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Tumblr post by trippedintoa-volcano:
Imagine that everywhere in the mechanical engineering world suddenly got infatuated with lasers.
Lasers have a lot of uses! Measuring things, heating things, cutting things, entertaining cats, particle physics. Lasers are pretty cool. Very versatile, very useful, potential to be very powerful.
Someone shows up one day and says "I have developed a never before seen technology! I call it a Death Star."
And it's a 3.4mW laser. Well no, we haven't seen this exact size of laser much since that's not really standard, but that's a bit of a misnomer, and I wouldn't call it new -
"HOLY SHIT GUYS! This Death Star is so entertaining! My cat loves it and it has such a nice color!" The Death Star becomes a viral novelty, and is mildly entertaining, as laser pointers often are.
Somehow, seemingly overnight, this leads to mania. "Lets stick lasers in EVERYTHING! The public loves them!"
More companies make 3.4mW lasers to jump on the bandwagon. Everyone that makes anything vaguely mechanical starts sticking lasers into their designs.
Everyone is calling them Death Stars. Any time there is a "Death Star innovation", it is just that they made a bigger laser.
Ford's next truck comes out and it has "Death Star integrated headlights", where they have just stuck giant lasers in place of their previously functional headlights.
An electric toothbrush is now "Powered by Death Stars" and shoots a laser at the tooth its cleaning. You think that maybe this could have actual applications as a sanitizing device if you're being generous, but when you actually look at the product, its laser has no purpose but to point at the tooth and drain the battery.
Mechanical products across the board get noticeably worse as everyone starts stuffing lasers in places where lasers have no right to be.
The lamp business gets in on it. "Here's a Death Star powered lamp!" These guys haven't even tried to stick a laser in their damn lamps. They've just started calling their light bulbs Death Stars and hoped you bought it before you could tell the difference. You at least appreciate that they haven't ruined their lamp about it.
Death Stars are lauded as the solution to all the world's problems. If it's not working, you should stick a laser in it! That'll fix it, everyone says. Once in a blue moon, it's even true! Weather prediction is really good now. But most things are garbage. Like "Death Star powered washing machines". What the fuck does that even mean?
Meanwhile, since all functioning mechanisms are being replaced with lasers, problems start showing up. All mirrors now cost $1000+ dollars, because the whole supply is being used up to make more lasers. The earth heats up, because everyone's blasting lasers at everything. People keep going blind, on account of all the lasers.
You, in fact, study optical mechanics. You know what a laser is, and how it works, and that it was invented many years before any of this nonsense actually started. People keep asking you about Death Stars, since surely you must know so much about them.
You explain that this is not really what lasers are for, except you have to call them Death Stars now, and that they're causing a lot of harm, so you don't like them much.
"Oh, but they're still such new tech!" they reply. "They'll figure out how to make Death Stars that don't burn your eyes out soon, and then it won't be an issue anymore!"
Somewhere, deep and buried, you remember lasers being used in particle accelerators, or in telescopes, or in laser cutters, or funny cat videos. They are, in fact, still interesting. Still cool.
But by this point they have replaced roads with "Death Star Powered Pathways", which are just laser pointers propped up on tooth picks pointing vaguely through the forests.
And you think you are going mad.
And they are still just FUCKING LASERS.
This post is about Al.
Tags: #scribbles by trip
More accurately:
Some scientists came up with a new white light laser. It was amazing. Even laser scientists couldn't really fully understand how it worked. I mean, no new breakthroughs in physics, but the way it looked was just so different from other lasers. One problem was that to produce the consumable elements for the lasers required absurd quantities of raw materials. But, that was justified by the idea that white light lasers were so important, and whoever got to the purest white light first could own the entire economy.
Everybody was super hyped up about this white light laser, and there was a sense that something that looked so cool had to have some practical uses. Various labs created their own white light lasers and demoed them to venture capitalists, who also were unable to believe how cool the laser looked. Money started gushing in. Unfortunately, while it looked really cool doing "laser things", it just didn't actually work all that well. It couldn't cut as well as a one-wavelength laser. As a pointer it was amazing, but it only lasted a few minutes, unlike other lasers that lasted for hours. Doctors tried it for surgery, but it actually made things more dangerous. It didn't work for holograms. It made astronomy worse. But, the general feeling was that it looked so cool there had to be a world-changing use for it. Every time it was tried, there were seriously cool things created, but always with serious drawbacks.
VCs who were heavily invested, and some of the early inventors, kept going on the news, doing demos, and hyping up the white light laser. Anybody in a position of authority or influence who mentioned they thought the white light lasers were kinda dumb was blasted as if they were a complete moron and either didn't understand the lasers, or was just being contrarian and standing in the way of progress. Laser companies sold lasers over the Internet, in kiosks by the side of the road, door to door, in every way possible. These lasers were heavily branded by the company selling them and only cost $1, although they cost at least $1000 to make. The labs were trying to be the dominant white light laser company, so they just ate that extra cost to drive up the hype and get their name associated with it.
Bosses started demanding that people use a white-light laser as part of their workflow, and started firing anybody who didn't do that. They also fired employees because they reasoned that once their organization had harnessed white light lasers, those employees wouldn't be needed. Most employees said "this sucks, it makes my job worse", but the bosses wouldn't hear it.
Eventually, half the economy was being propped up by the white light laser industry. It was impossible to buy lenses anymore. Everybody just had to use their old glasses / contacts because a decade's worth of lenses had already been exclusively ordered by one of the White Light laser companies. Every day there were news stories about people being blinded by white light lasers, but those news stories always hinted that the people were using the lasers wrong.
Then a white light laser hit the bubble and it popped, and most people were relieved because the whole thing was just tiresome.
Such a good analogy.