[scottlocklin]

When I was a kid I expected us to have controlled fusion power plants, hovercraft and Gerald O'Neal space colonies by now.

Instead we have soylent, a nightmare corporate-government surveillance dystopia and ... plastic moccasins, and I'm supposed to be impressed.

[tossaccount123]

60 million in funding for nuclear fusion vs 2 trillion in spending on welfare and entitlements annually

Bread and circus rather than progress is the establishments top priority

The tragedy is that nearly all of the problems we currently face would already be solved if we just invested in our future. NASA used to get 4.5% of our federal budget invested in it, now it's .3%. We used to invest $3 into research or infrastructure for every $1 in entitlements, now we spend $5 in entitlements for every 1$ invested in our future.

[rdiddly]

Social Security and Medicare solve problems too though. Even the Pentagon (say half a trillion) solves a problem. None of them do it very efficiently, is the thing.

[toomuchtodo]

Social Security is incredibly efficient from an administration cost perspective.

[subsubsub]

You were supposed to be the generation that made those things.

[scottlocklin]

Be happy with your plastic moccasins, prozac and pornography, citizen.

[jkestner]

Maybe instead of hoping that the forces of capitalism alone could make us rich and enrich society, we should've gone into government where we could lay out and fund these large-scale initiatives.

It's happening, though—just slower. Government money has aided the start of electric cars and alternative energy, and a Green New Deal has a chance of building on that.

[aboutruby]

Did you expect to have most of the information in the world available on demand? Anywhere? And be able to communicate with anybody anywhere? I guess it's hard predicting the future http://www.paulgraham.com/ecw.html

[scottlocklin]

I definitely expected to be able to talk to a computer like in star trek and have it synthesize me an answer, yes.

I didn't anticipate it would be delivered using a markup language via a centralized solution, nor that it would be cluttered up with ads and irrelevant marketing bilge or press releases in nonsense like modern online magazines.

[Retra]

Most of the information is not available on demand, but only if you have the requisite credentials.