Some of us are just old. We have seen countless hype cycles. Many hyped up things do not pan out. So we all have a “show me” kind of attitude now.

Also for things that do pan out, they sometimes comes with unforeseen negative consequences.*

As a result, it’s hard to get excited about ”great new thing” these days.

* e.g. the internet; there was so much optimism over it in the 90s … no one foresaw its use to track and manipulate the public on a massive scale, the damage to mental health social media has afflicted, … etc.

you lose nothing being enthusiastic for new tech that doesn't pan out

you gain nothing bashing new tech that doesn't pan out

If it doesn't matter either way, why be pessimistic - especially if you're a tech enthusiast - as most people on HackerNews ought to be.

This is my philosophy too. It’s fun to be excited! Way more fun than being pessimistic. I think the naysayers just handle disappointment differently than I do.

> you lose nothing being enthusiastic for new tech that doesn't pan out

I would be wasting attention on it. I kind of wish that the front page isn’t flooded with so much speculative news - when it reaches a certain level it becomes noise drowning out the signal. Tell me when you have definitive results.

It's stronger than that, I think. Cynicism has the cost that you don't get to spot where the truly valuable applications of a technology are. Yes, you don't waste time on applications that don't pan out, but you want to spend your brain cycles filtering those out quickly.

The internet is still an amazing piece of technology. You just got used to the benefits.

From another conversation: "I remember the web being hailed as the next big thing in the 90's, like it was going to change everything..." "It did."

(neither of those was me, for clarity)

In my experience old people welcome innovation because they saw a lot of great things happening in their life. When you say old, are you more in the 40s or the 80s?

40s.

I just approach “next big thing” with caution these days. It will either go nowhere or actually work but will have unforeseen fallout that we have to deal with / live with.

> Every new tech gets bashed on HN, to the point where you'd think you're on AmishNews instead of HackerNews.

That's extremely funny, thank you :)

It also makes a very valid point about human nature: we are resistant to acceptance of news that will change our worldview to the point that when presented with evidence of something new our first reaction seems to be to go into denial.

Well, denial is a good first bet. Most things that surface like this are bullshit. But not all. And the ones that aren't change the world.

I went from feeling this had a 5% probability of being true to 35% or so in the past few days. In the end that belief is going to reach 0.00001% or 99.99999%; but until it settles in one of those places it's going to drift like it's being blown by the wind.

And when it's real-- do we get something useful from it in 5 years or never? It's taken us decades to get significant high temperature superconductor applications.

In the end, there's so much uncertainty, and until it all settles out we can either be ambivalent or cheer for a side.

If it is real you can expect an influx of funding into improving the material, similar to how the discovery of the first practical superconductor led to finding a bunch of others with a steady increase in working temperature. But this time the funding will be much larger because the market for a room temperature superconductor are far, far larger than for one that requires a large cooling installation. I figure a few years at most for improvements on the yield to the point that you can start thinking about commercialization. The first party to complete this will make bank in an obscene way.

> I figure a few years at most for improvements on the yield to the point that you can start thinking about commercialization.

There is no guarantee that "if this is real" that there's a workable path to current densities and manufacturing ease that leads to commercialization-- ever.

And if there's a path, it's difficult to predict how long following that path will take.

YBCO dates to 1986 and requires much less of a cooling installation than the superconductors that are in use today. We are just reaching commercial use in the past few years...

Yes, but that's also because the commercial applications of something that needs to be cooled to −180.2°C are also extremely limited.

Indeed, there is no guarantee. But typically, once something is invented there is improvement over time.

Lazy cynicism is easy, and an easy way to be "obviously correct" in response to anything that's getting any amount of hype.

And 3D TV, Google Glass and cryptocurrency.