Readit NewsLook at those Windows 3.1/95/98/ME/2K/XP/Vista/7 icons: They have character. You try and tell me they didn't have fun drawing the icons for MS Agent and Dr. Watson; the fun and sense of humor the devs and artists had making them just ooze out.
Modern day hieroglyphs? They aim to not confuse or offend anyone, and end up impressing noone. They aim to speak all languages and end up speaking nothing. They aim to inform everyone and end up informing noone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogcow
MOOF!!!
While it may be artificial to a degree, the experience is no less profound.
The problem with these kinds of experiences is that it is fantasy made real to a degree and life without those experiences can seem dull.
That can be tricky to reconcile and isn't really spoken about enough. That box can't be closed once open.
Your example of hotels in orbit is an incorrect example. If humanity wanted to build a hotel in orbit, we would have a hotel in space (we already have a crappy hotel - ISS). I don't consider Hilton's incompetence to represent humanity's incompetence.
When it comes to material shortages, fusion power, limits of computer chip scaling, global warming, over fishing, plastic waste, hyper effective battery storage, nuclear deescalation etc... have all been answered a lot with - they will think of something. Yes, there have been improvements but with most of these things, we have also missed the mark by a long shot. And decades later, we haven't. Sometimes it is right, look at what we did with CFC's. But it is by no means something I would hitch my wagon to.
John Michael Greer calls phrases like these 'Thought-stoppers' Little saying that we have that mean we don't have to face the ugly truth of something or are just trying to be a little too optimistic about the future in the face of hard times. "Housing prices only go up", "They will think of something", "Stock prices only go up", "It is different this time", "The fundamentals don't matter any more" etc.
Global Warming is happening, that is not just a realm of modelling but is directly observable today. The models on a broad scale look to be working very well, specific locations and reactions not so much.
It is possible to make broad engines that work but also get the finer details wrong. Signal : Noise ratio and all of that.
I think there are several other scientific areas where we know less than we ought.
1. The sub-atomic level
2. The cellular level
3. Ocean biology
4. Geology, particularly effects of earthquakes and volcanic activity
5. Weather patterns over time
"Drip, drip from the tap don't slip Drip, drip from the tap don't slip on the drip"
The repetition is through the roof on that gem.
Yes, they can breed their own fuel but the total cost of doing it is wildly prohibitive.
You can get gold/uranium/lithium from Ocean water, try and do it at a price people will actually pay for it. You can get minerals from space, so long as the market rate of $10 million a ton is viable... etc.
As always, if I get proven wrong - that will be a great day!
Surely, given a century, our scientists will figure out something.
When ever I hear that, the optimist in me wants it to be true. The pessimist thinks otherwise and nowadays the pessimist usually wins.
We will have hotels in orbit by the 1970's - they will think of something! That was a legitimate thing that the Hiltons proposed back in the 1960's.