Jun 20, 2023·edited Jun 20, 2023Liked by Packy McCormick
This is terrific. Shed the noise, the politics, the scary crazies on both ends of the spectrum, and there is every reason to be optimistic about the future of our world. People at/around my age (damn near 70) have a hard time with having SO much change zooming around us at once, but it's GOOD! I'm enjoying spending so much time learning, and blowing the minds of the coffee and tavern table gangs trying to find the world's end date. More, please!
"I'm enjoying spending so much time learning, and blowing the minds of the coffee and tavern table gangs trying to find the world's end date." <-- this is awesome! something for me to strive for when my kids are my age and I'm yours!
Yeah, at 65, in the last year I taught myself 3D CAD (FreeCAD) to energize the use of five 3D printers bought in the last year (after a 10 year hiatus from the hobby as it matured!) and designed several unique parts with the knowledge. Printed and hand painted a huge 3D set of Settlers of Catan game board hexes. My 2nd van conversion is well underway as I'm now deep in building my 200ah LifePo4 battery from individual cells + a BMS and 2K watt inverter plus a first ever "shower in a drawer" design. I built 2 PCs for 2 brothers to get them gaming again (1 turns 83 next month!), 1 new one myself with pretty beefy graphics card. And still find time to beat up on most of the younger guys playing doubles at tennis twice a week. I've finally settled on learning Bitwig as my new DAW for my recording studio so will be diving into that this summer to get back to writing music and playing guitar, keyboards and self-taught EWI.
The important thing is to have an exciting and optimistic conception for what the future may hold. The news media has misled generations of people into believing that the world is getting progressively worse, and that the future is going to be worse than the present.
At some point, if enough people believe in a dark future, it will become its own self-fulfilling prophesy. We need to highlight just how far we have come and where we could go, so the younger generations can make it happen.
Oh, that's an interesting statement! Can you give an example of a science fiction film, cartoon, book, where the future was really positive/optimistic or even neutral?
The closest thing I can think of, ironically, is San Junipero from Black Mirror. Overall, that was positive view of what technology and the future could bring us.
Roughly speaking, we are talking about the past (1980s) in the future, this is hardly a suitable example for self-fulfilling prophecies, but your choice is really ironic .. I would say post-ironic. I thought a lot about a positive future and about this issue (why people can't even dream about optimistic future), and it seems to me that it is absolutely impossible, since evil still lies in human nature as a foundation.
Great post Packy. Reminded of Hans Rosling and his book - Factfulness. Through data he demonstrated that world is only getting better and better on all indicators . He cut the fluff and focused on data .
This should be the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s: fusion was 10 years away in each of those decades. Oh but we're going to see it in 2030s...
Cancer has also been 10 years away from being solved...for 30 years? 40 years? More?
Self driving: after having destroyed public transit and taxis both - now the robot cars are going to what? Reduce air pollution? Reduce traffic? Lower ride share costs?
For example: I am working on bringing back a 100 year old technology to replace the existing process used to make 60 million tons a year of a vital farming and industrial input - a technology that is going to win because it produces cheaper, less carbon intensive product as opposed to being massively subsidized (by government or investors).
I am excited that there are nations out there that are not only understanding the tradeoffs of nuclear power vs. fossil vs. solar PV/wind, but are intelligently investing to achieve better standards of living for their people. Maybe SMR will be part of this, but probably not as it looks mostly like a way for smaller communities to access nuclear power by limiting reach/NIMBY as opposed to being fundamentally better.
I am excited that both Left and Right have some form of populist candidate with top 3 appeal, although one is being lawfared and the other is extremely unlikely to succeed given that side's organization dynamics.
Unfortunately, the above excitement is more than offset by the almost complete dearth of leadership in the West - political, economic and social.
The ongoing "reindustrialization" is going to be the latest data point: will it actually bring back manufacturing what matters, or will it spend money mostly on vanity nonsense and/or pork barrel?
We don't need fusion. We have a 50 year old, well-tested nuclear technology that powers 20% of the U.S grid (and greater percentages in France, Japan, ...).
What we need is to end frivolous lawsuits and streamline the regulatory blocks, educate the public and the politicians, and move forward to create cheap, abundant, carbon-free power.
Every energy generation method has different tradeoffs vs the others.
If carbon emissions is the criteria - I absolutely agree fission is a technology that works.
Sure, if fusion ever actually delivers on its "10 years away" promises, the fission plants can be switched out, but I fully agree that it is ludicrous to impede nuclear adoption if carbon emissions and cost are the concerns.
But then again, it seems quite clear that the green agenda, as actually practiced, is not really about the welfare of most people either now or in the future.
“Their generation’s entrepreneurs will get to build products with the assumption that energy is practically free.” I think this is the most profound observation of the whole piece and largely unnoticed. Today when we think of cheap or free energy, we think in terms of what we do now that will now simply be cheaper. But designing projects, products, and processes with practically no concern for energy consumption is a complete paradigm shift I would argue on par with the printing press. This will generate not just new things that we might recognize as simply better versions of what we have today, but rather entirely new ways of thinking about problems as the available solutions will be orders of magnitude more diverse than they are currently.
Well said. I think about this all the time. Not just about the timeline of when my kids are my age, but with an expected lifespan of 80+ years, what will life be like in 2100 (where there will be 86 and 80 respectively).
This is terrific. Shed the noise, the politics, the scary crazies on both ends of the spectrum, and there is every reason to be optimistic about the future of our world. People at/around my age (damn near 70) have a hard time with having SO much change zooming around us at once, but it's GOOD! I'm enjoying spending so much time learning, and blowing the minds of the coffee and tavern table gangs trying to find the world's end date. More, please!
"I'm enjoying spending so much time learning, and blowing the minds of the coffee and tavern table gangs trying to find the world's end date." <-- this is awesome! something for me to strive for when my kids are my age and I'm yours!
Yeah, at 65, in the last year I taught myself 3D CAD (FreeCAD) to energize the use of five 3D printers bought in the last year (after a 10 year hiatus from the hobby as it matured!) and designed several unique parts with the knowledge. Printed and hand painted a huge 3D set of Settlers of Catan game board hexes. My 2nd van conversion is well underway as I'm now deep in building my 200ah LifePo4 battery from individual cells + a BMS and 2K watt inverter plus a first ever "shower in a drawer" design. I built 2 PCs for 2 brothers to get them gaming again (1 turns 83 next month!), 1 new one myself with pretty beefy graphics card. And still find time to beat up on most of the younger guys playing doubles at tennis twice a week. I've finally settled on learning Bitwig as my new DAW for my recording studio so will be diving into that this summer to get back to writing music and playing guitar, keyboards and self-taught EWI.
The important thing is to have an exciting and optimistic conception for what the future may hold. The news media has misled generations of people into believing that the world is getting progressively worse, and that the future is going to be worse than the present.
At some point, if enough people believe in a dark future, it will become its own self-fulfilling prophesy. We need to highlight just how far we have come and where we could go, so the younger generations can make it happen.
Oh, that's an interesting statement! Can you give an example of a science fiction film, cartoon, book, where the future was really positive/optimistic or even neutral?
The closest thing I can think of, ironically, is San Junipero from Black Mirror. Overall, that was positive view of what technology and the future could bring us.
Roughly speaking, we are talking about the past (1980s) in the future, this is hardly a suitable example for self-fulfilling prophecies, but your choice is really ironic .. I would say post-ironic. I thought a lot about a positive future and about this issue (why people can't even dream about optimistic future), and it seems to me that it is absolutely impossible, since evil still lies in human nature as a foundation.
This is your best one yet. Give your mom a raise!
Thank you! Will take this into consideration in her next salary negotiation :)
I truly hope and pray we all see this future! I wonder how different countries will be if this all happens
Loved it!
It's true, progress is good. Most people benefit from every great leap forward, of course, most people still complain.
Great post Packy. Reminded of Hans Rosling and his book - Factfulness. Through data he demonstrated that world is only getting better and better on all indicators . He cut the fluff and focused on data .
This should be the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s: fusion was 10 years away in each of those decades. Oh but we're going to see it in 2030s...
Cancer has also been 10 years away from being solved...for 30 years? 40 years? More?
Self driving: after having destroyed public transit and taxis both - now the robot cars are going to what? Reduce air pollution? Reduce traffic? Lower ride share costs?
Or None Of The Above?
At some point, credibility gets lost.
I have a genuine question. What are you excited about?
I am excited about reality based progress.
For example: I am working on bringing back a 100 year old technology to replace the existing process used to make 60 million tons a year of a vital farming and industrial input - a technology that is going to win because it produces cheaper, less carbon intensive product as opposed to being massively subsidized (by government or investors).
I am excited that there are nations out there that are not only understanding the tradeoffs of nuclear power vs. fossil vs. solar PV/wind, but are intelligently investing to achieve better standards of living for their people. Maybe SMR will be part of this, but probably not as it looks mostly like a way for smaller communities to access nuclear power by limiting reach/NIMBY as opposed to being fundamentally better.
I am excited that both Left and Right have some form of populist candidate with top 3 appeal, although one is being lawfared and the other is extremely unlikely to succeed given that side's organization dynamics.
Unfortunately, the above excitement is more than offset by the almost complete dearth of leadership in the West - political, economic and social.
The ongoing "reindustrialization" is going to be the latest data point: will it actually bring back manufacturing what matters, or will it spend money mostly on vanity nonsense and/or pork barrel?
We don't need fusion. We have a 50 year old, well-tested nuclear technology that powers 20% of the U.S grid (and greater percentages in France, Japan, ...).
What we need is to end frivolous lawsuits and streamline the regulatory blocks, educate the public and the politicians, and move forward to create cheap, abundant, carbon-free power.
Every energy generation method has different tradeoffs vs the others.
If carbon emissions is the criteria - I absolutely agree fission is a technology that works.
Sure, if fusion ever actually delivers on its "10 years away" promises, the fission plants can be switched out, but I fully agree that it is ludicrous to impede nuclear adoption if carbon emissions and cost are the concerns.
But then again, it seems quite clear that the green agenda, as actually practiced, is not really about the welfare of most people either now or in the future.
“Their generation’s entrepreneurs will get to build products with the assumption that energy is practically free.” I think this is the most profound observation of the whole piece and largely unnoticed. Today when we think of cheap or free energy, we think in terms of what we do now that will now simply be cheaper. But designing projects, products, and processes with practically no concern for energy consumption is a complete paradigm shift I would argue on par with the printing press. This will generate not just new things that we might recognize as simply better versions of what we have today, but rather entirely new ways of thinking about problems as the available solutions will be orders of magnitude more diverse than they are currently.
Well said. I think about this all the time. Not just about the timeline of when my kids are my age, but with an expected lifespan of 80+ years, what will life be like in 2100 (where there will be 86 and 80 respectively).