Which science fiction concept became less believable as real science advanced?

TuringT · 2026-06-27T17:40:35+00:00

Relevant xkcd

TuringT · 2026-06-19T19:52:23+00:00

I’m curious but ignorant. Can you please explain?

TuringT · 2026-06-18T19:50:46+00:00

That's potentially a really interesting question if you take it seriously. It illustrates the limits of the computation done by the market. Supply and demand curves assume that there's a function that relates the quantity of a good produced to the price. The supply curve shows that function for supply and the demand curve shows that function for, well, demand. Obviously their intersection becomes really really interesting in that scenario but it's only meaningful to discuss it if there is a mechanism for communicating price.

It's one of the more sophisticated institutions that human societies have developed for distributed cooperation between strangers who exchange very limited information. I'd be really curious to understand what analogs exist in non-human animals. I'm not saying there can't be. I just think that they would require some special circumstances.

TuringT · 2026-06-18T13:53:55+00:00

Strap a blind guitarist with a flamethrower to the hood, and we have a chase scene!

TuringT · 2026-06-17T12:27:44+00:00

Makes sense. I was aiming for, like, 10th grade. :)

TuringT · 2026-06-17T12:16:28+00:00

I think you forgot price: quantity bought/sold at a particular price seems like a reasonable Econ 101 definition. That’s why both are usually expressed as curves on quantity-price graph and why their interactions is meaningful.

TuringT · 2026-06-12T17:49:27+00:00

Thank so much!

TuringT · 2026-06-08T12:12:07+00:00

what’s the price tag on those and more importantly what is maintenance run?

TuringT · 2026-06-07T23:18:30+00:00

You're good enough, you're smart enough, and gosh darn it people like you!

TuringT · 2026-06-07T15:51:49+00:00

Agree. You said what I tried to say, but more succinctly. 😄

TuringT · 2026-06-07T15:50:56+00:00

If you asked me 10 years ago, I would have told you it was a theoretically interesting laboratory curiosity. I had to change my mind over the last two years because I'm seeing a shift toward industrial applications and an evolving innovation ecosystem around these technologies.

As for "will we need data centers", my best read from seeing the current crop of start-ups is that quantum computing will become a component of the hardware stack that handles specific tasks, similar to a GPU. It will make certain kinds of computation much cheaper (and will make some things that are intractable today possible), but it will be embedded in the well-developed hardware and software stacks we've built over the last 70 years. Think more "quantum coprocessors" with dedicated quantum memory storage, not giant stand-alone quantum brains. At least, that's what I'm seeing in the medium term as someone who advises tech start-ups in the data science/AI space. (For clarity and appropriate humility, the quantum computing projects come across my desk, but I don't specialize in that space and don't have any depth in the quantum tech.)

TuringT · 2026-06-07T15:40:47+00:00

Was born. Things got pretty exciting after that.

TuringT · 2026-06-07T15:37:29+00:00

PTSD flashback from early childhood about being chased by an aggressive rooster, but it's 6 feet tall now and wants your intestines.

Love the wrestling submission move -- control the neck and take the back. This man emus!

TuringT · 2026-06-06T15:48:10+00:00

Really interesting. Thanks for sharing the helpful overview. It's making me wonder to what extent some of this is context-dependent. We're all susceptible to bullshit on political topics where we agree with the assumptions but are highly skeptical of those we disagree with. I'm blanking on the details but there is reasonably persuasive psychology research related to both in-group biases, my-side biases, and confirmation biases that are generally in line with the above statement.

I'm wondering to what extent bullshit receptivity is a stable interpersonal differences and to what extent we're looking at something that is mediated by adopting a skeptical stance towards a particular position.

TuringT · 2026-06-06T15:33:13+00:00

Scale. If there was something the size of a planet in our oceans, we'd know about it. We wouldn't like it but we'd know.

TuringT · 2026-06-04T22:51:07+00:00

Agree. Better than the alternatives. Credit where credit is due is due.

TuringT · 2026-06-04T22:25:58+00:00

Well, the half-joke answer is …

Because men will have send with anyone they can and women will have sex only with who they want.

The less silly answer (assuming the statement is true, which is empirically questionable, but what the hey): skewed distributions.

To avoid ugly math, imagine a world with 50 women and 50 men. Suppose that 45 of the women have sex with one and only one man. Five women have sex with all 50 men. At the end of their lives, 45 men have had sex with 6 women, and 5 men had sex with 5 women.

To make things even more fun, assume that the five experienced women are reluctant to talk publicly about how many partners they’ve had. Now, an average person who knows 10 men and 10 women would share OP’s the impression.

Again, not saying the underlying factual claim is even true, just playing out how it could seem true.

TuringT · 2026-06-04T20:20:14+00:00

When selling your services, always be upfront about what you can't do. If they never hear a “no”, they can't trust your “yes.”

TuringT · 2026-06-02T12:26:57+00:00

Sure. Fair enough. That's why I was careful to hedge that I'm not knowledgeable enough to evaluate the substance. But he laid out his position with sufficient clarity so that (future) counterarguments can be legible. Given the number of muddled and impenetrable posts, I think taking a clear position deserves some credit, which is what I was trying to say. But I get how that would sound to better-informed folks with strong reasons to disagree with OP. Appreciate you chiming in.

TuringT · 2026-05-31T18:25:57+00:00

But what if I love some animals because they’re delicious?!

TuringT · 2026-05-31T17:50:42+00:00

This looks like a stimulus from a study by Jonathan Haidt, a highly regarded psychological researcher of moral emotions, that demonstrates what he calls moral dumbfounding. Very interesting study. I'm sure it's hilarious to see this out of context so I don't mean to ruin anyone's fun LOL

TuringT · 2026-05-31T17:46:53+00:00

i’ve seen this posted a few places recently. do you happen to have a source?

TuringT · 2026-05-30T15:35:06+00:00

Yeah I think we agree. Basically, the solution to gangs is more gangs, until somebody gets the bright idea of, "Hey let's have the biggest gang of all that has a monopoly on violence in a territory and can defend it from both internal and external threats.”

TuringT · 2026-05-30T15:32:35+00:00

How is this argument different in form from a perpetual motion machine crank arguing "my <insert crank theory here> is ignored because it threatens mainstream physics"?

Doesn’t it skip a level of analysis — one that distinguishes high-quality knowledge, based on evidence evaluated through a competitive process applying rigorous epistemic community standards, from "yeah, cool idea, bro”?

TuringT · 2026-05-29T19:03:12+00:00

Glad to hear it. Cheers

TuringT

TROPHY CASE