I’ve been trying to think of good examples in military technology, but haven’t thought of any great ones yet. However, one thing I thought about was the supposed “rods from god” idea of using what are (basically) oversized, high-density (tungsten) lawn darts dropped from space. These weapons could potentially have tactical-nuclear-level kinetic energy without any of the nuclear fallout or stigma (albeit an entirely different set of stigma/international condemnation). But IIRC it’s not being scaled for a variety of reasons including “it’s really dang expensive to put a lot of large tungsten rods into space.”
However, that doesn’t necessarily mean it couldn’t eventually be scaled up if we, e.g., developed an effective space elevator. And that leads to a follow-up question: how do we distinguish between “can’t scale up (.)” and “can’t scale up (yet)”? I definitely think there are some instances where the difference would be clear, but I would similarly be interested to see cases where we thought “X technology doesn’t have a future (due to competitor technology Y and/or physical limitation Z)” only to later discover/invent something that makes an altered form of X viable.
I would similarly be interested to see cases where we thought “X technology doesn’t have a future (due to competitor technology Y and/or physical limitation Z)” only to later discover/invent something that makes an altered form of X viable.
I too would be interested in this, as a reference class. I think it would be a strategically important update for us if we were to conclude that there’s a decent chance human-level AI or aging or cultured meat(or for that matter transmutation) is scientifically but not economically viable in the current form, but an entirely different route of getting there eventually becomes economically viable decades later.
I’ve been trying to think of good examples in military technology, but haven’t thought of any great ones yet. However, one thing I thought about was the supposed “rods from god” idea of using what are (basically) oversized, high-density (tungsten) lawn darts dropped from space. These weapons could potentially have tactical-nuclear-level kinetic energy without any of the nuclear fallout or stigma (albeit an entirely different set of stigma/international condemnation). But IIRC it’s not being scaled for a variety of reasons including “it’s really dang expensive to put a lot of large tungsten rods into space.”
However, that doesn’t necessarily mean it couldn’t eventually be scaled up if we, e.g., developed an effective space elevator. And that leads to a follow-up question: how do we distinguish between “can’t scale up (.)” and “can’t scale up (yet)”? I definitely think there are some instances where the difference would be clear, but I would similarly be interested to see cases where we thought “X technology doesn’t have a future (due to competitor technology Y and/or physical limitation Z)” only to later discover/invent something that makes an altered form of X viable.
I too would be interested in this, as a reference class. I think it would be a strategically important update for us if we were to conclude that there’s a decent chance human-level AI or aging or cultured meat(or for that matter transmutation) is scientifically but not economically viable in the current form, but an entirely different route of getting there eventually becomes economically viable decades later.