Starving for stretch, jonesing for shift, dying of boredom

A very nice thought-piece by devilstower over at boomantribune, on, er, uh-- The End of... Everything. No, he's not a revelationist, unless you count the seemingly counterintuitive idea of progress slowing down since 1950 a "revelation." Seemingly counterintuitive. Tilt your head just right and he makes sense. And, if you extrapolate as we've been known to do from time to time here, you see how the jones for new frontiers has effects far and wide in the sandbox.

I'll let him provide the tease...

Part I: The Most Unpopular Man in Science

Actually, the story starts better than two million years ago, when hominids figured out that stone plus pig skull equaled a lot more bacon for diner. Some time after that came the fire thing. Around 40,000 years ago, there was an explosion of technology -- almost the Cambrian of the mind -- and about 30,000 years after that, along came agriculture. After that, it was all just fiddly bits.

What happened in 1989 was that Scientific American writer, John Horgan, began to follow around some of the top scientists and researchers in the world. He shot the physics breeze with Roger Penrose. Discussed evolutionary science with Stephen Jay Gould. Put some hair on black holes with Stephen Hawking. And contemplated structures with Freeman Dyson.

Jealous much? I know I am. And Horgan wasn't limited to this foursome. He interviewed scores of scientists, from the old guard to the young Turks, across almost every field imaginable. He didn't limit his discussions to only the so-called "hard scientists," but branched out to talk with luminaries of the mind like Karl Popper and Noam Chomsky. He interviewed these men (and precious few women) in their homes and laboratories. He talked to them about their personal lives and their professional dreams.

In 1996, the results of his world-wide science groupie junket were published, but even the title of the book was enough to set teeth on edge for many of the people he had interviewed. Horgan called his book The End of Science.

Much, much more here.

Since he was casting about for "what's next?" I figured this might stimulate (or numb) the noodling:

March 2004: Just a little office thought experiment on The Future of Man & Commerce for a project. (Odd: No happy meal toys.)


[click to enlarge]

I'm sure we missed lots. Any additions?