I've talked a lot with all kinds of people about new inventions and things people /we could do if we put our back under it.
The responses are very cultural and nothing like what would be required to accomplish anything large.
To give an example. We could make tubes with hot and/or cold water running from Siberia to the Sahara. There are plenty of design challenges in such project. The correct mindset is to take a broad outline calculating ROI so that you have an idea how much the state of the art needs to improve for it to be viable. Then you take the largest expenses or technical hurdles and ponder what could be done to ease the pain point. You can ponder the diameter vs the temperature vs the flow rate or pressure, the distance between the pumps etc etc, not to build anything but to train the brain noodle.
If it wasn't a stupid idea people would be doing it already.
Many countries, if not all, had a period where great things were done. After that comes defeatism nihilism and a preference for talking about tarifs, Epstein, 911, etc
With tiny improvements everything shifts around. The steam engine had many challenges that have been solved long ago. Imagine that the 100 mph carburator didn't happen because you lose much of the throttle control. How silly this excuse is in the age of hybrids? It's pretty much a non-argument.
The responses are very cultural and nothing like what would be required to accomplish anything large.
To give an example. We could make tubes with hot and/or cold water running from Siberia to the Sahara. There are plenty of design challenges in such project. The correct mindset is to take a broad outline calculating ROI so that you have an idea how much the state of the art needs to improve for it to be viable. Then you take the largest expenses or technical hurdles and ponder what could be done to ease the pain point. You can ponder the diameter vs the temperature vs the flow rate or pressure, the distance between the pumps etc etc, not to build anything but to train the brain noodle.
If it wasn't a stupid idea people would be doing it already.
Many countries, if not all, had a period where great things were done. After that comes defeatism nihilism and a preference for talking about tarifs, Epstein, 911, etc
With tiny improvements everything shifts around. The steam engine had many challenges that have been solved long ago. Imagine that the 100 mph carburator didn't happen because you lose much of the throttle control. How silly this excuse is in the age of hybrids? It's pretty much a non-argument.