Why have we lost faith in technological progress?

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

I do sometimes wonder if we are getting close to the hard limits of technology, parts can only get so small, run so hot, etc before physics stops us from creating better technology right? Although when I mention this to my clever friends they start talking about quantum physics though and I basically cant wrap my head around anything non-newtonian lol. But even then there must be some limit.

And the most sobering thought is the fact that theres no aliens out there. You would think that if the technology for space empires like star trek or other sci fi were possible, it would have inevitably happened by now. Instead we have a seemingly lifeless universe with no radio signals to pick up at all, so either we are somehow the first or its simply impossible to colonise other worlds. And is there no radio transmissions because pollution and nuclear war wipe them out? So that also implys some hard limit that we may be approaching soon.

 

[Silvanus]

At the same time, we fail to and very likely don't want to recognize that whatever solution we've proposed is extremely unrealistic to be adopted by most of humanity and if it would've worked we wouldn't have the problem to begin with. Pretty much everything about environmentalism is this, but I'll stick to a specific example. Climate Change is caused by CO2 emissions, so environmentalists keep telling everybody "REDUCE EMISSIONS! REDUCE EMISSIONS! REDUCE EMISSIONS!", failing to see that not only will most of the world not do this but that it wouldn't remove the CO2 that's already in the atmosphere and that the most it would accomplish is delaying the countdown to doomsday by a bit. In order to actually fix the problem we would need to develop some sort of CO2 to O2 converter, something that is reliable, controllable, (so bio engineered plants and that sort of stuff are probably out) and could convert CO2 at a rate fast enough that it could match if not exceed the CO2 humanity puts into it. However, if the problem were solved then the people who are looking down on everybody else would have one less reason to do it.

While active human participation in converting CO2 (and other substances) is the ideal, it's not true to say that reduction doesn't address the issue. There is a level of emission-- drastically below current levels-- that is sustainable, because certain natural processes (such as atmospheric escape or plant activity) reduce CO2 levels.

Reduction is not all we need do, but it is absolutely essential, and scientists are right to place great emphasis on it, because it needs to be the central pillar of any solution.

 

[Satinavian]

It is not that difficult to make a technology that turned CO2 back into O2 and fuel. The problem is that per unavoidably laws of nature that requires more enegry than you get out of fossile fuels in the first place due to efficiency limits. So no, reduction of emission is always better than using such a converter technology unless you have some source of near unlimited emission free energy.

No amount of complaining about environmentalists will change that.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

It's not about happiness. It's about survival in the future.

How does a colony on Mars improve survival? And is survival really enough? Plenty of people die for a cause. We have militaries to kill people for reasons beyond survival. We have militaries precisely because other nations value more than just survival.

I'm pretty sure survival, as if on its own, isn't exactly on our top ten reasons to live.

Besides, why the hell would we send a colony to Mars? I don't understand the fascination. Surely the Moon is better. All the best shit is already in deep space. All the best shit that makes advanced industry possible is abundantly easier to find in deep space.

A colony on Mars would be like creating the world's biggest welfare sink. Like, the money spent on it just being viable would probably be better spent improving the biosphere condition of Earth. The price of maintaining a Martian colony you could genetically engineer new coral forms to survive rising water temps and sea levels and begin massive geoengineering projects.

The price of a single Martian colony and we could create carbon neutral algae harvesting operations to basically end reliance on crude oil wherever there is a coastline, and radically decrease the price of energy to landlocked/polar nations.

Algae fuel plants would also help deal with plastic contamination through algal fuel byproduct 'plastics' that are truly biodegradeable, as well as assist filtering plastic out ofthe world's oceans. And something as simple as that would do more to actively assist the survival of the human race ...but also improve living conditions of all people on the planet.