What are some good examples of massive scientific/technological achievements which had strong societal interest for a long time before they happened? The Apollo missions come to mind. https://history.nasa.gov/sp4801-chapter4.pdf …
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Apollo was proposed in 1961. The first flight occurred in 1966, first crewed flight in 1968, and the first landing in 1969. The project spanned many years and had a number of setbacks (see Apollo 1). 1/5 of the world -- 600 million people -- watched the '69 landing *live*.pic.twitter.com/lLAdnjqRNo
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Apollo may not be a great example because there were some external factors at play, namely the Cold War and an American drive to "demonstrate the superiority of the free-market system" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program#Cultural_impact …
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Important question: how can we convene as a society/civilization, agree on important problems, and direct energy + resources towards these large efforts?
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Especially applies to problems involving existential risk for the human race - affects lots of people, solutions aren't always clear, may require lots of engineering, capital, coordination, and changes to the way we approach life Ex: Climate change, interplanetary colonization
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These things can likely be solved privately, but doing so requires stretching out the timeframe for success. SpaceX will probably make it to Mars, but it could be a while, and there's still a lot of other (expensive) problems to be solved in the meantime, like Martian ecology
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Seems to come back to the same core idea: **how can we get more people talking/working on these things** Unraveling the memetics of science
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