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Ask HN: When will we reach the limits of scientific or industrial progress?

9 points by RingwormOne ↗ HN
It seems there are a finite number of ways to do something well or to make a process more efficient. When will we run out of ways to improve things? What will society look like when that time comes?

6 comments

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alexdrans
Humans will reach their natural limits, but machines will take us higher.
Koshkin
> machines will

They already are, and they also have their "natural limits" - everything does.

WheelsAtLarge
Never, our tech will advance but our needs/wants change too. So we can never reach the end.
agitator
I think at a certain point everything will be digitized, and the only inefficiency will be humans themselves. Eventually we will be replaced. So "our" innovation will end when we end and the next phase in evolution will continue.
Koshkin
The idea behind the perceived need to seek perfection (and the hope to find it) is flawed: the only thing that that cannot be perfected any further is the Void. The idea of replacing everything with the Void (i.e. of total destruction) is not all that different, as it might seem, from the idea of replacing the humans with something "more efficient."
Koshkin
> improve

Depends on the meaning of the word, but it may vary from society to society and from person to person. Some would say that we are already in a phase where we are "improving" things that are not in need of improvement. (For example, not everyone likes having a touch-screen in their car.)