The Cabinet Part 1

The bare frame

lower corners showing brackets

Here is the frame complete. I am very happy with this, the parts were all easy to get and quite cheap considering and it only required the correct tool tips to bolt the whole thing together.

Actually if you wanted to you could make anything out of 2020 extrusion and brackets, it is very strong and easy to assemble. 

Okay, it was not all easy: the corner brackets and the nuts I bought to attach the panels are special locknuts that can be dropped into the slots in the 2020 then when turned, the nut is supposed to twist and thus lock into the slots. There is just one problem: they don't always do that. If the nut is too far up the thread to twist or if the bolt hole is not exactly in line with the slot, the nut can just sit there and not twist at all. In the corner brackets you could either mark a dot on the end of the bolt or even cut a screwdriver slot into it to not only make sure the other end locks but turn it if it didn't, but for the panels I had to make do with trial and error, pulling the panels to see if they were locked on. 

Locknut and M5 bolt

The panels were a little more difficult: although the frame cost about $200 the panels were much more expensive. This was a surprise to me. 

For a cabinet that could take a lot of heat I would have needed metal plates and glass windows but that seemed to be too hard and not worth it since the hassle of fitting glass doors with handles and hinges alone would be a pain. I asked one supplier about 45 degree temperature and acrylic panels and he replied that glass and metal would be the only option. I ended up going to another supplier for panels made of plastic coated in alu and I hope it will be good because along with cutting the panels it all came to $450 which is serious money. 

I don't have any way to cut the full size panels myself so it wasn't really a choice – I just liked the metal coated panels better than plain plastic. I think they will last better.

I actually bought a lot more connecting parts than needed, that seems to be the norm when I am working on a project though. Maybe they will end up getting used later.

The project does seem to be expanding though.

I fixed most of the panels to the cabinet today and put wheels on. They make it much easier to work on. I noticed that the panels need fixing about every 250 mm apart or they will rattle.

Raspberry Pi with cooler in fornt of my keyboard for scale: it is tiny!

This is fine apart from the area where panels overlap: I designed the middle area so that the panels could be removed easily since that is where the most complicated bits will be housed: the power boards, raspberry pi and the air ducting. Since the frame is only 2020 there is one slot for nuts so at the moment the idea is to drill 10 mm holes in the inner panels then put the bolts and nuts on the outer panel so the nut passes right through the 10 mm hole. The hard part is drilling 10mm holes in the panels without wrecking them: the metal coated plastic maybe okay but the acrylic clear stuff has a real danger of cracking. Apparently the idea is to drill gradually bigger holes . The holes also are only 10 mm in from the edge so after drilled there will be 5 mm of edge left. I will have to test drill some scrap first to see how well it turns out.

Cabinet with wheels and some panels

I got some 38 mm wheels to make the cabinet more practical and I was pleased to discover that the bolt holes on them fit the flat plates I already had for the bottoms of the corners.

 This is where the filament holder is going for now - it stil needs a 90 degree bender to feed correctly and this is intended to be temporary until I have the filament store underneath done but it is another example of how handy this extrusion system is - since the CR10S frame is also made of extrusion it was easy to fit and it's always adjustable.

A major reason I got the CR10S Pro is that it has automatic bed levelling out of the box.  If there is one thing you do not want to spend time doing it is levelling your printer bed. This auto leelling depends on a sensor stached to the print head that detects the bed very accurately. The CR10S comes with a capacitive sensor and some folks online have compained about it being inconsistent especially when delaing with hot build plates or other variables.  I am also concerned because I am going to replace my build plate with the magnetically "stuck" WhamBam plate - so my answer is to get the reputedly more reliable BLTouch sensor which has a small retractable pin that literally touches the bed to detect it. Tehre is also a video showing how to fit it and a special firmware version available for y specific model of printer which made it a sure thing for me. 

 I bought a BLTouch sensor from 3D Printing Canada who also have a good video on how to fit it to a CR10S Pro – but it was $137. 

There was supposed to be a local firm selling them but they are now calling themselves “Wombot” and selling 3D printers draped in Aussie flags - and they are covering their machines with the same metal/plastic sandwich panels as my cabinet. Their cheapest machine starts at $5k and I am curious to see a review of their products since that seems way more expensive than anything else: perhaps they are aiming for the “professional market” but I can't see that as being viable. Still, what do I know? Perhaps their support will be fabulous and they will outsell all other machines locally. I can't see that happenning myself since the market for serious 3D printers is limited and the big guys (Stratasys etc.) have it pretty much stitched up. Is there a market for more average, small fab machines costing that much? It seems to me that I have seen this all before.

So there it is: What are people doing with their 3D Printers? Making Cosplay Ironmek (Don't wanna get sued here) outfits?  I'm still not exactly sure what I will be doing with my machine once it is running smoothly,  but I have a few ideas. 
All suggestions welcome.

A New Project: 3D Printing

Which Machine?

Previously I thought about getting a Taz 6 but they come at $2500+ and for what you get, that is a lousy deal: major parts are 3D printed plastic and I would rather have metal where possible. Also the slight size advantage is not important to me for a first machine – if I move to a bigger format machine later I will go a lot bigger than that.

Better is the CR10S Pro which at @ $1000 has much better construction quality.

It may take some mods to bring it up to full standard but that is okay there is plenty of info on how to do that online and the parts are cheap and available.

For ABS you need an enclosure and a ventilation system to outside or the room will stink of plastic. (actually I suspect this will be needed regardless of the filament)

Also ABS is not UV resistant - get ASA instead for that, or Carbon X (need a stronger print head for this but the results: strong parts! That's what I am after. The exact material is less important than the strength and durability of the parts.

Originally I thought of getting a big printer but there are two reasons why that is a bad idea, at least to start out: first, 3D printing takes time. The bigger the print, the longer it takes – and if anything goes wrong, that time is probably wasted.
By instead making a large model from several smaller parts, a failure in any one part only means you need to reprint that part , not the whole thing. Also, big printers are very expensive and I have yet to find good uses for the one I have (but I am sure that these will appear).

I bought the CR0-10S Pro for a total of $907 AU delivered.

It came very quickly (within 3 days). I opened the box and prepared to assemble it by doing up the four M5 screws but there was a slight problem: one of the threads had a burr on it that meant the screw wouldn't thread. I bought a set of taps and dies for a whopping $30 and it si taking a week for them to arrive – funny when the printer was so fast getting here.

I have watched several YouTube vids by other CR10S Pro owners which made me decide on getting some extras:

1. Three quiet cooling fans for the case from Noctua (who else? The Noctua fans in my PC are excellent)

2. A WhamBam build plate - this permits easy removal of finished parts without needing a spatula.

These should arrive soon.

The Cabinet

I like the idea of building a cabinet to put around the whole printer for various reasons:

(a) Temperature control – even inside my house the temperatures can vary a lot winter/summer and printing some materials e.g. ABS works a lot better if the chamber is at least temperature stabilised.

I am not sure how far I would go to set this up but it may be a future development.

(b) Safety – I prefer not to have machinery moving about in my workspace uncovered.

(c) Gases – Some plastics give off gases when printed. I would like to have the chamber exhausted to outside or at least filtered for long term health.

(d) Also, I might add lights and a camera for remote monitoring inside the cabinet.

(e) One final extra is that I could then mount a filament store underneath the cabinet in a sealed box and feed the filament up the back of the whole unit rather than having one roll on top. It seems that keeping filaments dry and warm is important for good results so this would take care of all that in one unit.

This Printer cabinet would need to be about 700 x 700 mm square and there does not seem to be anything that size on sale so the whole thing would need to be custom made. 

This (naturally ) lends itself to be made with 3D printed parts. I am thinking the flat parts might be plastic sheet with insulation on most of the insides while the edges could be aluminum extrusions and then the corner blocks would be 3D printed in something strong e.g. ABS. 

This is, of course, a work in progress.  Not sure how the cabinet idea will work out - it is more a matter of how much I end up using the printer - if it gets a lot of use then the cabinet will be worth the effort.

More coming once I get the printer up and running.  

Speech, Free or Otherwise

On the box down here they are advertising VPNs – The big sell here is that you can connect via the VPN (Virtual Private Network) and pretend to be connecting to the net from any country you want. This will apparently mean that you can view content that would otherwise be blocked to you in your native country. Of course, you have to trust the VPN itself that they will not be recording or tracking your access. Can you see anything wrong with this service? 

I have seen a number of people online who say that keeping your net surfing private is essential and that you should encrypt all of your files and your net traffic to do so.

Well, I don't see how is this supposed to work: Why do these folks assume that the spook agencies haven't already got ways to see through your encryption systems and easily read whatever you are trying to hide? They have plenty of money and manpower to do this and a very big head start on you and any other geek who might want to try it. They also already own the server farms and the big data corporates.

I also don't see why this is essential, unless you are doing things you feel guilty (or at least nervous) about over the net. Oh yes – if you really want to do naughty things, why not just not do them over the internet? You know, the old fashioned way?

Censorship is increasing thanks to some truly insane legislation in various places that now appears to permit any old dropkick with a grudge and a big mouth to accuse anyone of copyright infringement or "hate speech" resulting in the big providers e.g. YouTube blocking your content while the accused has apparently no way to disprove this and must appeal to the complainant to get the block lifted.

Until recently I watched a lot of YouTube, then suddenly it all disappeared: well, a lot of the people I watched on YT got disappeared, to be exact. I don't care so much if they were making money off it, but they were not doing anything apart from providing entertainment and sometimes comedic critique. Actually the idea of making a wage from YT videos has never been comfortable for me: that money has to come from somewhere and if it is not coming from your subscribers then where?

So the advertisers (which I never saw since I paid for a sub) put pressure on YT to block anything that might affect their sales, riiight? No, it's not that simple.

This whole matter expands quickly into the question of free speech: do we have any? How much is enough? How much is too much? On the one hand I think free speech is important since without it we are just another repressed dictatorship – and how do we stop big players e.g. media corporations, private interests and spook services from monopolising the networks just to push their ideas?

The answer is we almost can't – but we can vote with our feet: don't watch that shite and find somewhere else to go on the net that is more free and open. Yes, it still exists - at least for now.

I recently watched a vid on how to set up Tails on a computer - along with other scandalous stuff about how you are being watched online etc. etc. but there is one fundamental matter for me: I don't need or want to tour the “darknet” : I don't need to know how to get illegal things and I don't have any secrets or hidden guilt for things in my past or present. I got rid of all of that a long, long time ago because it only made trouble. Same goes for all of the fringe criminal people I knew in the past – being around them didn't do me any good, in fact the opposite was true. Hang out with a psycho and you could become one too. Yeah, sure the big media is all owned and they feed whatever the (CIA, NSA or other Three- letter acronym) or some Corporate tells them – but anyone with enough of a clue knows its all bullshit. There are still some sources that report truth, you just need to look for them. Yes, there does seem to be some faction of nutters conducting attacks on people who want to speak truth – but that has all been going on for a very, very long time: those things stay the same even now. It's just expanded lately and got crazier than before. Apparently Fakebook is the worst offender here but then I never liked it and I'm not on it so it doesn't affect me: I was on the net long before Facebook existed and I expect to be here long after it is gone (hopefully soon).

So it looks like the shrill voices of fear have won: many of those kicked off YouTube have gone over to BitChute which would not be bad except someone here in Oz has decided we should not see BitChute or D-Tube which were the two touted alternatives to YT. If you look on Wikipedia it claims that Bitchute is full of “rightwing extremists” - except that is not correct – instead the people being kicked off YouTube are anyone who the new "Nartsties" don't agree with. I am not either “right” or “left” - “wing” and most other people aren't either – but this pogrom is definitely not sane or reasoned so don't expect rational explanations of who is banned or why. Some have managed to get their channels reinstated but I wonder how long that will last.

In perspective, I see a fundamental fault in YouTube that did need to be fixed: people were getting caught up in making YT vids and making a living off it because YT was paying them on a per-view basis. I think this was stupid of them. 

The correct model is that people should be paying subs as one can do with Patreon or Paypal if they see a channel as being worth their money – and of course, then subscribers can get special content that only they can access. Fine. But please note that this says nothing about the nature or quality of content: What annoys the heck out of me is the censorship.

I have long enjoyed watching wild and varied content related to unusual subjects such as UFO's, the paranormal, etc. etc. - this does not make me crazy or even paranoid. Mostly it is entertainment and just plain silly fun when one looks at how way out some of these people's claims are while they are completely unable to support these claims with any evidence – a bit like religion – but for some unknown reason YT has not only defunded them (don't care about that) but banned them – and that is what I think is a step too far. Sure, don't pay them, but why ban them? That's censorship and it isn't even censoring anything important or threatening to the Powers That Be . . . . . or is it?

The New Mac Pro

The New Mac Pro – Not for the normal computer user

I have been waiting for this for years. Well, so much for that. 

My first thought was: “Where is the air filter? “

My original 2012 Cheesegrater Mac Pro 5,1 required opening it up about once a month and blowing it out with a can of compressed air. This process is not a lot of trouble but it really made me wish for a case with a nice big and fine air filter on it so that I could just vacuum it on the outside when I dust everything else and not need to open the case for anything apart from uprades.

I really don't understand why this is not a standard feature on PC cases.

Next, I looked at the base 8 Core model that they have actually priced: 6K US bucks for it. What big advantage would I get over my current rig if I bought one of these new Mac Pros?

For the moment I will ignore the pricing, and just look at the specs since there aren't any prices yet apart from the base 8 core model which I would not bother with. Okay, so we have . . .
 

Faster memory, with ECC - well Linus of Linus Tech Tips asked Intel if he could test the difference between ECC and non- ECC memory . . . but Intel didn't want to do it. I suspect that for all normal uses (since there are already other systemwide features designed to deal with memory errors) that ECC might even be slower for the same clockspeed since it needs to do more – or putting it another way, if you are building a server, yes, fine, but for normal users there is probably no need anyway.

Special Video card – I don't edit 8K video so it doesn't really mean anything to me – but then that IS the point wit the New Mac Pro : it really is for “Pro” users.

Cooling – here we hit what has been a complaint from many buyers of recent Apple PCs and laptops – a lot of them thermal throttle when put under load which, if one looks at the design of the iMac or Macbook should not be a surprise since they seem to be made to be thin rather than cool.

The New Mac Pro has three fans at the front and one inside cooling the CPU. We won't get to see how well it cools or how loud it gets until the online geeks get their hands on them - but to me it looks like Apple will have to do some serious wizardry to keep all that hardware cool and quiet at full power. It better though, for the prices they are asking.

A few real “Creative Pros” asked in a Verge column said they wanted Nvidia GPU support since AMD just doesn't make powerful enough GPUs for them.

Even ignoring the prices, Even if I didn't need Nvidia GPU power for my preferred art tools, would I get one then?

Well, more CPU power is always good - another ten cores surely wouldn't hurt. Faster clocks? Same. 

Mac OS? Well, now that I have been using Windows 10 for some time I don't really see any great advantage to Mac OS. Windows has more software, more options and is no less or more secure than Mac OS. Supposedly the Mac OS is more stable and better able to handle task switching.

I guess this could be important if you were looking to do "serious" work – but I don't have that problem.

The price – well, it just means I won't be getting one. Ever. This is not the sort of price I can accept for the machine they are providing – and I am not the only one who is saying that either: the net is full of computer geeks saying the same as me. Sorry Apple, maybe you are only making this one for the elites and corporate video editors because you sure aren't doing it for the majority of users. In simple terms, even a tech pro would probably be better off making their own PC from parts, the prices are so astronomical.

Finally, the aesthetic element. The old Cheesegrater case actually looked good. No, it looked GREAT and still does. It was also very practical in the way parts were easy to remove and upgrade: if I had found any more upgrades for mine I would have kept it, but the limit was hit. (I have looked on eBay and the same basic config as my final upgrade is apparently still for sale at about 2K$, the price I sold mine for.)

The new Mac Pro looks . . . well, it REALLY looks like a cheesegrater. Other than that, nah, I don't really like its look – and it has no air filters and no way to fit any either - well, not that it really matters, after all I just hide the box behind the screen and look at that instead.

Oh. That new screen? Maybe my eyes are just not as good as the experts, I can't really see myself spending that much on a display regardless of how perfect it's lighting and colour is, and even that is a matter of some debate as apparently some tech geeks say it doesn't fit the specs everyone else is running on. Oh well, that's the Apple way huh?

You can bet that Apple's own TeeVee Network will have banks of 2019 Mac Pros for it's production crews.  Oh, riiiight, THAT's what this is REALLY for.  Look, drool and pine, o poor plebs in your trailer homes, this is what they use at Apple HQ to make the shows you watch on your 2020 iPads.

 As a long  time Mac User and owner it makes me a little sad to see Apple price its best equipment way, way, WWAAAAAYY out of my price range.
Bye Mac, it was nice knowing you.

Found in my local supermarket. 'nuff said.

THE BIG PICTURE

1. We don't know how old the universe is, nor whether it has a beginning or an end. There is no evidence to support the Big Bang. Any ideas about this are pure fiction and despite preposterous amounts of money being spent to “prove” it, there is no real evidence or any way to prove the big bang ever happened. Besides, what meaning is there in it?

2. Our world and Solar System have been modified. Our Moon is not a normal or naturally occurring moon. It is much too big and does not orbit the Earth in a normal orbit compared to other moons in our own Solar System. What exactly it is remains to be discovered.

3. We are not alone. There is a constant stream of sightings of UFOs that cannot all be explained away and thanks to the plentiful supply of mobile phones with cameras there is more evidence than ever before of many somethings or someones in our skies and out in space.

Life on Earth exists in almost every type of environment – extremes of heat and cold, high and low altitudes: why would we then assume that it stops when we leave the surface of Earth? More likely life exists everywhere in forms we don't yet know of, even out in space.

4. Humans have been on Earth for a very long time. There are fossils that prove humans, or something resembling humans have been living here for millions of years. Not thousands, MILLIONS of years.

5. We are not the same as all other life on Earth. Humans have two genes fused together which all other animals have separated. There are many other biological differences that suggest we are at least partly modified from standard Earth stock. Our mental capacity is clearly limited – we can know this yet we cannot surpass some serious limits.

6. We are probably not the most advanced culture to ever exist on this planet. There is plenty of evidence of previous cultures that could create advanced technology in our past.

In various places there are examples of advanced metalwork, stone and ceramic works that prove someone was here in ages past and they were not primitives.

7. Our societies are awful and primitive. Our sciences are primitive and so bad we haven't even got a workable theory of gravity. There is evidence that suggests previous cultures had nuclear power and nuclear weapons were used in places in Earth's distant past. Mars also has suffered from nuclear explosions in its distant past. Clearly these previous cultures were no better at keeping peace amongst themselves than we are. It looks like all previous cultures were smashed either by natural or man-made catastrophes and that this has happened repeatedly on this planet.

8. We are not just meat machines. There is plenty of strong evidence that we as beings remain in existence after body death and at least some of us come back again.

In addition there is the unsettling discovery that those who are killed violently may return with traumatic physical deformations that match the way they died in their previous life.

This means that any violence caused to people in one life can continue to adversely affect them beyond the grave – the message is clearly to be good to your fellow humans.

This also suggests that this world is only a small part of some bigger reality: the main problem we then have is that we don't know why or what is the point of the whole thing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here I can theorise that we are here to learn how to get on with each other nicely despite our differences, do good things for each other and so on – and this then grows into much bigger questions we must deal with as humans – morality and justice, for example:

but these are all ideas formed from this existence. The fundamental problem is that we don't know what this other existence is all about.

Some think we are just here to experience but that does not have meaning for us here since we have it regardless.

The best overall theory of existence I have is this: Life here on Earth for us is a sort of training ground. We are being trained for some other, more complex existence. This may well be only one level of a series of training “schools”.

Where are the “Teachers”? They are never seen, never heard by us. If someone gets outside of the playground limits they may clean up the mess but we will probably never hear or see it happen. We will never get to the same level of “technology” as them because that would cause trouble for the Teachers. Perhaps these are what some people call the “Men In Black”?

We might make technological or social progress but the important part of this “school” is that we must learn how to deal with things like justice, morality, inequality and suffering, thus all of these things will remain with us here on Earth since they are “baked in”.

Key to this is our limited mental capacities and our combination of both intellectual and emotional minds in the one form.

These limits are one of the crucial matters to consider: in any game, the limits are what make the game. If we have a world where people can easily read each other's minds, for example, there is little need for verbal communication and if these mental messages are always perfectly remembered there is no need for writing or physical records of any kind: as long as someone around can remember what was said all those years ago, why bother writing it down?

Complete telepathy with all life would create a situation where killing or causing pain to any other creature would cause instant pain for yourself too: this could cause many other connected beings to die at the same time. This would therefore not be terribly practical.

This is by no means the end of the story: things are far more complex than the simple sketch provided here, there are more questions than answers but it does give me a starting point.

All of the claims 1 to 8 above are supported by real evidence but I am not going to provide bibliographic references: do your own research. 

You could, of course, email me and I'll provide clues , but I'm betting that you won't, so come on, prove me wrong!

The Myth Of Magic

This is the essence of all of the grandiose claims by religious or mystic types: that they (and you too, if you pay enough!) can influence reality simply by thinking about it.

What is truly bombastic is when such fantasy is proclaimed as “science”.

The latest version of this is the so-called observer- experiment interaction, where somehow the outcome of a precise experiment can be changed merely by someone (or something) observing it.

Here is an example:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/02/980227055013.htm

and also

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics)

The experimenters claim that they placed a sensitive electron detector near to the passage of a flow of electrons and that when the detector was activated, the flow of the electrons changed its behaviour. They claim that this detector cannot influence the flow, yet it does.

How about a much simpler theory: IT DOES affect the flow when switched on.

I bring this up because it is an example of magical thinking in science – well, pseudo-science actually. This is NOT science because it is attempting to prove a faulty premise.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am not a “skeptic”. I am not doing this to “debunk” anyone: I am only after the truth.

There are some things that are definitely real, yet they don't have any “scientific explanation”.

The big thing to look for is the origins of the ideas. I recently discovered that the “Big bang” theory came from a Catholic Priest! Apparently he was looking for a way to reconcile his religious ideas with scientific thinking. No wonder the idea always stunk to me: where is the supporting evidence? There is NONE. The theory was NOT derived from evidence of any kind, nor did it derive from a previous theory with weaker evidence, it was just pulled out of thin air!

The point is that if any human could really affect reality directly they would be something more like a god: but not only that, the strong suspicion that such a thing was really possible would mean societies, governments, corporations and individuals would immediately start work on duplicating this power for themselves: a magical arms race. The fact that there is no power that can really do this is proven by the total lack of any evidence to support it.

I suspect that most, if not all of - the stories disguised as “science” that try to convince us that things such as “observer – experiment effects” are true are actually lies to confuse and cloud the picture of what is really going on.

It gets fools hard at work searching for this phenomenon so that they may waste years and millions looking for it.

It also allows those who have more “mundane” technologies to conceal them by claiming that such phenomena are caused by much more spectacular sources, thus keeping their technological advantage. - and that may be the real game: keeping the “secret weapons” secret while trying to get everyone else wandering around in the dark looking for magical sources for the results of far more real weapons and processes.

Is there a deliberate planned dumbing down of our science? That is a hard question to answer. I can point to some clear indicators that suggest that progress has been crippled by bureaucracy and the needs of people to collect a wage and hold a position, but that is not to say any of that was planned.

Consider the progress of a young University student: first, to get into University level physics, he or she must have already absorbed the official models and methods of science and been able to regurgitate them on demand. Then to reach further up the ladder to masters degree and beyond to become a professor, he must not only have the official views down but be able to make new and slight variations on it BUT nothing that challenges the views of his seniors or their fellows as this would be heresy. All papers must be submitted to peer review for approval and if that committee of “peers” is already decided that your idea CANNOT be true, tough luck: no funding, no commercial contracts, no degree, no job, nothing. Just take a look at what happened to Pons and Fleischmann when they tried to get official science to look at an effect that was outside of the narrow norm. I won't go into the details of it here - they were careful researchers and had no interest in deception, but that didn't count for much.

This system ensures that any idea which does not conform will not get support - and if the idea threatens any of the existing corporate bodies, it will either get absorbed or squashed: no water powered cars or never-run-flat batteries will get funding from the big boys. Don't get the idea the patent system will help here either: anything of significance will either get co-opted by the military industrial complex or you won't get a patent in the first place – or both.

It seems more likely that the social systems we have constructed cannot cope with too much progress and tend to stop all scientific and technological progress once they are established.

This is not all bad mind you, and we should note that we have recently been through a very anomalous event where the progress of microelectronics has sped forward – but this is now probably not going to continue at the same rate as before because of physical limits being reached.

The suspicion is that we are looking at a sort of progression of social units: when young and flexible, they will try anything but as they grow older and bigger they also become more conservative in their outlook until the structure becomes burdened by bureaucracy and fixed ideology. The next step would then be the collapse of the rigid structure when faced with unavoidable truths that prove the ideology false . . except that when we look at religion in the modern world it seems to mutate and adjust when new facts appear rather than collapsing outright. It took centuries for the Catholic Church to admit Copernicus was right and even now, they still exist. 

Thus I must conclude that the only way forward for those of us who want a better world and a better world-view is to do it ourselves and not even bother trying to convince the fixed minds of new ideas - make them, use them and show people that they are real and workable.

If you dare. 

I previously posted Rupert Sheldrake's Dogmas of Modern Science:  

Make no mistake, dogmas are not a good sign.