<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">On Sat, Dec 23, 2023 at 8:13 AM Kelly Anderson via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Einstein proposed that nothing could achieve the speed of light<br>
because it gained mass as it got closer to that speed.<br>
<br>
I wonder if something similar might affect intellectual progress.<br>
Though there is no c there, so it might not hold together entirely.<br>
Hang with this for a second though, as there is a counter exponential<br>
at play.<br>
<br>
As we grope into the future, there is a trend away from the single<br>
brilliant inventor. Edison had a whole lab of people, some of whom<br>
were clearly smarter than he. Eli Whitney pretty much invented the<br>
cotton gin by himself relying on only a few simple precedent ideas. By<br>
the time we get to super colliders, fusion reactors and rockets, you<br>
need a village of scientists and engineers to make progress.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That is only a function of how big the design is. It is possible for one person to design all the components, but it is infeasible for one person to build something that large. The light bulb was a bit of an exception, though <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/10567/the-cost-of-light-through-the-ages/">https://www.statista.com/chart/10567/the-cost-of-light-through-the-ages/</a> shows that in 1880 - after Edison's team's famous labor - artificial light still cost over 10,000 times what it does today,after accounting for inflation.</div><div><br></div><div>That said, as it is said, we live in a society. Eli Whitney did not invent mining, blacksmithing, or the other crafts needed to make the parts he assembled. Albert Einstein did not invent physics, mathematics, or writing - not even the German or English languages. Those who come up with new things, start from other contributions of those who have gone before them. The Internet allows dramatically better access to this - if it has been written up and posted where one can get at it, if one is skilled enough to find it, and if one is of a mindset to do so:even today's youth who grew up online too often do not think to search for answers online when they have questions they find difficult.</div></div></div>