Blockchain was an incredibly transparent grift. AI is a fascinating technology that’s being used and abused by the worst people on the planet and will probably cause society as we know it to collapse. Quantum computers are a very niche, very specific tool that are super cool but get talked about weirdly by the media.
Virtual reality is neat and I think it hasn’t really been used as a grift yet. I don’t think we’ve really solved its UX nor explored all its possibilities. It seems like as a consumer device it will be a niche product, but the applications for companies and organizations are very untapped.
didn’t meta and apple try turning VR into the ‘Next big thing’ very recently, i mean they got distracted with LLMs but they could always try again.
I still dont think blockchain; the tech itself is a grift, it does what it promised to do(not BTC, other coins that improved on it, BTC itself has turned into a big game of chicken), has uses beyond its initial purpose. Its just that the tech attracted grifters like flies, and their actions were transparent(yet people still fell for it)
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capitalism
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I agree about block chain, but AI and quantum have real life practical purposes. The current models are not good but they will improve eventually.
For me, I would say that a grift is not a technology, but the housing market itself. There is no reason for the house prices and rent to go up to extortionate level. Some will say “oh but it’s the market”. Buddy, tell me what do you do and do you own a property and how much is it when you bought it and if you sell it now? I know of someone who was happy enough to get 100k profit from when he initially bought his house and sold it. But bidders kept asking for more until he profited 300k. He didn’t say anything because that’s how the bidding went. He admitted that the housing market is a scam essentially-- a grift.
I don’t know about you guys but where I live, there is always a news of residents opposing the building of social housing nearby for whatever frivolous reasons. These are usually in affluent areas, which used to be middle or working class in which their very own houses were built by the government. But if social housing is built, it is in the middle of nowhere with no opportunities leading to ghost estates. The houses are left rotting but allowed to stand to artificially inflate the house prices. And the rich and middle class wonder why the working class are revolting. I mean, as a middle class, the middle class knows the problem but doesn’t care because we benefit from economic privileges. We are repeating the gilded age.
Nah they’re not inherently grifts; they’re pushed by grifters making money off the back of them.
I think Lemmy users are more likely to call these grifters out for what they are, because the user base has proportionally more technically minded people who understand what the technology is. Lemmy users have to an extent self-selected themselves into the fediverse. On other social media the absolute number of technically minded people will be higher but the proportion of technically minded people is much lower, so the voices are drowned out by those who don’t understand he technology and it’s limitations. And of course the grifters target those platforms with a lot of propaganda, because ultimately it’s about selling shares and inflating share prices.
Anyway to answer you question, CRISPR gene editing is revolutionary and will have major impact. Nuclear Fusion despite it’s slow emergence will also be revolutionary. Immunotherapy is an ongoing revolution; it’s not a quiet revolution but it’s also not getting the general focus it probably should be as AI appears to dominate the current zeitgeist.
We are actually living through extraordinary times; AI is a part of it but AI seems to be the bit getting most of the attention because we’re in the middle of a stock bubble driven by AI speculation.
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All technology from this point on will be a grift, because the grifters have all the power.
Seriously
There’s quite a lot happening in 3d printing that is kind of life changing, and not getting any press coverage because no single obscenely wealthy person can use it to hype a pump and dump.
Weird specific stuff exists now, that never did before - like custom cases for weird sizes of batteries, and a pen-holder that looks exactly like the latest manga character to make a splash.
I got some parts for a very cheap keyboard that Logitech doesn’t sell (for obvious reasons, it’s Logitech lol). Just hit up a 3d webshop and they were delivered in less than a week.
Not to mention the high-end stuff that is being used for like, medical innovations.
Do elaborate more on the 3D printing stuff
Do elaborate more on the 3D printing stuff
There’s all kinds of mechanical things that can be directly 3d printed, now - screws, and hinges and springs!
Someone invented a 3-way zipper that allows a structure to be rigid when zipped or flexible when unzipped. Supposedly we’re going to get a bunch of cool new more convenient tents and field furniture with it, soon.
Yeah 3D printing has either allowed me to print out stuff that helps around the house that I don’t necessarily want to spend money on (a basic flowerpot for example), or things that are obscenely overpriced that I can print at the fraction of the cost (a case for clarinet reeds, with some cases going for nearly 100$ for a basic plastic case with a space for a silica gel packet).
At first I picked up my printer thinking it would be useful for robotics and prototyping some cases for electronics projects. Turns out its playing a big role in me just not going out to buy stuff anymore.
Anything china makes*
You’re several decades out of date with that opinion.
Chinese manufacturing has exploded in quality, safety, and efficiency over the last 20 years. The old stereotype that China is an assembly line economy pumping out cheap knockoffs and plastic junk, is false.
China now has some of the most advanced manufacturing facilities in the world. Even Tim Cook stated publicly a year or two ago, that they don’t manufacture Apple devices in China because it’s cheaper. They do it because China is the only country currently that has both the precision engineering plus the scale to build those devices at the volumes and quality Apple demands.
China has invested massively into STEM, their students, engineers, and scientists attended the best Western universities across the world for decades. Learned everything they could, brought that knowledge back home, and have been expanding on and turbocharging it with massive state and private investments.
Basically they did what the US used to do before we became a grift/vibe/hussle economy, and they are eating our lunch. Now I am absolutely no fan of China, but damn it, I am starting to get pretty jealous…
Yep buckykat already backed me up. I was saying that in support of china not against. I agree I think chinese technology is cool.
You’re right, sorry haha. I flipped that 180 degrees in my head.
The user you’re replying to is answering “anything China makes” to the question “what is not a grift?”
Sure reads to me as a statement in favor of Chinese technology.
Sorry, totally flipped that in my head, you’re right lol.
Look, I’m not one of those people who will call out “tankies” or say that China is evil, but that’s a level of uncritical thinking bordering MAGA.
Quantum non-fungible tokens won’t be a grift. Trust me.
(Hopefully this obvious sarcasm is obvious.)
Why do folks think quantum computing is a grift? I haven’t heard that yet.
He’s from the future where we call it a grift
The technology itself isn’t, but companies will probably abuse the word ‘quantum’ until it loses all meaning, like they have with AI.
Is your cloud Quantum Safe™?
…which is something I actually consider. I does indeed actually bother me that very few companies have actually adopted post-quantum cryptography yet. What is even the point of my VPN, for example, if there is a potential that everything is cracked 40 years down the line? NIST has already basically approved the standards. It should be an option for sensitive things, like anything to do with banking, data storage, and VPN.
Oh, I agree, it’s definitely important. But that’s sort of where the grift comes in. You mix the valid concerns with fear mongering and upcharges. I use ecc (or whatever it’s called) for my ssh keys, not RSA.
I believe ECC is also targetable by quantum computers in theory. Post-quantum cryptography is lattice-based ciphers like Kyber.
At this point, the only thing that wouldn’t be a grift is a proof that P=NP, so that we can break all DRM effortlessly.
None of them are a grift. They get used by financial traders for performing grifts, but the grift was and always has been stock market manipulation. AI is incredibly useful and many competent engineers now use it effectively. I expect the bubble of anthropic/openai will pop once local or on-prem models get better.
I think Fire and Stick have a long future ahead of them still. Also a big fan of Wheel and Stardew Valley.
The four great innovations
I think Fire and Stick have a long future ahead of them still. Also a big fan of Wheel and Stardew Valley.
Uh…one of these is not like the others.
Are we sure
Wheelhas the long term practical staying power of the others in this list?It’s not great in bogs and up hills I’ll admit
Stuff made open source/without a profit motive.
If there’s a profit motive, it’s not looking to solve a problem or make things better. It’s looking to make profit.
I’m hoping repairable tech is going to become more and more common. So far neither Framework nor Fairphone seem like grifters while some that came before didn’t end up fulfilling their promises.
Fediverse
