[iterance]

Specific fields may not advance for decades at a time, but we are hardly in a scientific drought. There have been dramatic advances in countless fields over the last 20 years alone and there is no good reason to expect such advances to abruptly cease. Frankly this is far too pessimistic.

[threethirtytwo]

I don't understand what is wrong with pessimism. That's not a valid critique. If someone is pessimistic but his description of the world matches REALITY, then there's nothing wrong with his view point.

Either way this is also opinion based.

There hasn't been a revolutionary change in technology in the last 20 years. I don't consider smart phones to be revolutionary. I consider going to the moon revolutionary and catching a rocket sort of revolutionary.

Actually I take that back I predict mars as a possible break through along with LLMs, but we got lucky with musk.

[andrewflnr]

You imply your view "matches REALITY", then fall back to "Either way this is also opinion based." Nicely played. But the actual reality is that scientific discovery is proceeding at least as fast as it ever has. These things take time. 20 years is a laughably short time in which to declare defeat, even ignoring the fact that genetic and other biological tech has advanced leaps and bounds in that time. There's important work happening in solid state physics and materials science. JWST is overturning old theories and spawning new ones in cosmology. There's every reality-based reason to believe there will be plenty of big changes in science in the next 20 years or so.

[tehjoker]

genetic technology and computing technology have been the biggest drivers for a while. i do think it is remarkable to video call another continent. communication technology is disruptive and revolutionary though it looks like chaos. ai is interesting too if it lives up to the hype even slightly.

catching a rocket is very impressive, but its just a lower cost method for earth orbit. it does unlock megaconstellations tho

[iterance]

My critique is not due to pessimism, it is due to afactuality. Breakthroughs in science are plenty in the modern era and there is no reason to expect them to slow or halt.

However, from your later comments, it sounds as though you feel the only operating definition of a "breakthrough" is a change inducing a rapid rise in labor extraction / conventional productivity. I could not disagree more strongly with this opinion, as I find this definition utterly defies intuition. It rejects many, if not most, changes in scientific understanding that do not directly induce a discontinuty in labor extraction. But admittedly if one restricts the definition of a breakthrough in this way, then, well, you're probably about right. (Though I don't see what Mars has to do with labor extraction.)

[layer8]

> If someone is pessimistic but his description of the world matches REALITY, then there's nothing wrong with his view point.

A description that matches reality is realist, not pessimist.