Dubiosity, that's me byword. Or was it Fortuosity?
From BigThink, February 17, 2023:
Skepticism is appropriate when gazing into the futurist's crystal ball.
Key Takeaways
- Skepticism is appropriate when analyzing forecasts of future technology breakthroughs.
- From colonies on Mars to self-driving cars, the history of inventions is full of promises that won't be fulfilled until well into the future (if they come at all).
- We must balance our long-term pursuit for innovation with improving what we know and have available today.
First, every major, far-reaching advance carries its own inherent concerns, if not some frankly undesirable consequences, whether immediately appreciated or apparent only much later: Leaded gasoline, a known danger from the very start, and chlorofluorocarbons, found undesirable only decades after their commercial introduction, epitomize this spectrum of worries. Second, rushing to secure commercial primacy or deploying the most convenient but clearly not the best possible technique may not be the long-term prescription for success, a fact that was clearly demonstrated by the history of “beaching” the submarine reactor for a rapid start of commercial electricity generation.
Third, we cannot judge the ultimate acceptance, societal fit, and commercial success of a specific invention during the early stages of its development and commercial adoption, and much less so as long as it remains, even after its public launch, to a large extent in experimental or trial stages: The suddenly truncated deployments of airships and supersonic airplanes made that clear. Fourth, skepticism is appropriate whenever the problem is so extraordinarily challenging that even the combination of perseverance and plentiful financing is no guarantee of success after decades of trying: There can be no better illustration of this than the quest for controlled fusion.
But both the acknowledgments of reality and the willingness to learn, even modestly, from past failures and cautionary experience seem to find less and less acceptance in modern societies where masses of scientifically illiterate, and often surprisingly innumerate, citizens are exposed daily not just to overenthusiastically shared reports of potential breakthroughs but often to vastly exaggerated claims regarding new inventions. Worst of all, news media often serve up patently false promises as soon-to-come, fundamental, or, as the current parlance has it, “disruptive” shifts that will “transform” modern societies. Characterizing this state of affairs as living in a post-factual society is, unfortunately, not much of an exaggeration....
....MUCH MORE
