Kessler Syndrome is a search term for anyone curious to learn more about the problem of space junk. It is a hypothesis that suggests orbital debris could create cascading destruction that simultaneously destroys basically everything we have in orbit and creates a debris field dense enough that it would effectively cut ourselves off from orbital entirely. It's a proposed 'great filter' in the Fermi Paradox, suggesting that potentially advanced civilizations can inadvertently hamstring their ability to leave the planet because of this.

This is also, as an aside, why we should really want to avoid space-to-space combat.

> but I’ll be goddamned if we should be rushing headlong into

We aren't.

Dreams of advanced, time-saving home automation have been on the public's mind for decades while actual progress into this space has been extremely slow, incremental and usually more supplementary than transformative.

Whatever happens with this space won't happen suddenly or unexpectedly. All we should expect for the foreseeable future are consumer appliances that slap "AI-powered" on their marketing and may or may not produce measurable improvements in efficiency or performance.

Timelines have become 'feeds' and one byproduct of this is that it almost doesn't matter who you're following anymore because your feed just ends up being a mashup of things the system thinks you'll engage with. There's a weird effect that occurs within this where it extends to friends, too. When I first started using IG, for instance, my friends and I posted a fair amount and it was a nice platform because it was a good way for a friend group to easily and conveniently share group photos and the likes and there was a genuine sense of human, friend-scale connection happening. (Facebook was much the same way, early on) But that function is severely diminished in today's experience. The amount of random algorithm engagement stuff has the added effect of reducing my interest in my actual friend's posts, meanwhile, there's a 'wag the dog' effect happening as well where people who are trying to promote their art or music or whatever increasingly feel they need to shape their content a certain way to appease the algorithm. The end result is the entire experience feels less human, less friendly, and all together kind of pointless.

And yet, despite it all, the dumb truth of it is the mindless scrolling and moderate amusement from it is still addictive just the same. My personal usage of social media has evolved away from posting and toward lurk/scrolling and along the way I feel like it's made me more distant from friends and human connection where it used to actually feel like it was a feasible proxy for it.

Weird shit.

Researchers also believe it is a significant breakthrough, though. Of course there's still a long way to go in development and viability overall. But this isn't a case of the news just saying some shit to get clicks. Experts are excited about this development, too.