[HN Gopher] It's time to build: a New World's Fair
___________________________________________________________________
It's time to build: a New World's Fair
Author : camwiese
Score : 175 points
Date : 2021-03-16 19:05 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cameronwiese.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cameronwiese.com)
| harles wrote:
| > Unfortunately, this all started to change after the U.S. put a
| man on the moon. While this was certainly a "giant leap for
| mankind," we lacked an understanding of what our next step would
| be.
|
| Is there supporting evidence of these assertions? There are some
| interesting ideas in here, but I'm not seeing anything to back
| them up.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| The post starts to share a vision for a new fair. Are they
| proposing that the new fair should actually contain all those
| elements? Or is it just an example? How were the visions in the
| previous (successful) fairs agreed upon? Did space go to the
| highest bidders? Furthermore, was the space divvied up so that
| NASA had a section (for example) and Ford had their own space? Or
| was it all intermingled?
| camwiese wrote:
| Great question. We're planning to compile the most compelling
| vision of the future that we can. We'll shape the content to
| suit the technologies available, but also need to ensure we
| paint a picture of where we _can_ go.
|
| Most Fairs struggle with this because the organizing body has
| no control over the content of most of the Pavilions. By
| privately organizing and operating it, the new World's Fair
| will function more like Epcot where we craft the experience
| pulling in corporations, countries, and ngo's as we see fit.
|
| Lastly, the Fairgrounds are generally split up into themes with
| each of the companies/countries hosting their own Pavilion. The
| map from the 1964 New York World's Fair is a pretty good
| example of this: http://www.nywf64.com/maps01.shtml
| markdown wrote:
| If you hold it in the US, it could have only American companies
| represented and still call it the World's Fair. Just like
| Baseball.
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| A World's Fair now would be like The Olympics, a ridiculously
| expensive, corruption-laden affair that would cost many countries
| more than they could ever recoup, benefiting only a few rich 1st-
| world countries and/or multi-national companies. While the
| average person would see "marvels", they'd be the corporate-
| approved, mass-market-acceptable marvels that were cleared
| through legal before being shown to the public.
|
| You can see more innovation in an afternoon spent on blogs than
| you would ever see in a 6-month long, static display of corporate
| bullshit.
| koolk3ychain wrote:
| Yeah no, we should use this money to fund energy research. Trying
| to woo idiots is a stupid game already won by youtube, online
| advertising and TikTok.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| I'm imagining a future where you can get idempotently vaccinated
| w/ legit antibodies for any in person event you attend for near
| instant immunity to illness.
| unixhero wrote:
| Was Walt Disney's EPCOT vision ever part of the world fair?
| lswainemoore wrote:
| Nitpicky/unsolicited UI feedback:
|
| I do a lot of double/triple clicking to highlight text as I read
| online (fidgeting, but also helps keep track of where I am). On
| your site, triple clicking unintentionally hits the twitter share
| button, which opens a new, unwanted window. Bit annoying.
|
| Medium does something similar, but they offset the button so you
| have to move cursor in between clicks to actually trigger the
| button.
| namrog84 wrote:
| I do similar things constantly as well. It makes me not enjoy
| maybe "modern" apps and web apps. That think text highlighting
| is somehow a bad thing.
| hnick wrote:
| Sometimes I like to middle click and move my house instead of
| using the wheel (nicer on my joints). Sometimes I like to
| even just move it a little and have it auto-scroll as I read.
| It's a fun game to try and match my pace and more engaging
| that way. So many websites break these too.
| camwiese wrote:
| Thank you -- I pieced that feature together. Will tweak!
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Might I suggest having a spot in the margin devoted to that
| button, placed either halfway down the paragraph or (if you
| have a really really long P or selection) halfway down the
| screen?
| ksm1717 wrote:
| I'm fascinated by that phenomenon. I don't even notice I'm
| doing it most of the time, and I'm shocked by how many other
| people do it.
|
| Specific, common, digital tics. Another one is control-s after
| a single line changed. Something immensely satisfying about
| selecting that perfect block of text and making that "altered
| document" asterisk go away.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| There are a handful of sites I've encountered that do this and
| I hate it. Feels like a violation when I can't select text the
| way I normally do, for some reason.
| git_configured wrote:
| Was very surprised to not see any mention of Expo2020, which has
| been hailed as a "World's Fair for the 21st Century". UAE and
| Dubai put tons of resources and capital into it but obviously had
| to deal with the issue of in person events in 2020. As I
| understand it has been rescheduled for the end of 2021...
|
| https://expo2020dubai.ae/en/
| camwiese wrote:
| Expo 2020 is shaping up to be an incredible project, however
| I'm still expecting it to fall victim to the same challenge
| that all Fairs since 1970 have had: a lack of a unifying
| vision. Since every country presents their own narrative, it's
| hard to guarantee alignment.
|
| I'm heading out there next month and will hopefully find
| something inspiring to help shape our efforts.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I'm not sure how you could have a unifying vision for
| something as broad and diverse as "the future," or "the good
| parts of the future," without projecting it down into a
| simplistic, synthesized work of very fictional storytelling
| where all resemblance to reality (and consequently all
| authority) has been sacrificed in favor of comprehensibility
| and persuasiveness.
|
| In other words, the clearest route to getting people excited
| about a World Fair involves sacrificing the reason you'd want
| people excited about a World Fair.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Have you ever seen the photos from Expo 1937 in Paris? Or
| read about it?
|
| The organizers put the USSR and Nazi Germany directly
| across from each other... talk about "unifying vision" ...
|
| https://www.messynessychic.com/2016/09/21/when-paris-
| invited...
| camwiese wrote:
| To clarify. There's no unifying vision because most of the
| Pavilions are developed by large government committees
| where everyone wants to show off a little bit of
| everything. As a result, their Pavilions end up being a
| watered down version of their vision for the future.
| whatshisface wrote:
| For better or worse, the future itself is to a large
| extent developed by large government committees - or at
| least the funding allocation for the cutting-edge
| research projects that show up at World Fairs are.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| _> Today, World 's Fairs have been rebranded as "International
| Expositions" that occur every 5 years, and are a hollow shell
| of their former glory. They no longer showcase the promise of
| the future or celebrate achievement. Instead, they serve as
| national branding exercises, infrastructure development
| projects masquerading as innovation, architecture competitions,
| and an opportunity to promote tourism._
|
| I don't know enough about Expo2020 to agree or disagree, but I
| assumed the author's assessment above was in reference to the
| series of which the Dubai exhibition is a part.
| caslon wrote:
| I really don't think Expo2020 counts. Rooting the future in the
| UAE seems like a losing battle, and it seems like the amount of
| entities that would choose _not_ to participate would outweigh
| those that would.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| I'm not sure this has any basis in reality, every single
| country has committed to participating.
| caslon wrote:
| Countries are made up of _people and companies._ There are
| _definitely_ people and companies that otherwise would
| attend were it not at a country with massive human rights
| issues (like, say, making homosexuality illegal).
| mpalmer wrote:
| Is there a place on Earth where that wouldn't be the case?
| w-j-w wrote:
| Given the inventions the author wanted to showcase, the
| United States seems like the obvious place. While US global
| dominance has been challenged, it is still very much home
| to a lot of innovation. My biggest fear is that the fair
| could wind up being killed by a political squabble about
| globalism.
| lambda_obrien wrote:
| The internet? Make it a virtual event, so everyone can
| attend.
| camwiese wrote:
| We fundamentally believe in the prosperity of our
| physical world. The fair itself will be physical, but
| will have a virtual component so that anyone with a smart
| phone or, even better, a VR headset, can participate.
| alexchamberlain wrote:
| Switzerland? The Nordic countries? Even the UK hasn't
| annoyed most countries to the point we wouldn't welcome
| guests for something like this.
|
| It's basically the equivalent of the Olympics of the
| business and science world; of you are granted the honour
| of hosting, you go out of your way to extend an olive
| branch.
| adfm wrote:
| Beyond Expo2020, you can find information on the upcoming
| Expo2025 in Osaka on the Bureau International des Expositions
| website[1].
|
| [1]: https://www.bie-paris.org/
| Johnny555 wrote:
| From the article:
|
| _...wait eagerly for Jessica Watkins to take the first step on
| Mars_
|
| There's an unfortunate name collision, I didn't know who Jessica
| Watkins was so Googled her, and the top results are for a Jessica
| Watkins who participated in the attack on the USA Capitol... I
| spent a moment pondering what her link to Mars was.. but farther
| down the results list is NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins.
|
| It's a shame that the astronaut has her search results cluttered
| by the insurrectionist. Back when I was doing online dating, I
| shared a name (and similar age and nearby city) with the brother
| of a recently convicted serial killer, searching for my name
| brought up articles about him... I warned potential dates that if
| they looked me up online, I'm not _that_ guy (which, I suppose,
| is exactly what the brother of a serial killer would say).
| DoctorBonkus wrote:
| Yes, a bit unfortunant, and I did the same thing. Being a non-
| american I thought she was a congresswoman as well. But it's
| such a minor detail and in the end no less, that it shouldn't
| detere from the main point of the article
| darig wrote:
| The first result for DDG is the oath keepers article too, but
| they feature the astronaut's wikipedia page covering the full
| right column, including her picture.
|
| I can't compare with Google results because I don't appreciate
| being spied on.
| dgellow wrote:
| > Now, flicking your wearable token with impatient fingers, you
| feel a slight force as your Hyperloop pod comes to a stop.
|
| You lost me at "Hyperloop". How is that a vision of the future
| when we know for a fact that the idea doesn't make practical
| sense?
| temp0826 wrote:
| It's the monorail _of the future!_
| saalweachter wrote:
| To be fair, most "visions of the future" are filled with
| impractical ideas.
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| The US already has established air travel. And mass transit via
| trains is not a technological problem, it is a political and a
| marketing problem. Hyperloop has the potential to solve the
| political and marketing problems.
| dgellow wrote:
| Hyperloop may solve political and marketing problems, but
| doesn't solve the "cheap, safe, and fast transport problem"
| in any ways. That's a completely impractical concept.
| bluescrn wrote:
| Until the first 'hypercrash'
| jcranmer wrote:
| Hyperloop struggles mightily with the "mass" part of "mass
| transit." Its theoretical capacity is easily [?]th of an
| equivalent rail line, and even then you're making some heroic
| assumptions about how frequently the "pods" can be safely
| dispatched.
| [deleted]
| albertTJames wrote:
| World fairs were possible because labor was cheap and the west
| was rich.
| reactspa wrote:
| YouTube is the world's fair.
| [deleted]
| xwdv wrote:
| Why is the future always just a catalog of cool shit you might be
| able to buy one day if they figure out how to make it?
| jiofih wrote:
| Did your parents buy a moon landing back in the 60s?
| Aeolun wrote:
| > They no longer showcase the promise of the future or celebrate
| achievement. Instead, they serve as national branding exercises,
| infrastructure development projects masquerading as innovation,
| architecture competitions, and an opportunity to promote tourism
|
| I kind of feel that these were the exact goals of the original
| world fairs too.
| tomphoolery wrote:
| This is true, and the reason for why they are no longer a thing
| is the same reason why companies don't sponsor theme park rides
| anymore. They simply don't need to. With the ability to reach
| more people more quickly with less money over our mass media
| networks, there's no real reason to sponsor an attraction of
| any kind.
|
| At any rate, World's Fairs are still happening, just not in the
| US... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_fair
| _joel wrote:
| Definitely, there's no difference. Just look at the 1937 Paris
| Expo.
| ipsum2 wrote:
| No mention of Expo 2010, which had representation from 65
| different countries:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_2010_pavilions. I didn't go,
| but the photos of the architecture from the different countries
| were beautiful.
|
| > After the six-month run, the Expo had attracted well over 70
| million visitors. The Expo 2010 is also the most expensive fair
| in the history of World's Fair, with more than 45 billion US
| dollars invested from the Chinese Government
| klenwell wrote:
| > I didn't go, but the photos of the architecture from the
| different countries were beautiful.
|
| Apparently, the American pavilion was not among them:
|
| _Now that the US Pavilion has been open for several days, its
| reviews, to be generous, are mixed. Visitors, after a two-hour
| wait, enjoy the upbeat attitude of the student "ambassadors"
| who greet them in Mandarin -- but few are impressed by the
| three films that constitute the US Pavilion's content. (One
| reporter noted that the price for the three shorts, about $23
| million, is more than the production costs of the Oscar-winning
| film, The Hurt Locker.) The "American people's" sole walk-on
| are brief vignettes that flicker on the screen and then are
| gone. Chinese visitors are reported to have remarked,
| especially after the hype and long wait, "We expected more from
| America." Visitors exit the theater into a large hall dedicated
| to fawning over the 60-odd corporate sponsors whose names and
| brands are the only aspects of American life and culture to
| which the pavilion accords recognition._
|
| https://www.huffpost.com/entry/an-epic-failure-of-planni_b_5...
| jhu247 wrote:
| Not necessarily for lack of effort. I was there and Obama
| recorded a video specifically for the visitors to the US
| Pavilion.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| The US seems to have largely decided that any amount of
| national pride is something to be ashamed of.
| WaxProlix wrote:
| Is that sarcasm? American nationalism and over-the-top
| expressions of patriotic pride border on the jingoistic.
| markdown wrote:
| Ordinary people hang US flags off the front of their
| houses. In a bizarre indoctrination ritual, they make their
| kids pledge allegiance to the state from a young age. They
| think they're the greatest country in the world.
|
| Have you taken a good look at your own country.
| [deleted]
| jiofih wrote:
| I don't get the fuss with the pledge of alliance (non
| American here).
|
| > "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
| of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one
| nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
| for all."
|
| Why is it bad to declare your commitment to the country
| you're born in and it's values? It's not like you can't
| leave (except for the IRS) if you don't like it.
| orf wrote:
| Borderline indoctrination. You're not pledging commitment
| to it's "values" and young children are not at an age to
| have a nuanced discussion or awareness about what those
| exactly those values are, and make a decision about if
| they should be declaring a commitment to them or not.
| jiofih wrote:
| Should everyone wait until their kids turn 18 to start
| teaching them their own morals and values? You'd just be
| auctioning their brain to random others who _are_ willing
| to do that.
|
| I think we either have very different concepts of what
| indoctrination is, or there is much more beyond the
| pledge itself, and that is where the real issues are?
| ipsum2 wrote:
| Definitely, check out the photos on the Wikipedia article I
| linked. USA looks very plain, compared to Thailand, Taiwan,
| India, France, Portugal, UK etc. USA's architecture looks
| closer to North Korea than the others.
| alaxsxaq wrote:
| Sounds like Disney. Disney World (? - the one in Florida,
| USA) had a gift shop at the exit to every ride last time I
| was there. The bean counters probably consider it a great
| addition, and I'm sure it pays dividends, but that sort of
| unadulterated cashing in puts me off.
| jonathannat wrote:
| How do you make sure that the utopian visions in this New
| World's fair doesn't end up being dystopian?
|
| For example, China showing up with a whole bunch of companies
| like hikvision or DJI (which are effectively state sponsored)
| and tries to push for dictatorship enabling tools, tools they
| are perfecting on concentration camps for Uighur muslims in
| Xinjiang? Where forced labors/rapes are occuring.
| jhu247 wrote:
| The pavilions were truly incredible (from what I remember,
| Saudi Arabia comes to mind, just look at that! https://en.wikip
| edia.org/wiki/Expo_2010_pavilions#Saudi_Arab...) but like the
| article says, it felt more like each country's branding
| exercise rather than any unified vision of the future.
| canadianfella wrote:
| Was beautiful
| grillvogel wrote:
| i went to Expo 2005 in Japan which was also pretty cool
| minikites wrote:
| We as a species gave up trying to solve difficult problems and
| now we're only concerned with inflating asset prices to feel
| "wealthy". Smart engineers are working for HFT firms instead of
| NASA. We've equated "wealth" with "progress" and we're now
| discovering how hollow all these fake numbers are.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| > We as a species gave up trying to solve difficult problems
|
| We live in an era of constant fascinating biological and
| cosmological discoveries. In the past 3 years we have entered
| the era of gene therapy healthcare with several genetic
| treatments recieving approval by he FDA. We are on the cusp of
| break even if not effective fusion energy.
|
| I cannot deny that the financialization of everything has
| diminished the moral imperative of some of these efforts but to
| act as if no one is attacking big problems is silly.
| camwiese wrote:
| Absolutely. Everyone wants to talk stagnation, but we don't
| realize how much incredible work is being done in the
| background. Then, because we live in filtered versions of
| reality, we don't see it. The Fair serves as a showcase of
| all of the incredible work being done to shape the future to
| 1) give people hope and 2) inspire more people to help build
| it.
| minikites wrote:
| The fact that every nightly news program includes a report on
| the stock market (which they invariably conflate with "the
| economy") but not any of the things you mention is kind of my
| point. We used to glorify that work. Now the best we can hope
| for is that it gets ignored lest some senator notice and cut
| their funding to "eliminate government waste".
| camwiese wrote:
| One of the largest problems is due to the negative media
| cycle and focus on things that drive engagement. Hopefully
| by stepping out of this algorithmically generated world, we
| can get experiencing the future and imagining their role in
| it.
| purple-again wrote:
| I'm a pretty smart guy, or at least I keep getting told that,
| and I work near HFTs in the finance world. I am also a huge
| space nerd thanks to a love for things like Star Trek and Star
| Wars in the 70's 80's. I would take a significant pay cut to
| work for NASA because that work would feel amazing compared to
| the grind I've been in.
|
| I am 100% confident I would not be hirable by NASA, confident
| enough in that assertion to shut down without trying. I think
| you may have some bias from your media bubble coloring your
| perception if you truly believe what you wrote is true.
| spacethrowaway1 wrote:
| I have good news and bad news. The good news is you're
| probably more hirable than you think. The bad news is it's
| still just a job.
| u678u wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they are still going, though less frequently.
| After 2020 Dubai, 23 is in Argentina and 25 will be in Japan.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_fair
| camwiese wrote:
| As stated in the essay, they now operate as "International
| Exhibitions", not "World's Fairs." There's some nuance to this,
| but the problem is still the same. These events are national
| branding exercises & architecture competitions, not a place
| where the future becomes real.
| [deleted]
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I'm not sure we can ever get back to the techno-optimism that
| characterized much of America in the past. This article seems to
| suggest that we as a country can become optimistic about the
| future again by having a World's Fair. That by doing so we'll
| recapture a shared vision of the future and a shared cultural
| purpose that we had until it started to fall apart in the 90s.
| It's a quaint idea, but it doesn't seem likely to succeed in
| bridging the widening gaps between various tribes. Much of this
| cultural disintegration was caused by technology.
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| Here in the UK (and Commonwealth) we had The Great Exhibition:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Exhibition
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| Talk to the U, Hk, and B people in Asia, ... sorry but
| "collective vision" is the problem. NASA does not dominate but
| individual. Collective is evil and commonness is a crime. Let
| individual be individual. You do not need this for a steve job to
| thrive. But any joint ignoring individual rights ... it would be
| 1984 coming today, as it has and coming to a lot of human beings.
| musicale wrote:
| I miss the Maker Faire in its heyday, when it was mostly
| individual inventors and crafters showing cool stuff they had
| made and how they made them.
| CaptArmchair wrote:
| I feel the article is, at best, a nostalgic take to a Post-War
| time between 1945 and 1970. And, at worst, merely an itch to
| indulge in consuming modern technology.
|
| Both takes are missing the mark about what a World Fair is about.
| Here's why.
|
| The 3 decades after 1945 were a time when economies of formerly
| allied nations were booming. In France, these years are known as
| the "Trente Glorieuses". Many more countries had their own
| "economic miracle" during this time. Even West-Germany and
| Austria had their own "Wirtschaftwunder" as their economies
| bounced back.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_econ...
|
| Many parts of the world were still formal colonies to Western
| nations, or their economies hadn't fully modernized yet to a
| point where a sizable middle-class has access to democratized
| /commoditized comforts of a Western lifestyle e.g. aviation,
| healthcare, education, even sanitation, access to media and so
| on.
|
| Not to mention the spectre of the Cold War that loomed over these
| decades.
|
| Against this historic backdrop, the fair is notable because it
| was a showcase of mid-20th century American culture and
| technology. That shouldn't really come as a surprise since it was
| firmly organized within the sphere of influence of America's
| hegemony.
|
| Such were the times in 1965. And they are incomparable to 2021.
| The organization of a World Fair in 1965 happened in a vastly
| different context, with vastly different incentives, interests
| and motives then it does in 2021.
|
| The author misses that completely and marches blindly onward
| hence:
|
| > Today, World's Fairs have been rebranded as "International
| Expositions" that occur every 5 years, and are a hollow shell of
| their former glory. They no longer showcase the promise of the
| future or celebrate achievement. Instead, they serve as national
| branding exercises, infrastructure development projects
| masquerading as innovation, architecture competitions, and an
| opportunity to promote tourism. If anything, they're the perfect
| representation of our current vision for the future: unfocused
| and uninspiring.
|
| > But it doesn't have to be this way; we can't afford for it to
| be this way.
|
| > The world has changed dramatically since 1984. We now live in
| the most incredible time in human history. The internet has
| brought billions of people together and tech companies have given
| us supercomputers in our pockets. We're starting to build
| hyperloops and supersonic jets. We're on the cusp of incredible
| breakthroughs in genetics, biology, medicine, food science,
| energy, transportation, manufacturing, computing, and robotics.
| We're finally going back to the moon and then on to Mars. We've
| once again seen the power of a collective vision with the record-
| breaking development of the COVID-19 vaccine.
|
| The World's Fair is a reflection of the World in 2021 and the
| future. With the complexity of representing 7.8 billion people,
| an array of sovereign nations which didn't exist in 1965. It's an
| event which competes with against the complexity of a exploding
| plethora of modern mass media, new stakeholders, emerging
| markets, and so on fueled by globalisation, digitization and
| automatisation.
|
| A Fair isn't just an marketing event, it's a global forum that
| aims beyond other events that present themselves as global fora
| or gatherings. It's an opportunity for nations and peoples to
| present a showcase to the world. It gives them the chance to put
| a message out. In that regard, the World Fair is akin to that
| other global event where the world gathers: The Olympics.
|
| The organization of the World Fair is no longer rooted in the
| political or economical global hegemony of a handful of "first-
| world" (for lack a better term) nations showing off their
| industrial might and international prowess, such as it was during
| the latter half of the 20th century.
|
| The Fair is now also home to many new nations and upcoming
| economies or regional powers who are making their entrance to the
| World's stage, and to whom the importance isn't plain
| "technological innovation" but above all showing themselves to
| the world, what they have to offer to the world, what their
| aspirations are, what they hope for the futre, and taking part in
| the global forum.
|
| In that regard, the vision for World Fair extends far beyond
| technology per the offical website:
|
| https://www.bie-paris.org/site/en/what-is-an-expo
|
| For sure, there's going to the Moon or Mars, and there are
| hyperloops and driverless cars, or there's even developing a
| COVID vaccine. These are wonderful developments. But are they
| really the developments that need to be put front and center at
| World's Fair at the expense of everything else? Are these the
| only developments that should matter to 7.8 billion people in
| 2021?
|
| The second part from this article seems to voice a want for the
| World's Fair to limit itself to showcasing technology,
| engineering and media. To me, it sounds like not much more then a
| want for being able to indulge in advertising when visiting the
| Fair. And that comes across as, well, rather tone deaf.
|
| A World Fair isn't about merely basking in the marvels of
| technology or innovation. It's about the humans and humanity that
| are represented, visit and meet at a Fair.
| jiofih wrote:
| Technology and engineering are universal achievements, and a
| main part of how society as a whole progresses. A sociology
| focused world fair would just be the words most hated and
| divisive fair ever, exactly the opposite of what it should set
| out to achieve.
| colecut wrote:
| This will probably get some flack and I am not a hardcore burner
| by any means, I went for a few days in 2010...
|
| But Burning Man to me seems like a bit of a World's Fair. I met
| some people who brought a massive insect-inspired art car from
| Australia..
| hyko wrote:
| Does nobody remember the Millennium Dome?
|
| They had an exhibit called "MoneyZone" which included a tunnel
| made out of PS1 million in crisp fifties.
|
| Good times.
| fortran77 wrote:
| The 1963-64 world's fair shaped my entire life. My earliest clear
| memories were from that fair, and ever since I've been fascinated
| by "futurism", technology, computers, space, architecture, etc.
|
| Every school and career choice I've made was based on some
| inspirational spark that hit me there.
| camwiese wrote:
| Thank you for sharing this. Giving people hope and a belief in
| the future is what the Fair is all about -- especially in the
| face of extreme pessimism.
| zestyping wrote:
| Hmm. I fear that a World's Fair would be an extremely attractive
| venue for quackery and pseudoscience. How would we avoid that?
| poisonborz wrote:
| I admire the optimism and motivational tone of the article, but
| fairs and expos are a thing of the past. We don't need to build
| elaborate, carefully constructed single-use cities to showcase
| the scientific advances of the world. Those showcases happen day
| by day on the internet and mass media.
| postalrat wrote:
| Nobody lives in the internet or in mass media.
| [deleted]
| foateaca wrote:
| Yet international art fairs and specialty conventions had been
| taking off for the 20 years before the pandemic. People still
| like to travel and come together under well organized events.
| The issue is the wisdom of a city or region pouring in billions
| of billions for a week-long event. Maybe there's a new model to
| be invented.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| The annual CES convention is still popular. I see it as the
| modern equivalent of the world's fair, even if it is not quite
| the same and missing some aspects.
| kratom_sandwich wrote:
| I don't think the argument is valid because it can be applied
| to nearly every event where people come together, including
| sporting events and concerts. But like with the Olympic Games,
| the World's Fair can serve as a catalyst for urban development
| projects.
|
| Also, the "science showcase" is a thing of the past, the BIE
| switched to "individual country showcase" a couple of years
| ago, which makes the whole thing a lot less appealing IMHO, but
| that's another issue.
| Fordec wrote:
| I find this perplexing because the Olympic Games is
| _notorious_ for draining an urban centers resources for years
| and the result being a bunch of infrastructure that the
| majority of the time just slowly decays due to the local
| community not having the same volume of population to fully
| utilize the utility. The handling of the 2016 games was an
| especially bad case.
|
| It's overall a nationalistic country level flex at the
| _expense_ of the local area. It 's part of why only big
| countries host it, the side affects will only affect one city
| and you have other places to sustain the nationwide economy
| despite the hit.
| labster wrote:
| Speak for yourself. Los Angeles ran a profitable Olympics
| in 1984 and we look forward to doing so again in 2028. And
| nationalism is at a low ebb here, given our last four years
| fighting His Nibs on everything. It's all about competition
| and entertainment for us. And infrastructure that can be
| reused for more entertainment.
| Fordec wrote:
| The 1984 Olympics, considered to be the most financially
| successful Olympics ever, were ran on the basis of
| renovating existing infrastructure, not building new
| stuff in a new city _because_ the previous two Olympics
| were financial disasters. Also, yes, if you mess up LA
| the United States will still truck on.
|
| Also Nationalism isn't just flags, hate and hands in the
| air, it's also an outward expression of ideas and ideals
| raised on a pedestal to say look how great we are. Such
| as getting to say "we are all about competition and
| entertainment" as a story to tell the world as a form of
| soft power.
| gkop wrote:
| > profitable
|
| > we look forward to doing so again in 2028
|
| Oligarchs and capitalists benefit, the masses lose
| though. Especially those most vulnerable
| socioeconomically.
| xeromal wrote:
| The hope for the 2028 olympics in LA is more public
| transportation which is currently being built. It's
| exciting to see the new lines currently popping up.
| pharke wrote:
| That always confused me about the Olympic Games. I guess it
| makes sense if you think about it as an opportunity for
| pork stuffed building contracts. It would make more sense
| for each country to have 1 or maybe 2 locations that are
| reused whenever they host the games. They could also host
| national level sporting events in the interim. That way
| they can be maintained and upgraded over the years without
| saddling municipalities with decaying and unwanted
| facilities.
| dstroot wrote:
| I came to say this. Well put. Take my vote.
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/aban
| don...
| chha wrote:
| The problem for most countries is that it can be decades
| between hosting two Olympics, meaning that facilities are
| either worn out not fulfilling the current Olympic
| technical requirements.
|
| Also; very few countries has a need for facilities with
| the capacity the Olympics require, so this would be a
| huge burden for most of them.
| nelsondev wrote:
| Why bother showing up at the Olympics in person? We can just
| watch it on TV right? :p
|
| But to refute more directly, the unplanned interactions with
| other visitors, being able to talk directly with makers who
| built the things you're seeing, the viral sense of wonder; all
| are good reasons to have it in-person.
| jhbadger wrote:
| The vast majority of people do just that. The small number of
| people who actually attend the Olympics in person are 1)
| journalists covering it 2) relatives of the athletes 3)
| people living near the venue who attend a few events out of
| curiosity and maybe have discounted tickets because of where
| they live 4) wealthy people who can afford the high cost of
| decent tickets with a clear view of the athletes.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Who remembers the Millenium Dome? It was a self-conscious
| emulation of the 1951s Festival of Britain, that ended up being
| characteristically Blairite bland.
| musicale wrote:
| The Millennium Dome (notably the Millennium Experience
| inside) was terrific. I don't know why nobody showed up, but
| it was really uncrowded and enjoyable to visit!
|
| One futuristic thing that has stuck with me from the
| Millennium expo was a demonstration of structural/mechanical
| and electrochemical simulation of the human body with
| computers, for example the skeletal, muscular, and
| circulatory systems. Which of course can be augmented with
| models of various organs and micro-level models of cellular
| interaction and cell internals. The brilliant bit seemed to
| be the idea of using a finite element and/or modular
| decomposition, potentially at multiple levels of resolution
| and abstraction. It seemed like the sort of thing that could
| yield huge benefits in medicine, health/fitness, education,
| and video games/animation. ;-)
| basch wrote:
| I am very much pro World Fair revival.
|
| But
|
| I am also very Cold War revival. We should be launching
| competitive science wars with each other, not unlike the
| Olympics. Set objectives, set time periods, when the time and
| objective expire all knowledge gained is pooled and published
| for the world, for free. National or International propaganda
| campaigns to recruit for teams. Spies, espionage, moles. Not
| just a science fair, but something a bit more dirty and fun.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > I am also very Cold War revival.
|
| Complete with threats of total annihilation?
|
| > We should be launching competitive science wars with each
| other
|
| Don't we have this now with competitive global capitalism? I
| guess it's not the nationstate so much now as the
| multinational corporation, though, that are the entities
| competing.
|
| I can kind of understand your wish for a Cold War revival -
| we certainly had more of a sense of national purpose during
| that period. But it was driven by fear of the other and I'm
| not sure that ultimately that's a good motivation.
|
| You'd think that maybe something like a global pandemic would
| give us a national purpose that would have brought us
| together, but look what happened, just more fracturing: anti-
| maskers, anti-vaxxers, even covid-deniers.
| shadowofneptune wrote:
| Slightly more seriously, something like the International
| Geophysical Year could be interesting:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Geophysical_Year
| cosmodisk wrote:
| Yes and no. I do agree that probably nobody's going to build
| another Eiffel tower or Crystal Palace any time soon,but we
| need spaces to explore science, innovation,and simply have for
| people to do something more interesting than just mindlessly
| walking through shopping malls. Fairs and expos inspire. I
| still remember going to a tech expo as a teenager and seeing
| all these latest gadgets and thinking: I want to be part of it!
| Now imagine going to one of these in the middle of last century
| and seeing rockets, nuclear car prototypes and things like
| that. You almost instantly want to sign up or at least show it
| to your kids.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Naysayers always complain that these fairs cost too much money
| and are entirely fluff events. History shows that's not true.
|
| For example, over a hundred years later, Chicago is still making
| money from the economic, social, and infrastructure benefits of
| its fairs.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _over a hundred years later, Chicago is still making money
| from the economic, social, and infrastructure benefits of its
| fairs._
|
| Because of the way the economy works, this can be said of
| absolutely any expenditure anywhere anytime for any reason. If
| even one project laborer buys a cup of coffee on the job, at
| least $4 of value then gets sent out into circulation in a way
| that has been plausibly colored by the construction of the Big
| Money Pit of 1849.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| And stimulating local economies is a problem... why?
| whatshisface wrote:
| All expenditures stimulate the economy equally, as measured
| by the "marked bills" theory. That means the only way to
| compare them is to evaluate opportunity costs. Spending a
| million bucks on constructing a big hole in the middle of
| nowhere, and performing an important infrastructure
| revitalization, will both put dollars in the hands of
| laborers, and thereby grocery stores and so on, at the same
| rate. That's why all of the useful parts of the discussion
| are on the specific, immediate consequences; the distant
| consequences are the same no matter what you do.
| iso1631 wrote:
| > the distant consequences are the same no matter what
| you do.
|
| Three things
|
| 1) Spend the money on blackjack and hookers
|
| 2) Spend the money on a new bridge
|
| 3) Burn the money on a bonfire for giggles
|
| Those three have very different "distant consequences"
| whatshisface wrote:
| 1) Money ends up in the local economy
|
| 2) Money ends up in the local economy
|
| 3) Currency deflates, making all owners of currency
| richer, and as long as nobody expects deflation to
| continue, stimulates the economy.
| camwiese wrote:
| Yes! Success for most Fairs depends on the timeline you're
| looking at. Even the 1984 World's Fair in New Orleans (which I
| know I call out in the essay), was considered a failure at the
| time. Now 30+ years later, New Orleans has a thriving
| waterfront district that wouldn't have been developed without
| the Fair.
| ant6n wrote:
| How can you be sure it wouldnt have happened without the
| fair?
| neon_me wrote:
| thought CCC is the worlds fair of the 20's ... :)
| Animats wrote:
| The last really prophetic world's fair was New York, 1939. That's
| famous for GM's vision of the future of 1960, the original
| "Futurerama" . Freeways everywhere. RCA had television. AT&T let
| you make free long distance calls. All that stuff happened.
|
| The 1964 World's Fair had another GM exhibit. Colonization of the
| Moon. Underwater cities. None of that happened.
|
| What could we have in a World's Fair now that looks ahead?
| Colonization of Mars? Mars sucks as real estate. There may be
| research bases there someday, but as a self-sufficient area, it
| would be tougher than Antarctica or a continental shelf. Robots
| may some day be a thing, but they still don't work well in
| unstructured environments.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| GM was at least a little bit right. Their moon base had a moon
| car and some sort of silvery structure. Five years after the
| exhibition, we had some guys walking around on the moon and
| returning to a silvery structure, and two years after that, we
| had a lunar rover.
| musicale wrote:
| Certainly it's harder to get to Mars, but is the environment
| more hostile than on the moon?
|
| Mars has something of a CO2 atmosphere, and might have more
| accessible water. The soil may be more usable as well.
| mminer237 wrote:
| It's not physically more hostile than the moon, but we've
| never colonized the moon for the same reason. It's really
| hard to live there for not much benefit. There are plenty of
| sparsely-inhabited deserts on Earth that are much nicer
| places to live.
| [deleted]
| spankalee wrote:
| We have a lot of environmental challenges ahead of us. A
| forward-thinking World's Fair could paint a picture of how we
| get from here to a carbon-negative economy: solar & wind,
| battery tech, autonomous cars and less car-oriented cities,
| better telepresence, carbon sequestering, architecture, etc.
| potiuper wrote:
| Build a dome over New Orleans or York; Call it the New Palace.
| Or to be more optimistic a nuclear plant, maybe Governor's
| island? or just finish Shoreham; recommission Indian Point,
| along with district heating.
| topkai22 wrote:
| My mom went to the '64 worlds fair almost every day (according
| to her, she had an uncle that worked there.) She told us
| stories about various exhibits when we were kids, but the thing
| she remembered the most was the video phone- that she should
| see as well here someone across the planet.
|
| Fast forward to 2020 and she is spending hours every day on
| video calls with her grandchildren.
|
| We might have missed on some of our dreams from 1964, but not
| all of them. We'll miss more in the future if we don't
| articulate them.
| terse_malvolio wrote:
| We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon...We
| choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other
| things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard
| (...)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon
| jhu247 wrote:
| It's amazing to me that the World's Fair gave us so many iconic
| and wonderful structures, all of which are probably too
| impractical to build otherwise: the Eiffel Tower, Space Needle,
| Unisphere, Palace of Fine Arts, etc. It's unrealistic, but it's
| worth having a new world's fair just for an excuse to build
| another one of these!
| alex_young wrote:
| It's not exactly the same, but Burning Man comes pretty close in
| a lot of ways.
|
| If you haven't been, there are thousands of art projects at a
| grand scale, things that take up blocks of space a piece, and
| they are built by artists from around the world, giving everyone
| a global perspective of what is possible.
|
| I also love the idea of showcasing what is possible for a
| society. There is a true sense of community, immediacy, and
| collaboration where everyone there is an active participant.
|
| There are dozens of smaller events with similar properties,
| likely one nearby.
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