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We're stacking transistors measured in nm into worldwide communications systems, compelling simulations of reality, and systems that learn.

The scale is immense, so everything is built in multiple layers, each flawed and built upon a flawed foundation, each constantly changing, and we wouldn't achieve the heights we do if perfection, rather than satisfaction, was the goal.

Perhaps at some point the ground will stop shifting.



Sure we would, it would just take longer. A thousand years instead of 50. But just like we still use bridges and roads thousands of years old today, our distant descendents would still be using the exact foundations of what we produce now.


Sure, eventually we would get there. But we wouldn't be as far as we are at this moment.


You mean holding it all together with duct tape and chewing gum?


I mean being able to communicate with people around the world in real time, and all the rest.


> Perhaps at some point the ground will stop shifting.

Doubtful. Machines will build the ground instead, and what they build on top of it will be incomprehensible to us; at least we'll get to observe in awe.




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