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Comment by rschneid | Hacker News Reader

I think it's a mistake to assume that technology advancements will come in great leaps and bounds since the day of the wright brothers are over... we've been out of our atmosphere and to the bottom of the sea and made nukes++ and transistors at nm levels. Humanity has been so experienced in the domain of physics for so long that there is no low-hanging fruit left within the periodic table. The physical world has limits that our higher order thinking has identified and relentlessly struggled against. This is done every day by independent humans in labs and dreams around the world and seems by it's distributed nature to be incremental. I think Thiel's being quite foolish for lamenting/admonishing a trend that I believe will only getting stronger as the sophistication of collective human knowledge increases...

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As someone with a physics major I largely agree with that point to an extent. I do not at all think we have reached the bottom of physics rabbit hole personally even though it feels that way, but I dont see us making any major leaps anytime soon without a totally new approach. String theory is stagnant and we need to dump it. QED and the link to gravity is still very much a mystery so we have yet to really unlock the quantum-gravity world IMO. I do however think we have yet to arrange atoms in all the possible ways that benefit humanity, even in ways that I think are achievable in the short term, say 10 years. Biotech stuff aside (because that totally changes the starting point), I think we still have some tricks up our sleeve for "conventional" technology: Space Elevators, Fusion reactors for every major city, AI Humanoid Servants. I still hold out hope for the warp drive one day. Often Thiel points to everyday objects in your home, so I try to think of what I would want in my house today that would benefit me. Household robotics are the only thing that comes to mind, and maybe a vehicle that can traverse multiple mediums: air, space, water. The star trek replicator for unlimited resource access. Basically access to things that only the uber-rich have: Labor, Resources, Ability to reach any point on earth or near space.

Here's one to add to the list: happiness. Psychology and sociology, developed to the point where we understand how to have happy people and good communities. Somehow this sounds even farther off than warp drives...

we have yet to really unlock the quantum-gravity world IMO

Though it is questionable how much a theory of quantum gravity would affect every-day life. Physics hasn't made much progress on that front precisely because it's far removed from the human scale.

I think we still have some tricks up our sleeve for "conventional" technology:

- Space Elevators might never be built

- a warp drive will almost certainly never be built

- Fusion reactors are likely within reach, could potentially even have been achieved already but for ecomomic reasons and policy decisions, though I'm not sure how much of a game changer they would actually be

- AI Humanoid Servants (and related breakthroughs, eg brain simulation: forget warp drives, think about the ability to 'fork' a person, and have that version of yourself embark on a centuries-long journey across the stars aboard conventional space ships), I'm with you

I am not sure that the "days of the Wright Brothers are over." Above all else they were experimenters who gathered data on aerodynamic properties and performance of different wing and control surfaces. I think there is much undiscovered in biology at many levels--cellular, organ system, and organism. I think may see the equivalent of an industrial revolution (a quantum step in the quality of life) flowing from breakthroughs in biology.

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