Fuller is a social thinker focused on making people understand that society needs to know how to maximize Earth’s resources. He was inspired by Thomas Malthus. Populations increase geometrically, this causes issues when it comes to land increase for crops. Malthus did the math and the population was going to grow faster than crops could keep up with in 1778. However, the population is now 7 billion. The highest rates of housed, fed, and clothed people occured in the last century. In the 1960s there was enough food to feed everyone in the world and everyone could have access to energy services. But, this is where Fuller’s theory kicks in with winners and losers. People will benefit from the downfall of others. He believes Earth’s problems are interconnected. Fuller focuses on parameters necessary to overcome to improve inventions. To properly improve society we need to use resources wisely to not harm Earth and I think often time science is pushed to improve at an unreasonable rate that we forget about the negative effects in the long run. Fuller created the dymaxion house, dymaxion car, dymaxion bathroom, and dymaxion deployment units. The geodesic dome is what he is most well known for, allows for a lot of space and is very strong. He applied natures natural designs to his own to maximize anything and everything he could. He created the “knowledge Doubling Curve,” referring to how every year our knowledge doubles. IBM has stated that they believe humanity will progress to doubling knowledge every twelve hours. This all leads to the more polarized notion of Moore’s Law.
Size no longer reflects the power of a computer. Technology is always improving allowing for chips to be smaller while working more affectionately. Moore predicted that the number of components per chip would double every year. He noticed an annual doubling in transistors. Transistors are a switch in a microprocessor. Currently manufacturing processes a 22-nanometer feature. We now hold computers in our pockets. Money drives this theory. Cars and planes don’t get to have these types of advancements due to their atoms. Technology does not have restraints caused by the physics of the world; Supporting Moore’s Law. Moore believes chips are going to keep shrinking and even if he is wrong and one day the smallest chip is made performance of a computer can be advanced through different ways. This law drives annual improvement. I believe our knowledge of technology is very limited and Moore is indeed onto something. Looking into our history proves this, cars used to be science fiction. Most likely we can’t even fathom what’s to come. Fundamental limits such as quantum mechanics are going to cause Moore’s law to be disproved but I think we are going to push a lot of bounders before we reach this point. Moore believes in a decade we are going to run into some trouble trying to keep up with his theory. To get to where we are today with technology Intel has to redo the structure of the transistor forming a “tri-gate” chip. Paired with transistors is silicon, however, there are many alternatives yet to be tried allowing further advancement to be in our future.
Kurzweil created text-to-voice software, has received twenty honorary doctorates, three presidents have awarded him honors, and he has written seven books. Kurzweil follows Moore’s Law when expressing how technology, similar to biology, is an evolutionary progress. Inventions are constantly becoming faster. How society today improves technology effects how generations to come are able to advance. One invention builds on the one before it. “The first computers were designed on paper and assembled by hand. Today, they are designed on computer workstations with the computers themselves working out many details of the next generation’s design, and are then produced in fully automated factories with only limited human intervention (Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near).” His predictions of a computer beating a pro chess player, wireless access to the internet would exist, disabled people would be able to walk, people could give computers commands, glasses would hold computer display,and language translation would happen in real time. Kurzweil’s current predictions focus mainly on how computers will take over the world. His predictions follow Moore’s exponential growth curve. This is an exponential way of thinking and technology advanced exponential which is why Kurweil consistently has been proven right.
Thiel comments on how we don’t have charismatic leadership in today’s society. Society also pushed the notion to not take risk, instead, do better than the people around you. Due to this to try and remove us from our economic debt, America focuses on high paying jobs and rapidly growing technology. While technology is growth Thiel focuses more on how technology didn’t meet expectations compared to how Moore, Fuller, and Kurzweil focus on all the improvement. Thiel speaks about how we lack a lot of knowledge around atoms and can’t improve traveling speed. Another factor is fuel circling back to how we lack energy innovation relating to Kurzweil’s points of how we need to think about utilizing Earth without harming it. While travel is slowing in improvement so is medicine and biotechnology because of this technology is the focus of advancement in society because it has consistent results. However, technology slowdown then threatens the financial market. Even though most people can’t understand how technology works, society pushes for advancement to remove the US from debt. Technology has fallen short. Travel has not advanced. Planes, cars, ships, and science have been at a stand-still with advancements due to fuel cost. Medicine and biotechnology have also slowed progression. The FDA and the complexity of the human body can all be factors to this stall. However, due to this it has given people the time to focus on technology because there hasn’t been any road blocks. If you believe in economic data then technology will not save us from our debt. The wealthier are getting richer faster than the middle class, more benefits are being provided, corporate profits are increasing, college grads aren’t doing well after college, and women are being hired and men are being fired all causing the economy we are in today. Technology slow down threatens us even more.
Adeline's Blog 