Egregoros

Flash memory invented in 1984.

This is a great example of a technology with a slow innovation curve, but one that would eventually come to replace a lot of other things.

If you were smart, you would have known that (for example) tape based video cameras were going to be disrupted when flash memory hits enough density.

These things are tricky to think about because in many cases the growth curve is exponential, so something goes from "few kilobyte Nintendo cartridge" to "multi-terabyte SSD on a stick" in the matter of 4 decades.

These things are important to see and keep an eye on, because they are sitting there in plane sight, but most people don't pay attention - and they change how the future will look.

RT: https://mastodon.world/users/labrafa/statuses/116538277647424312

Batteries and solar are two emerging technologies which have exactly this kind of behavior - which is why I'm very bullish on the future of these technologies.

I acknowledge the problems, and particularly that geothermal and nuclear are WAY BETTER from first principles. But the thing is, there's insane amounts of R&D going into solar and batteries, so they're evolving FAST, while nuclear and geothermal have relatively little R&D and so they're stuck in the doldrums (for now).

China and India have started deploying utility solar like mad and (for the first time ever) petroleum / coal generation has gone flat.

The logic IMO is that yes unreliable production sucks, yes batteries suck, but mining, transporting, and burning coal, then dealing with the issues from dirty smoke in the cities, sucks more.

And China IS building a shitload of nuclear capacity, but they're also putting in a shitload of solar because it's quick and cheap to install, and nuclear is the opposite of quick and cheap to install...