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.
we are creators
Submitted 6 hours ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/044f4f14-800e-4b5c-9197-f55acef2c9c9.jpeg
Comments
ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 50 minutes ago
Jankatarch@lemmy.world 7 minutes ago
Also the atomic bomb.
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 hour 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.
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 49 minutes 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.
MeThisGuy@feddit.nl 45 minutes 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
W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 2 hours ago
It’s easy to see why people thought we would be a lot more futuristic by now.
PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@feddit.uk 55 minutes 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
ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world 49 minutes 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.
Klear@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
We’re futuristic as shit.
Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 minutes ago
Unfortunately, we’re cyberpunk futuristic instead of whatever futuristic flavor the Jetsons were doing.
RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 26 minutes ago
Families taking vacations to Venus and swimming in the seas of Europa futuristic?
We still have ways to go
simsalabim@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
And now we have self-driving cars that are able to kill people without human intervention 👍
SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 55 minutes ago
Truly the pinnacle of efficiency
ipitco@lemmybefree.net 1 hour ago
we made climate change which is even more effective
SpecialSetOfSieves@lemmy.world 1 hour 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.
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
And fifty years later we still mope around in low earth orbit. Progress had slowed down a lot since the billionaires took over.
StaticFalconar@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Fifty years later we have reached mars with drones and created space probes to expand our knowledge of space.
floo@retrolemmy.com 6 hours 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.
nuko147@lemmy.world 1 hour 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).
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 6 hours ago
We have even figured out aviation on mars so thats kinda cool :D
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 5 hours 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.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 4 hours 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.
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 hour 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.
Skullgrid@lemmy.world 4 hours 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.
clot27@lemmy.zip 1 hour ago
Since the USSR fell
1rre@discuss.tchncs.de 4 hours 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
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 4 hours 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.
alcibiades@sh.itjust.works 3 hours 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.
SpecialSetOfSieves@lemmy.world 21 minutes 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.
LilB0kChoy@midwest.social 1 hour ago
DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Thats because the only good progress now is up or positive on the stock markets.
Bo7a@lemmy.ca 3 hours ago
And since then - We have found ways to make all travel worse for comfort, more expensive, and more necessary.
RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 27 minutes ago
With internet, mobile phones, computers, travel seems to be way less necessary than before
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
more necessary
I haven’t had a commute in over a decade
EtherWhack@lemmy.world 1 hour 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)
jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 4 hours 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
truxnell@aussie.zone 3 hours ago
We create tech these days to extract maximum value from the populace, not so much to make lives better
realitista@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Fossil fuels are a hell of a drug.
deranger@sh.itjust.works 27 minutes ago
The problem with materials like oil, lead, asbestos, etc. is that they’re really fucking good at what they do.
Steve@startrek.website 3 hours ago
Refined iron is a helluva drug
Midnitte@beehaw.org 5 hours ago
Orville Wright (of the Wright brothers) also only died 21 year prior and was able to fly on a jet before his death.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Imagine how much pressure that jet pilot was under. The guy who literally invented flying is your passenger
Taldan@lemmy.world 56 minutes 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
DagwoodIII@piefed.social 4 hours 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.
Collatz_problem@hexbear.net 4 hours ago
No, most people in 1903 lived not that much differently from the Medieval times. Urbanization was still low then. An average person from 1969 would adapt to 2025 much faster then an average person from 1903 to 1969.
bratorange@feddit.org 3 hours ago
Tbh I think the person coming to 2025 would probably have an easier time to adapt culturally, than the one coming to 69
DagwoodIII@piefed.social 3 hours ago
The Stonewall Riots occurred in 1969. Star Trek's controversial interracial kiss was a big scandal a few years before. The movie "The Legend of Nxxxxr Charlie" was shown and advertised all over the country. The movie "Midnight Cowboy" got an X-rating with zero nudity and one off screen man on man blowjob.
Sorry, I think you've got it backwards.
Bronstein_Tardigrade@lemmygrad.ml 2 hours ago
My grandfather lived from 1871 to 1971; from Kitty Hawk to one small step on the moon.
woodenghost@hexbear.net 6 hours 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.
happybadger@hexbear.net 5 hours ago
kingofras@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Let’s say we went to space. No need to bring landing on the moon in it. That thing with Kubrik still bugs me, and the Cold War was pretty intense.
Zron@lemmy.world 58 minutes ago
We went to the moon.
If we hadn’t, the Soviet’s would have been screaming it from the rooftops. The soviets tracked all the Apollo missions themselves, and even had robotic missions going on at the same time as several of the manned US landings.
The Cold War was intense. You think if the US hadn’t made, the soviets would have just let it slide?
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 37 minutes ago
That’s cute. But let the grown ups talk.
Valmond@lemmy.world 6 hours 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.
Evil_Shrubbery@lemmy.zip 1 hour ago
All supported by the giant shoulders of some tiny apes that jogged behind fauna for 4 million years, and ate some berries along the way.
ComRed2@hexbear.net 2 hours ago
The creation of the airplane and the creation of the movie studio.
cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 5 hours 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
Flyberius@hexbear.net 3 hours ago
This humanity fuck yeah stuff really rings hollow when you look at the trajectory of the world. What does any of this matter if we just kill ourselves by ransacking the planet or blowing ourselves up?
SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
where are my rocket socks?
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 53 minutes ago
Just a nitpick, the fastest transportation for thousands of years was the ship.
And009@lemmynsfw.com 34 minutes ago
And before that, feet.