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Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Jan. 31, 2015. Comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko made history as the first comet to be orbited and landed upon by robots from Earth. Image Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0
To the Moon! (Metaphorically Speaking) Comets Too! Although you wouldn’t know it from watching the TV news (I assume, because I don’t actually watch TV news) we live in the best and most amazing time in human history. As Thursday Things has pointed out before, betting against human ingenuity and innovation to solve whatever problems are in front of us is almost always the wrong call. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it!
One guy who exemplifies this attitude is Peter Diamandis who calls himself a “data-driven optimist”. Diamandis recently listed the Top 50 Moonshots (2000 - 2020) on his blog. None of these actually involve going to the moon (at least not yet), but you get the idea:
We’re living during the age of “Moonshots”, a time where entrepreneurs and scientists are able to go 10x farther than ever before.
The combination of exponential technologies (Computation, Artificial Intelligence, Sensors, Networks, Robotics, 3D printing, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality and Blockchain, etc.) are enabling small teams to attempt and achieve crazy ideas.
This blog takes a look at the top 50 Moonshots achieved during the past 20 years, since the turn of the millennium. What might be possible in the next 20 years?
We’ve chosen 50 Moonshots in 8 different categories… (with apology, and without question, some key Moonshots will be missing). Within each of the 8 categories, the Moonshots are listed in date order. In some cases, we are identifying events, in other cases companies being founded or discoveries being made.
The list includes the Rosetta's Philae lander successfully made the first soft landing on a comet nucleus when it touched down on Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko in 2014. Do you remember that? Human beings built a space probe, launched it into space, and landed it on a comet! (And now we have a helicopter flying the skies of Mars but that doesn’t make the list because that happened this year.)
Also on the list are the iPhone, Google, Siri, Bitcoin, Wikipedia, the Amazon Kindle, Uber, sequencing the human genome, successful gene therapy, CRISPR, and much more.
Take a look at the list and think about the fact that none of these things existed at the start of the year 2000. We take things like Google Maps, controlling computers by voice command, and being able to carry internet access around in our pocket for granted now — ho hum, right?
But all of these things are absolutely amazing! Go back and ask 1990 you (if there was a 1990 you) about anything on this list and past you’s mind would be blown.
There is today less poverty, less war, less starvation, and longer and healthier lives than ever before in human history. Not in every single place, not for every single person. But the overall trend is beyond dispute.
So why are so many people so depressed and hopeless and fearful about the future? That is a good question to ponder. Perhaps because there are plenty of individuals and institutions that see benefit in pushing pessimism and division.1 Perhaps because we have a natural tendency to focus on the bad news, even when surrounded by good news.
I didn’t write a lengthy edition last week because I figured most Happy Subscribers would be busy with the Thanksgiving holiday. I hope yours was spectacular, and I hope you found much to be thankful for in your life. I would like to suggest adding one more thing — be thankful you are alive in the greatest time to be alive ever! You are living in the amazing future, and it is only getting started.
Okay, that’s it for this week. Please do click the link and take a look at that list.
As always, thank you for reading Thursday Things. Again, please click the hearts, comment, and use the share feature to send this issue to a friend who might enjoy it. See you next Thursday!
Perhaps because when human beings performed the astounding feat of landing a robotic probe on a comet our clownish media decided to focus their attention on berating and humiliating one of the brilliant scientists who made it possible for wearing a supposedly “sexist” shirt 🙄 and stirring up controversy about, again, a shirt instead of focusing on the whole landing a space probe on a comet for the first time in human history thing. Some people look for the cloud in every silver lining. We call those people “journalists”.