Dirt Cheap Torchships?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

But there's not an omniscient manager handy, so we can't know which are the proper 10% that will succeed, and which are the 90% to be despised and reassigned against their will for the greater good.

There's a fair amount of 'obvious waste of time' filtering that can be usefully done.

[VonKatzen]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

We certainly know enough to reject the perpetual motion machines, panaceas, and homeopathy.
There's unlikely, probably impossible, and the outright absurd. Problems mainly occur when what's obviously in the latter category to experts isn't to the non-experts.

There's also the problem of expertise itself. A lot of people pose as experts but have simply become regarded as such, whereas some people actually know more and are not acknowledged. This is a core problem of epistemology, not only recognizing what you do or do not understand but what other people do or do not understand about something.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by VonKatzen

That 90% eat up time and energy that could be used more profitably elsewhere. And it's not like it's random chance - the innovative people have good reason to believe they're right, and often others just miss it.

No. Just no.

It's true that a great deal of the energy expended on attempted innovation comes to nothing. That is not the same as wasted.

There's no way to know beforehand if a given idea will work or not until it's investigated. You can sometimes make a good guess...but that's all it is, a guess. Yeah, innovative people think they have good reason to believe they're right, so do those who fail. Nor is it a matte of 'just missing it'. One good definition of genius is seeing the obvious for the first time.

The ones who are just wasting time are often quite rightly told they don't know what they're talking about and are just flushing cash down the toilet.

True. The ones who turn out to be right are usually told the same thing. There's no way to sort it out other than by putting it to the test.

While some Futurism is on the level of Clark sussing out a communications satellite, the vast majority of it is just written by people who obviously don't know the basic science to begin with and are unaware of what the difficulties are (even if they could be overcome).

'Futurism' is a meaningless word. Again, there's no way to sort out the 1% valid innovation beforehand. Believe me, if there was, it would be used.

As a practical matter this disucssion of wormhole physics ultimately amounts to fluff. Nothing wrong with fluff, but it's not really going to get you any more mechanical traction one way or the other. The answer is a pretty straightforward 'if wormholes are possible nobody really knows how they'd work or how to make them'. You can take a look at various people's guesses to choose a model for your game, but you could also just make something up and be about as accurate in all likelyhood. Star Trek and the Gray Lensman are about equally plausible to IRL science, despite the fact that Star Trek spends far more effort trying to rationalize itself with particle physics.

Actually, Smith spent more time trying to ground at least some of it it in real science, it's Star Trek that BSd most of it.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

We certainly know enough to reject the perpetual motion machines, panaceas, and homeopathy.

Even there, it's not that clear-cut. Nuclear fission looks like a magical concept in terms of the real physics of Daltonian theory. It was well-established that acquired characteristics could not be inherited...except that it turns out that they sometimes can. Etc.

[Flyndaran]

Innovation still doesn't come out of nowhere as a general rule. Nuclear physics didn't start with someone creating a reactor.

And assuming you're referencing epigenetics and the weird almost Lamarackian evolution in addition to the Darwinian... that's merely adding complexity to an already barely understood ultra complex process of inheritibility.

Neither of those are on the level of the truly absurd. Like I tried to say, it's in the middle ground that may or may not be proved or disproved where real ground breaking innovation occurs.

Only exceptionally rarely does something get developed that truly blows all the experts minds with the impossible made possible.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

No. Just no.

It's true that a great deal of the energy expended on attempted innovation comes to nothing. That is not the same as wasted.

It is not necessarily the same as wasted. In general, if you don't have evidence that something might work, any effort beyond basic research (there's an empty spot in our knowledge, let's fill it in to see if it leads anywhere) is in fact a waste.

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

There's no way to know beforehand if a given idea will work or not until it's investigated.

There's plenty of ways to estimate odds.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Innovation still doesn't come out of nowhere as a general rule. Nuclear physics didn't start with someone creating a reactor.

And assuming you're referencing epigenetics and the weird almost Lamarackian evolution in addition to the Darwinian... that's merely adding complexity to an already barely understood ultra complex process of inheritibility.

Neither of those are on the level of the truly absurd. Like I tried to say, it's in the middle ground that may or may not be proved or disproved where real ground breaking innovation occurs.

Only exceptionally rarely does something get developed that truly blows all the experts minds with the impossible made possible.

But those exceptional breakthroughs are the foundation for almost everything else, and the only way they can happen is the way they do happen, which means that 99+% of failed attempts have to happen too.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It is not necessarily the same as wasted. In general, if you don't have evidence that something might work, any effort beyond basic research (there's an empty spot in our knowledge, let's fill it in to see if it leads anywhere) is in fact a waste.

There's plenty of ways to estimate odds.

And they'll work 99% of the time. That other 1% is the part that matters, and you can't get that 1% any way other than the way we do get it.

You don't have to convince me that the skeptics are usually right, I'm very well aware of it. It doesn't change the 1% factor.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

And they'll work 99% of the time. That other 1% is the part that matters, and you can't get that 1% any way other than the way we do get it.

The way we get it is via basic research, not via people blindly throwing darts. There's a lot of basic research done on verifying things we think are true, and sometimes it turns out those things aren't true and we have a discovery, but if you try to go out and build a thing, without first having a theory about how the thing is going to work and evidence that your theory is correct, you're wasting your money.

[Flyndaran]

I doubt anyone really wants their tax dollars blown on perpetual motion machines because, "sometimes wacky ideas work".