What's it good for?

Obsession I am obsessed with rocket ships. (Why? Because Trump might be the President of the US, and I don't want to be here at that point.)  My hero is Elon Musk (read about his latest adventures in the wait but why blog , by Tim Urban , another one of my heroes!)  Why am I obsessed with rocket ships? Because that's the only way to save your ass when the sh*t relay hits the fan. Some day, when we have an intergalactic civilization, it will be obvious when you have to leave a planet because crazy people are taking over, with a spaceship you can actually do it. Today, not so much. How Much Can I Pay? So, when can I buy the Millennium Falcon?  Okay, not me specifically, but someone in my situation. Let's assume you are in the top one percent of the US economy. And let's assume that the economy grows  at 3 percent per year (okay, aggessive but not unbelievable.)  So how much money am I making every year?  According to CNN I should be making $400,00...

Precursors No, it will happen. At least if the aliens don't get here first. But we'll talk about that in another blog post. What I want to talk about today is the mistaken idea that progress will end. There's a neat book by John Brockman , actually a series of books that I call 'blog fodder.' The one that drove me to write about Grand Vacations is: " This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories that are Blocking Progress ." John has put together several books of this type where he asks scientists, economists and others to write something provocative on his chosen topic. These books are great fun to scan. Many of the articles are great fun, many are just crazy, some are so bad they aren't even wrong (as Wolfgang Pauli would say.) The article that started my train of thought that has led to this blog post was: "Economic Growth." Cesar Hidalgo , an Associate Professor at MIT claims the idea of economic growth must die. He makes two arg...