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brucebrowde t1_jbkmsly wrote

Reply to comment by eyeteabee-Studio in Meet The World's Cleanest Fully Electric Car That Removes Carbon Dioxide From The Air by Anderson069

So e.g. when people started innovating regarding the Apollo spacecraft, they said "let's try this idea that surely, by the laws of physics, cannot get us to the Moon"? That... doesn't make sense.

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eyeteabee-Studio t1_jbkr529 wrote

Inventing and innovating are two different things.

Innovation requires working knowledge in multiple, disparate fields of study, then using that knowledge to connect methods/ideas/resources that were not previously related.

You think the Apollo vehicles just showed up?

There were dozens of rocket launches before we tried putting humans in space, and all of them resulted in lessons learned and how to improve the next iteration.

The rockets themselves? Based on military-driven missile technology. The missiles could not deliver humans to and from space, but they were the unrelated starting point for putting people on the moon.

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brucebrowde t1_jbkrwz3 wrote

None of that matters if the initial conditions are provably unfavorable. It's like trying to innovate on perpetuum mobile when we know it is impossible, by the laws of physics, for it to work. Your examples are all in a distinct category because we had no reason to believe they were impossible.

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eyeteabee-Studio t1_jbkvrgw wrote

Just so I understand your point:

You’re saying that this group of students has access to all known and available scientific information and expertise to independently conceive of a way to use our vehicles to diminish our carbon footprint.

However, they failed to recognize that the method that they chose is an impossible dead end which will be of no practical use to anyone. In short, a complete waste of time and resources.

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brucebrowde t1_jbky653 wrote

I'm not saying either of these things.

I'm saying, compared to actually building a car, it's way easier to do the math about the maximum possible benefit and realize it's so tiny that building that car is guaranteed to be at best pointless and at worst a net negative for the environment - which it turned out to be and, worse, it will probably motivate others to waste their time and resources as well, which in turn will cause further unnecessary damage to our planet, contrary to what they set out to do, which is ironic.

With that realization you can conclude that some of the following happened:

- They did not do the math and built a car. Not a wise sequence of steps, especially for someone who is smart and determined enough to be capable of building a car

- They did the math and decided to build the car anyway. Even less wise

In any case, calling this "innovation" is... similarly not wise.

It's a fun exercise and building a car is obviously a really good achievement on its own, but as far as being touted as a solution to our CO2 problem, this is bonkers. Hypocrisy is a good thing to avoid.

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eyeteabee-Studio t1_jbl7ew2 wrote

Well, disagree.

Every good idea starts somewhere, and I’d love to see this one go somewhere.

Out of curiosity, are you an engineer or a manager or both?

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brucebrowde t1_jblg801 wrote

> Well, disagree.

Laws of physics don't care about you agreeing or not.

> Every good idea starts somewhere,

Agreed. This one is not a good idea.

> and I’d love to see this one go somewhere.

So you want to harm our planet even more? Well that's... not wise.

> Out of curiosity, are you an engineer or a manager or both?

Engineer. Out of curiosity, what does it matter?

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eyeteabee-Studio t1_jbrs6ce wrote

You sound like every manager I’ve ever brought an idea to.

It’s reassuring that you’re an engineer, but I still disagree with your approach to innovation.

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