Why the sci-fi visions of the 50s and 60s didn't come true. That pretty much answers the question of why we don’t have teleportation devices or antigravity shoes. Common sense suggests that if you want to maximize scientific creativity, you find some bright people, give them the resources they need to pursue whatever idea comes into their heads, and then leave them alone. Most will turn up nothing, but one or two may well discover something. But if you want to minimize the possibility of unexpected breakthroughs, tell those same people they will receive no resources at all unless they spend the bulk of their time competing against each other to convince you they know in advance what they are going to discover.

What's really happening here? BP bit off more than they could chew, and there was a catastrophe that they weren't fully prepared for. That's stupid and irresponsible. But it doesn't seem equally foolhardy or naive, as this article seems to suggest, to assume that technology will solve our problems like cancer and hunger — of course it absolutely *will* solve them eventually. (Or it won't because we won't invent that technology, and we'll destroy ourselves.) There's a difference between hoping your existing technology will be adequate and hoping that people will continue to develop ingenious applications of science to solve problems. Because that's what technology is. The screwdriver is technology, "top-kill" mud seals are technology. Whether the first incarnation of something works isn't a sure thing, but blaming the non-entity "technology" as something we shouldn't trust because it isn't ready sometimes doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Think more on this.