/sci/ - Science & Math

The industrial revolution has been a disaster for the human race. We need to rectify this.

You have the power of time travel and your goal is to either prevent an industrial revolution, or to moderate its deleterious effects. As I am not interested in complete alt-history wanks, we will set the minimum date to be 1500 AD.

Once you travel to the point of your choosing, you will instantly enjoy the renown of the most esteemed scientist of the day. When you say something, kings listen. Actually, let us go a step further: the leadership/elite of Europe will adhere almost slavishly to your directives. They would just oppose obviously extreme and fanciful suggestions. E.g., if you told Europe it needs to "return to monke" and live like naked bushmen foraging berries, they wouldn't follow your directive. But if you said something drastic that is still within the realm of conceivability, e.g. demanding the sexes need to be somewhat strictly segregated past a certain age "to uphold morals", they would listen and work to implement this goal.
As this example implies, you may not just alter the trajectory of tech and science, but also social/societal/cultural norms. Society and technological/economical revolutions are inherently linked, anyway, as can be demonstrated by the probable ill of post-industrial urbanization.

On a magical eReader that never breaks/runs out of power you may bring 50 e-books (of moderate length). Use this to study history so you know where to meddle, or study the techs/sciences so you can prevent/steer them, or bring a tech from the future to make the past more amenable, like various medical advances (penicillin, germ theory, etc.)

A final point: consider the time span between 1200 and 1700. The lack of an industrial revolution isn't automatically equivalent to complete scientific/technological stasis. To a person from 1200, 1700 would have seemed extremely different, advanced and "enlightened"( if the person values this).

What will you do?

lution has been a disaster for the human race. We need to rectify this.

You have the power of time travel and your goal is to either prevent an industrial revolution, or to moderate its deleterious effects. As I am not interested in complete alt-history wanks, we will set the minimum date to be 1500 AD.

Once you travel to the point of your choosing, you will instantly enjoy the renown of the most esteemed scientist of the day. When you say something, kings listen. Actually, let us go a step further: the leadership/elite of Europe will adhere almost slavishly to your directives. They would just oppose obviously extreme and fanciful suggestions. E.g., if you told Europe it needs to "return to monke" and live like naked bushmen foraging berries, they wouldn't follow your directive. But if you said something drastic that is still within the realm of conceivability, e.g. demanding the sexes need to be somewhat strictly segregated past a certain age "to uphold morals", they would listen and work to implement this goal.
As this example implies, you may not just alter the trajectory of tech and science, but also social/societal/cultural norms. Society and technological/economical revolutions are inherently linked, anyway, as can be demonstrated by the probable ill of post-industrial urbanization.

On a magical eReader that never breaks/runs out of power you may bring 50 e-books (of moderate length). Use this to study history so you know where to meddle, or study the techs/sciences so you can prevent/steer them, or bring a tech from the future to make the past more amenable, like various medical advances (penicillin, germ theory, etc.)

A final point: consider the time span between 1200 and 1700. The lack of an industrial revolution isn't automatically equivalent to complete scientific/technological stasis. To a person from 1200, 1700 would have seemed extremely different, advanced and "enlightened"( if the person values this).

What will you do?

>>15196367
Fuck off, I am an actual greentard and I honestly could punch the windpipe forcefully of anyone that starts droning about the climate in my vicinity.
It's not about whether AGW exists, but about what usually retarded and ineffective (if you think it's a big problem) actions we should undertake, and how big a problem it is to begin with.
We will literally just attain temperatures from a couple million years ago (not even Mesozoic) again.

>>15144281
>That is a severely retarded viewpoint you have
Why? Bold to use such verbiage when you don't exactly disprove me the next sentences.

>no way would our species be able to sustain itself at Victorian era technology
What? "Sustain ourselves"? What in the fuck does that even mean, you complete moron? Make statements that can actually be discussed.
Is having access to Youtube and Netflix equivalent to "sustaining ourselves" in your mind?
>even if we went back to that theres no way it would stay at that level for long or even a single generation once cultural shift cancelled out Ludditism .
Evidently Victorian tech can be transcended.
It's not the only part of the package I am proposing. Obviously there needs to be Luddite safeguards, cultural mores fostered perhaps via religion for the mid- to dimwitted part of the populace, etc.
There's a reason why I implied that society may be allowed to be maintained at Victorian levels, rather than simply devolving there as a fire-and-forget solution.
A tech debasement gives us vital decades (per one such "Victorian-to-AGI cycle", before it begins anew) to anticipate the problem and let actors of that Neo-Victorian world act kinetically to suppress such actors. Bomb them with some airships or something.

>>12475849
It wont.

>>12415786
>technology

>>12220830
Why is research even funded?

Physics in great tier after bachelors is a lie. less than $30k and that's if you're extremely lucky to find a job in the field in the first place.

>>12004982
>Everyone would need to get a chip in their head or choose to move under a bridge.

>>11947754
So a 90% chance of a good outcome. Nice.

>>11879263
the first 25-year-old professor in the history of the UC system was more based imo

>>11785866
Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply troubled society. One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology of leftism can serve as an introduction to the discussion of the problems of modern society in general.

But what is leftism? During the first half of the 20th century leftism could have been practically identified with socialism. Today the movement is fragmented and it is not clear who can properly be called a leftist. When we speak of leftists in this article we have in mind mainly socialists, collectivists, “politically correct” types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the like. But not everyone who is associated with one of these movements is a leftist. What we are trying to get at in discussing leftism is not so much movement or an ideology as a psychological type, or rather a collection of related types. Thus, what we mean by “leftism” will emerge more clearly in the course of our discussion of leftist psychology.

Even so, our conception of leftism will remain a good deal less clear than we would wish, but there doesn’t seem to be any remedy for this. All we are trying to do here is indicate in a rough and approximate way the two psychological tendencies that we believe are the main driving force of modern leftism. We by no means claim to be telling the WHOLE truth about leftist psychology. Also, our discussion is meant to apply to modern leftism only. We leave open the question of the extent to which our discussion could be applied to the leftists of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call “feelings of inferiority” and “oversocialization.” Feelings of inferiority are characteristic of modern leftism as a whole, while oversocialization is characteristic only of a certain segment of modern leftism; but this segment is highly influential.

/sci/'s ultimate boss, in your heart you know he's right

>>11659907
>Aerospace Engineering is cooler
>you’ll make more with a Comp Sci degree
>Mechanical and Industrial Engineering degrees are the most flexible
>don’t be an engineer because the industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race

When will /sci/ take the Ted pill?