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Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨fossilesque@mander.xyz⁩ to ⁨science_memes@mander.xyz⁩

https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/044f4f14-800e-4b5c-9197-f55acef2c9c9.jpeg

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  • Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    And fifty years later we still mope around in low earth orbit. Progress had slowed down a lot since the billionaires took over.

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    • StaticFalconar@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Fifty years later we have reached mars with drones and created space probes to expand our knowledge of space.

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      • floo@retrolemmy.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Actually, we first reached Mars with the Viking series of probes in 1976. Then there was a whole lot of time where we didn’t do anything before we started again with Mars in the 90s.

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      • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        We have even figured out aviation on mars so thats kinda cool :D

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      • Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        We reached Mars with probes 50 years ago. I’m not in any way trying to denigrate the amazing achievements of the Mars rovers. But the fact remains that a human crew could have done all that and more (like drill a hole) in a few weeks at best.

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      • nuko147@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Actually the rate of major mission launches and new “firsts” was highest in the late 60s/70s, slowed significantly in the 80s/early 90s, and resumed at a moderate and consistent pace from the mid-90s until today (although today missions became far more complex and focused on detailed science rather than just achieving things).

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      • rumba@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        We need some kind of automated workshop on Mars. Send a boatload of refined materials up there and a small autofactory that can craft marginally useful gear and replacement parts.

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    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The reason why spaceflight stagnated for 50 years is because IT can in the middle of it.

      All the smart people went to build computers instead of rockets, and now we have smartphones and the internet.

      Now that IT is stagnating (enshittification), smart people will probably go back to spaceflight.

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      • Skullgrid@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        All the smart people went to build computers instead of rockets, and now we have smartphones and the internet.

        I work in software, most of my peers are not spacefaring material. The issue is budget and ability/desire to do things that are bold instead of sending robots up there.

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      • frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        They followed the money. The US Congress saddled NASA with a mandate for a Shuttle without funding it properly. The Russians never even developed crewed rockets that could do anything interesting beyond LEO. Everyone else wasn’t doing much until the last decade or so.

        There have long been plenty of smart people at NASA, and they’re wasted on poor funding and management. It has nothing to do with IT.

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      • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        The bigger issue is that there isn’t much point to having humans in space.

        After the Wright Brothers flight, aviation took off because aviation is genuinely useful. First it was mostly for delivering mail, but that was an incredible change. Instead of a letter taking weeks to get somewhere it would take days. Places that used to be completely isolated from communication now had an easy way to keep in touch. Then with passengers aviation you had something that changes the world in a positive and measurable way.

        Humans in space is extremely expensive and there really isn’t much worthwhile to do up there. Sure, you can do some science experiments about how zero gravity affects something, and learning things is useful, but there’s no obvious immediate payoff. If going into space made your bones stronger and not weaker, space travel would have developed massively because there would be a reason for millions of people to go to space for the health benefits. Or, if ballistic travel made sense economically, there might be rockets that cut the travel time from New York to Melbourne down to a couple of hours. But, having to get all that mass above the atmosphere means that it’s far too costly to make economic sense.

        People talk about mining asteroids or the moon, but there really isn’t much that’s valuable up there. The moon is mostly made of cheese [wait, my sources need updating] lunar regolith, which is composed of elements that are just as common on earth: silicon, aluminum, calcium, magnesium, iron, etc. But, on earth you don’t have to deal with the difficulty of processing it on another celestial body, nor do you have to deal with the spiky, unweathered nature of regolith that means it destroys space suits and machines.

        The only reason the US landed on the moon with humans in the first place is that it was in a dick measuring contest with the USSR. Now that the cold war is over, nobody’s willing to pay for something that useless.

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    • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The problem is time.

      You’re just considering human spaceflight. Keeping humans alive and more importantly sane for years is very different to sending a probe somewhere, and we’ve been getting better at the latter

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      • Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        That’s why getting to the moon permanently is so important. Once we get in situ resource utilisation going, the rest of the solar system becomes much more accessible.

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    • alcibiades@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      What are you talking about? Everyone was a capitalist back then as they are now. The space race was as much a capitalist conquest for glory as it was beneficial for technology/science.

      In the USA we wasted time, money, and media resources going to the moon while black people were treated as less than citizens and millions were living in abject poverty. Not much has changed on that front for the countries entire history. What good did the moon landing do for the average man?

      Same with the USSR. As people starved and lived under a dictatorship, the ruling class wasted the countries money by getting into a dick measuring contest.

      The billionaires have taken over since capitalism and colonialism became the status quo in the 15th century. Most of the technological progress since then is guided by capital and not something noble.

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      • SpecialSetOfSieves@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        In the USA we wasted time, money, and media resources going to the moon while black people were treated as less than citizens and millions were living in abject poverty. Not much has changed on that front for the countries entire history. What good did the moon landing do for the average man?

        I’m sincerely wondering if you’d like an answer to your question. I can provide you the science perspective, if you like, not to mention a political one. Not interested in an emotional debate here, you’re entitled to your point of view and your polemic, if that’s all you prefer.

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      • LilB0kChoy@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        What good did the moon landing do for the average man?

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    • DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Thats because the only good progress now is up or positive on the stock markets.

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      • alcibiades@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Yeah you’re right, there was no such thing as stock markets until 2010 I heard

        Before capitalism was invented in 2010 we were just guided by happiness and the pursuit of science and art and improving our livelihoods 🥰

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    • clot27@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Since the USSR fell

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  • Bo7a@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    And since then - We have found ways to make all travel worse for comfort, more expensive, and more necessary.

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    • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      With internet, mobile phones, computers, travel seems to be way less necessary than before

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      • Bo7a@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I was referring to the city planners as @EtherWhack@lemmy.world correctly guessed.

        I also have worked from home* for almost two decades. But the non-work travel is still stained by the horrible planning in most urban sprawls.

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    • bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Gotta love capitalism breeded innovation.

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    • Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      more necessary

      I haven’t had a commute in over a decade

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      • EtherWhack@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I think they’re referring to how vehicle-centric planning for cities is more common (as opposed to walking or human-powered locomotion, like biking or skating)

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      • Bo7a@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Ditto. But the rest of the travel we do need to do to interact with people, amenieties, and services, is still worse than it should be due to poor inter-city and city-rural transit. At least here in Canada. My time in Europe showed me how bad we really have it. Even with the unavoidable foibles that happen in the best of cases/countries.

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    • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Travel is much, much cheaper than it used to be.

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  • W3dd1e@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It’s easy to see why people thought we would be a lot more futuristic by now.

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    • PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      i have a little tablet in my pocket that gives me access to the sum total of all human knowledge and can contact anyone else more or less anywhere on/around the planet for instant voice communication.

      We can take organs out of dead people and put them in living people and have them survive.

      I can be anywhere on the planet within 48 hours

      We have cars that can drive themselves

      And there’s many more examples

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      • ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Phones can also video call, lead you to just about anywhere you want to go on the planet, and store millions of pictures/videos/writings of a person’s personal history. Unprecedented.

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      • rumba@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Gene editing we did NOT see coming this soon.

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      • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I can be anywhere on the planet within 48 hours

        Challenge accepted.

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    • Klear@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      We’re futuristic as shit.

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      • Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        It’s just the future sucks

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      • Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Unfortunately, we’re cyberpunk futuristic instead of whatever futuristic flavor the Jetsons were doing.

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      • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Families taking vacations to Venus and swimming in the seas of Europa futuristic?

        We still have ways to go

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    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      We killed our trajectory by shutting down nuclear investment.

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      • Wolf314159@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        We killed our trajectory because the cold war ended and we were no longer engaged in an arms race involving rockets. Once capitalism figures out how to exploit space for infinite growth we’ll get back on track assuming we don’t great filter ourselves first.

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  • frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Forget the moon. We’re all within a few generations of the first people who had access to indoor toilets on a mass scale.

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    • exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      India basically introduced toilets in a single generation.

      According to this article, in 1993, 70.3% of the Indian population did not have access to toilets. By 2021, the number dropped to 17.8%. So literally more than half the population of India got access to toilets within 30 years.

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      • MeThisGuy@feddit.nl ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        the flushing kind or the hole in he ground kind?
        the there’s a sink kind. or there’s a communal soap bar to wash your asshole with and the other hand to eat with kind?
        wonder how many Indians are left-handed, or if that’s even culturally accepted

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  • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Just a nitpick, the fastest transportation for thousands of years was the ship.

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    • Cort@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Just a nit pick, but you could run faster than sail boats, so they’re only faster for long distance

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      • rumba@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        even sailboats have their own history of getting faster en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_sailing_record

        Sure you could run faster than average but best speed as of 2012: 121.1kmph 75.2mph

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      • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        The top speed of Columbus’ ships was about 8 knots, and the average speed was about 4 knots, or 7.5 km/h to 15 km/h. Typical jogging speed is about 6 km/h to 10 km/h. So, they were a bit faster than typical running speed. But, those were the cargo ships.

        Ships designed for speed were much faster. In 1852 the fastest ship was the Sovereign of the Seas which topped out at 41 km/h.

        Probably for a long time the fastest transportation would have been a horse. Or, if you want a “vehicle” or some kind, a chariot. But, for at least a century a fast sailboat was probably the fastest thing around.

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    • And009@lemmynsfw.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      And before that, feet.

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    • Fleur_@aussie.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It’s actually falling

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  • altphoto@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Image

    A man named Peter, who had escaped slavery, reveals his scarred back at a medical examination in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, while joining the Union Army in 1863.

    Yup, that’s far alright:

    Image

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    • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Side note: ICE now has a bigger budget than the FBI, DEA and Bureau of Prisons put together.

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      • khannie@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        They’re gonna be working hard to justify that budget. Things are going to get a whole lot worse for our American friends. :(

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      • burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Image

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      • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        What was the justification for that budget?

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    • FeatherConstrictor@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Sorry with all due respect I am curious how this ties to the topic of the post? I feel like I’m missing something.

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      • LePoisson@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        We’re bringing slavery back.

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  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    One of the Wright brothers managed to live to see the end of WWII. Imagine the weird janky flying machine you and your dead brother designed in a bicycle shop in Dayton is being used to decimate Europe while boats full of the things are redefining naval warfare across the whole of the pacific before one drops a weapon so powerful that it becomes the basis of mutually assured destruction

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    • narwhal@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      That looks like the 14-bis from Santos Dumont in the picture. He did not live enough to see WW2, but he ended up helping design planes for WW1 and got terribly depressed about it.

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  • Midnitte@beehaw.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Orville Wright (of the Wright brothers) also only died 21 year prior and was able to fly on a jet before his death.

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    • Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Imagine how much pressure that jet pilot was under. The guy who literally invented flying is your passenger

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      • Taldan@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Eh, there were a dozen different guys that invented flight (or were close to it) around the same time. The Wright Brothers were just the ones to successfully defend their patent

        The technology had just progressed to a point where fixed-wing flight was viable, so the invention became inevitable

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  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Feels like we’re going backwards now with like anti-vax stuff. A lot of tech seems to be getting worse for users, too, like IoT gadgets that stop working for remote reasons

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    • truxnell@aussie.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      We create tech these days to extract maximum value from the populace, not so much to make lives better

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  • SpecialSetOfSieves@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    And destroyers.

    Just a few months into its reign, the US regime intends to ruin decades of progress in science and space exploration:

    On May 30, 2025, the White House Office of Management and Budget announced a plan to cancel no less than 41 space missions — including spacecraft already paid for, launched, and making discoveries — as part of a devastating 47% cut to the agency’s science program. If enacted, this plan would decimate NASA. It would fire a third of the agency’s staff, waste billions of taxpayer dollars, and turn off spacecraft that have been journeying through the Solar System for decades.

    Shutting down a working, completely functional mission like New Horizons, in particular, that may just be on the cusp of a huge discovery - it has seen signs of a new, second “ring” to the Kuiper Belt - is the ultimate repudiation of the American self-image as explorers of the frontier. And all of this at a time when the Chinese are just about catching up to “the West” in space science prowess.

    As a kid, I never understood what the Romans were trying to say with their Janus myth. Turns out that Orange Janus is simply the god of endings.

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  • simsalabim@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    And now we have self-driving cars that are able to kill people without human intervention 👍

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    • ipitco@lemmybefree.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      we made climate change which is even more effective

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    • SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Truly the pinnacle of efficiency

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    • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      They Took Er Jerbs!

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    • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      We invented, and rejected, life-saving vaccines.

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  • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Don’t forget the weird rocks that, when refined and enriched, it gets a bit of… well you know…

    Image

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    • Lommy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Spicy.

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    • Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Image

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  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    My grandmother was an adult through that 66-year period. Lived to be 99. She rode to town on a horse as a kid and took trips on jets before she died.

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  • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    In 1861 Russia abolished serfdom.

    In 1961 Gagarin reached space.

    It’s just barely implausible a person born a serf could have seen their descendant explore space.

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    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Say what you will about the USSR (and I certainly will) but they did develop and industrialize incredibly quickly.

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      • samus12345@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        They got nothin’ on Japan, though.

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    • Jankatarch@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Also the atomic bomb.

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  • realitista@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Fossil fuels are a hell of a drug.

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    • Steve@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Refined iron is a helluva drug

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  • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It’s why a lot of sci-fi written in the 1900’s takes place in like the 90’s and 2000’s. Writers thought that we would keep on exponentially advancing and have Mars colonies and flying cars by now. They could have never predicted that interest in space exploration would have waned, like people stopped caring about the space shuttle, and that the actual technological revolution took place in the computing space.

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  • DagwoodIII@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    otoh, people in both eras used gas powered cars, telephones, telegraphs, and manual typewriters. They could both go to movies, ride trains, and take ocean voyages.

    A person from 1903 would need a few days to adapt themselves to 1969 technology.

    But someone from 1969 coming into 2025 would be lost. Most people in 1969 didn't use credit cards, and had never seen an ATM. They used rotary phones and antenna TV.

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  • woodenghost@hexbear.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Then the inherent contradictions of capitalism really started to hit, quantitative change passed to qualitative change and progress grinded to a halt and science and technology are regressing now in the imperial core.

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  • rustydrd@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    And only 30 years after that, we’re surfing the interwebz, sailing down the data highway at the speed of light. I’m running out of metaphors to chain together…

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  • samus12345@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I’ve thought from time to time about how being able to see significant societal change in a person’s lifetime is a very recent phenomenon. For many thousands of years, things stayed pretty much the same from birth to death unless you happened to live though a significant event. It’s neat that I’ve gotten to witness change in a way that one would have to time travel to experience in the past, but monkey’s paw, the change isn’t always good…

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  • CorruptCheesecake@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    And look at how much life has changed in America from 2015-2025! We went from an imperfect democracy where civil discourse was possible to an authoritarian shithole filled with millions and millions of fascist thugs who are somehow still functioning in daily life despite very clearly being psychotic beyond the help of even the best psychiatrists. Oh, and rich people pay less in taxes, facts no longer exist apparently, and science and education are going back to the 1800s! Soon RFK Jr will legalize lobotomies again because his brain worm made him do it.

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  • sommerset@thelemmy.club ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    And now everything feels stuck again

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  • Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    There was this graph about the time between major inventions, going back to agricultural stuff 10.000 years ago, and it like halvened each X years quite reliably, we are in the part where in some years it might touch like minutes. Interesting.

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  • thatradomguy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    We also created nukes and religion. So there’s that too.

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  • WanderWisley@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The Brooklyn Bridge and the battle of Little Bighorn happened the same year. And there were Native Americans who fought in the battle that were still alive to see man walk on the moon. So in the span of one lifetime we went from Custard’s last stand, to one giant leap for all mankind.

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  • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Now picture it without fossil fuels giving us a 100:1 EROEI

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  • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Time wise, the moon landing is located roughly in the middle between the first image, and now. It happened almost 60 years ago (59).

    We have since invented the internet, and a lot of great ways to waste our time

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  • neuromorph@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The chariot lasting as high tech for 3800 years has some part to do with the dark ages…

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  • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The Babylonians knew a * b = 1/4 * ( (a+b)^2 - (a-b)^2 ), and and used tables of 1/4 * x^2 to do multiplication by addition. It took three thousand years for Napier to discover modern logarithms. The slide rule was invented eight years later.

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  • JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    We had flight before airplanes! Why do people just ignore lighter than air travel lmao. Yes, planes are more impressive, but it wasn’t like BAM plane BAM rockets.

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