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by smoll 2412 days ago
But necessity is the mother of invention, so we will probably invent a viable nuclear fission-based energy solution at the 11th hour, probably by someone who also helped cause the death of countless people through their earlier work[0]. I know this sounds absurdly far-fetched, but it’s pretty much par for the course for us humans.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber

3 comments

Plans that involve being pleasantly surprised are not good plans. Haber was preceded by centuries of warfare that did not produce inventions of such significance.
The 11th hour came and went and we didn't notice because it takes decades for the planetary system to react to the pollution.
I dont accept this line of thinking, we cant hand wave away hard problems just because we've solved hard problems in a pinch before.

This sounds like a tautology, but we solved hard problems by solving them, not by believing we'd solve them.