What isn't reasonable is to take practical actions based on things that don't currently seem forbidden.
Back when the cryogenics movement was getting going, we were going to have jetpacks and flying cars and Bussard ramjets and fusion power and a million other things that it seemed perfectly reasonable to assume that we'd get eventually.
In most of those cases it now looks like we're never going to have them. In some cases, we've found reasons, and not necessarily technical ones, why they aren't feasible. In others, they just don't look like worthwhile solutions to those problems any more. In some, they still look possible but now look like taking more effort, time and expense than they would justify. Some, on the other hand, have happened, some still look plausible, and many things have happened that weren't really predicted in detail.
Betting on those things would have turned out to be a very bad move then. My guess is that betting on that kind of project is still a bad move. Getting into specifics on that is missing the point - we know too little about this to have specifics we can really judge the significance of.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 12:47 pm (UTC)Back when the cryogenics movement was getting going, we were going to have jetpacks and flying cars and Bussard ramjets and fusion power and a million other things that it seemed perfectly reasonable to assume that we'd get eventually.
In most of those cases it now looks like we're never going to have them. In some cases, we've found reasons, and not necessarily technical ones, why they aren't feasible. In others, they just don't look like worthwhile solutions to those problems any more. In some, they still look possible but now look like taking more effort, time and expense than they would justify. Some, on the other hand, have happened, some still look plausible, and many things have happened that weren't really predicted in detail.
Betting on those things would have turned out to be a very bad move then. My guess is that betting on that kind of project is still a bad move. Getting into specifics on that is missing the point - we know too little about this to have specifics we can really judge the significance of.