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What's a technology that was cooler in its older iterations? (pawb.social)

submitted 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I don't mean BETTER. That's a different conversation. I mean cooler.

An old CRT display was literally a small scale particle accelerator, firing angry electron beams at light speed towards the viewers, bent by an electromagnet that alternates at an ultra high frequency, stopped by a rounded rectangle of glowing phosphors.

If a CRT goes bad it can actually make people sick.

That's just. Conceptually a lot COOLER than a modern LED panel, which really is just a bajillion very tiny lightbulbs.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

That's true in that absent very unusual cases, we don't lose technology, so all the past technology remains. I think that it's a valid insight.

However, I think that it's also true to say that there are technologies that -- while not gone -- fall into disuse because of a changing environment.

You're saying that a "better" technology will remain, and for certain definitions of "better", I agree. We have no reason, absent maybe a changing environment that makes what is "best" different at different points in time or changing understanding of what is "best" (e.g. maybe internal combustion vehicles going away as we understand the impact of carbon dioxide emissions) to stop using a better technology.

But OP is specific in distinguishing between "best" and "coolest":

I don't mean BETTER. That's a different conversation. I mean cooler.

So I think that his question is valid.