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Comment by allendoerfer | Hacker News Reader

I find it weird how technological process sometimes plays out. We have been complaining for decades about how green energy is unreliable and that we need innovative storage solutions. And now batteries somehow seem to be good enough and we are like: "Hey, why don't we put a bunch of batteries in a container?" Proving ones again that economy trumps technology.

The next really big thing after green energy will be recycling. Not that it matters to our generation.

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I think this is very much a success of technology. I see it as battery tech having advanced enough (at a slow, but exponential rate) to bring us to a point where this is technologically possible AND economical

I guess what I am trying to say is that the future is rather lame and predictable. When imagining the future we are sometimes thinking there will be some giant jump forward, while in reality it is just decades and decades of minimizing microchips, increasing photovoltaic efficiency, improving batteries. This technology (except the microchip) is from the 19th (!) century. On top of that we are using some statistical methods and are trying to emulate neurons.

This has a positive and a negative side: Everything is already there, we just need to implement it, but this does not really encourage you to dream. There is no magic. For me that is part the reason why careers like research or medicine were not attractive to me: You can progress further or save more lifes by just using stuff that has been here for centuries. I believe everybody can make a difference, because we are wasting our potential by not implementing stuff.

I know that this view is oversimplified and there is indeed fundamental research (e.g. new materials), which leads to some of these gradual improvements.

The day a room temp superconductor is developed (and is scalable to mass production) you'll see that change in a crazy hurry. Assuming we're alive then, which is probably not a safe assumption. There are a few things like that which could change the game almost overnight, but a room temp superconductor would be one of, if not the biggest.

Following my hypothesis would suggest that in the end we will "just" gradually lower the room temperature to -70°C.

I wasn't expecting to laugh out loud here, thanks!

Room temp superconductors will probably also take a while to come down in price enough to make sense and will see some limited deployment for costly applications before that. It's unlikely that we'll go from "no superconductors except in MRTs" to "superconductors as an essential part of the power grid" in a time frame that is measured in years instead of decades.

If the future is predictable to you, use that ability to make trillions of dollars and then use the resulting power to impact the future. Whining about it on the internet just makes you seem dismissive.

I predict that solar will be used in the future. How do I make trillions with that wisdom? You can only make money with predictions you are right on but others are not.

> Whining about it on the internet just makes you seem dismissive.

That was not my intention at all. It was more the child in me that wanted to see flying cars and jetpacks instead of massive adoption of stuff, which has been here for 150 years. I still welcome that it is done.

You're working on flying cars and jetpacks? That's awesome, yo!

We've had flying cars and jetpacks for a while now. They're just not economical to implement on a large scale.

I think the lesson here is that there is no hidden trick, just a lot of work/money spent over a long time frame and not everyone will be successful.

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