alt Hacker NewsThe last century was so exciting and filled with wonder of technology and the future. Unfortunately, popular feelings are somehow much more negative now, even though we've still got mind-boggling technology being developed like AI, self driving cars, cheaper access to space, autonomous drones, and even finally flying cars are being attempted in a new and more hopeful way than before. I blame climate change for a culture of negativity.
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Climate change is the source of negativity? In the 90s there was the hole in the ozone layer. Instead of acting like the slack jawed idiots in the current administration and basically saying “LOL FUCK YOU NERDS”, we banned CFCs.
Nothing you listed actually helps most people.
AI? Another way for untalented people to fake it and profit.
Self Driving Car*. Waymo, everything else is trash. Mostly putting a human out of a job.
Access to space? Great for academics and strategic defense. Maybe the common man will get some transport benefit out of it? Not yet.
Autonomous drones? So we can kill each other better. Oh and the drone shows, definitely worth it.
Flying cars? Ha. Hahaha. Ok. A trained pilot got crashed into while landing at an airport, this year. It’s not going to be a thing without being fully autonomous. But killing people probably makes more money.
More like the 1960s. For example, looking at old National Geographics and pop sci magazines you see an incredible optimism and respect for science, engineering, and the orgs that did them. All those "atomics of the future"-type stuff.
What changed was that the wall of secrecy broke down and stories of pollution, corruption, and all around bad behavior hit the public like a tsunami. Then we learned that governments had been lying to us over things like Vietnam, with the Pentagon Papers, Watergate etc. Pretty hard to be positive after that. The computerization of the 1970s through 1990s was broadly positively perceived until the 2000s when it became undeniable that Big Tech would do anything to harvest users. Cambridge Analytica. Cutting off Netscape's air supply. Embrace, extend, and extinguish. There are not many reasons to be optimistic.