| Agreed. La Bruyère in 1690 wrote a very famous phrase "Tout est dit, et l'on vient trop tard depuis plus de sept mille ans qu'il y a des hommes et qui pensent." (Everything has been said, and we're too late after 7000 years of human existence and thought.) I can't find the quote right now but Aristotle complained once that the level of comfort attained in his era and city was so high nobody would ever conceivably want more. It's fairly obvious that the breadth of human ingenuity is infinite and that there are orders of magnitude more inventions to make than have been made. Not all inventions are useful; one could argue humanity would be much better without television, Facebook or nuclear bombs for example. But one just needs to look around to see how our world is inadequate and broken. Take transportation: today we use huge metal cages (cars) or metal tubes (planes) to move a bunch of ape-like creatures from one place to another, at great expense and risk. Why can't we fly? We say we fly when we're in a plane, but we don't; we are flown. I want wings (or something) that let me take off and land using my body's energy, just like a bird. I don't know if individual flying can be achieved using genetic engineering or by building a contraption that one can operate with his arms or legs, etc., but I do know that cars / planes / boats / etc. are a ridiculous and laughably overkill solution to the problem of personal transportation. |