdown.