4 mo. ago • 97%

Trying to predict human ingenuity is hard

17 comments

I would like to see thw math they did to come up with an estimate of a fucking million years. Any technological prediction farther away than 5 years means "we have no idea at all"

49
- It's easy, just assume linear growth and that absolutely no new innovations will ever be thought up.
  
  23
This is super dumb. People always act like airplanes were just "invented" one day, especially by the Wright brothers.

This isn't the case at all, decades before there were people doing (powered) gliders and getting pretty far. Propellers were also well known at that point and a lot of people knew if you could get enough power to weight ratio you could get something that flew. Multiple people were working on small engines with a lot of output, combined with a light airframe and a death wish. Controlling the plane was also a huge challenge people were working on, which was the same for gliders and planes a like.

Sure the Wright brothers got there first, according to history, but many people followed soon after with their own designs. It was more of a humanity's capabilities to build such a thing caught up with their imagination and thus it was a thing.

46
- small engines with a lot of output, combined with a light airframe and a death wish
  
  *chefs kiss*
  
  17
  
  chef's* kiss
  
  1
- George Caley helped create aero sciences and developed the forces of lift by the early 1800s. He was a towering figure of English science and couldn't get off the ground so if Real Men of Science weren't able to get it to work then it was hopeless for the common man.
  
  After a century of countless deaths from gliders and bad parachutes, the New York Times clearly chose the easy way and said 'its just too difficult' and was banking on timid traditionalism to keep the statement true.
  
  12
So the new york times has always had shit takes huh

39
- The problematic articles varied in authorship and subject matter, but many shared a common feature
  
  9
66 years later, Neil walked on the moon.

31
- 9 days later, the wright brothers had their first flight.
  
  33
  
  I'm not a mathematician, but that sounds like much less than a million years.
  
  5
- Requiring the efforts of Mathematicians and mechanics spending millions of man hours!
  
  2
The Wright Brothers built their flying machine in a shed! With a box of bicycle parts!

24
- And paper airplanes (and birds...) existed for ages already, someone just needed to scale it up.
  
  5
- Well I'm not Wilbur Wright.
  
  3
Guess they forgot about engineers.

2

You've viewed 17 comments.