Maybe the pandemic that we completely failed to handle ? The "breakthrough" vaccines / meds that kinda help but don't solve the issues as much as "we got lucky at the mutation lottery this time, but wait until millions of Chinese breed the next variant" ?
The war in Europe that was "never supposed to happen anymore because it would be insane because trade etc..." and yet... just does ?
The energy crisis that will be "solved" by piling coal on top of not reducing emissions ?
The fires and floods that can't be dealt with because it would be "catering to liberal propaganda ?"
Social media burning the minds of a generation, including the mind of the one guy that was kinda inspirational once in a while, but is now going the full "James bond vilain" road ?
Now, don't get me wrong, none of this is "new", "unprecedented", "the end of the world", etc... All of this shall pass, and in the long run, somewhere in the distant future, the small steps will accumulate to create a vague form of "good news".
Someday, an actual fusion reactor will be ready to light a bulb. And then...
...then, you'll get protests and FUDs and corruption and NIMBYism to make sure the plant opens somewhere else.
> I would suggest reflecting on that, I do not think the things you are naming are unique.
Oh I wholeheartedly agree that it's neither unique, nor new, nor the first or last times we fucked things up. My pronouns are pessimistic/stoic/sleepy.
> mRNA vaccines were absolutely a breakthrough therapy.
...a "breakthrough" that was incorrectly touted a fix for the pandemic, that would also be used to cure all disease, etc... (Again, not by the researchers themselves, but by pretty much everyone else.)
In the end, it definitely bought time for the elderly (and unhealthy), until Omicron actually changed the game.
If we had not got this particular mutation "winning ticket", given the disappointing efficiency of mRNA vaccines on infection and transmission, I'm unfortunately convinced that we would still have to show proof of a recent vaccination to get a coffee. (And since I'm in a particularly bad mood, let's not talk about the long term societal effects of mandates and restrictions and penalization of "not blindly trusting your government", which will reveberate.)
At least, we learnt that "maaaaybe it's worth testing our medecines on the half of humanity that has a functioning uterus" [1], which is a "breakthrough discovery" that almost arrived _after_ nuclear fusion.
Maybe the pandemic that we completely failed to handle ? The "breakthrough" vaccines / meds that kinda help but don't solve the issues as much as "we got lucky at the mutation lottery this time, but wait until millions of Chinese breed the next variant" ?
The war in Europe that was "never supposed to happen anymore because it would be insane because trade etc..." and yet... just does ?
The energy crisis that will be "solved" by piling coal on top of not reducing emissions ?
The fires and floods that can't be dealt with because it would be "catering to liberal propaganda ?"
Social media burning the minds of a generation, including the mind of the one guy that was kinda inspirational once in a while, but is now going the full "James bond vilain" road ?
Now, don't get me wrong, none of this is "new", "unprecedented", "the end of the world", etc... All of this shall pass, and in the long run, somewhere in the distant future, the small steps will accumulate to create a vague form of "good news".
Someday, an actual fusion reactor will be ready to light a bulb. And then...
...then, you'll get protests and FUDs and corruption and NIMBYism to make sure the plant opens somewhere else.