This is positivism reborn. Science and tech are almost religiously adorned. Tech entrepreneurs are viewed as modern-day saints and saviours. It turns out that the last wave of innovations has triggered the demand for unrealistic, technically illiterate, bombastic projects that exist in a whitepaper form and investment funds. Media and politicians catch the trend and give publicity to the garbage projects just because it is a way to show how progressive they are. Gullible people attracted to glitters of ‘free energy’, ‘carbon capture’ and all that roadshow magic throw excessive money in vapourware.

The money instantly gets multiplied by stock markets arithmetic, IPOs, SPACs and ‘Reddit investors’. As a result it’s not a technology company anymore. There is less science and engineering in them than in fantasy books. But there is even less good capitalism in the economy which is flourishing now than in Mao’s teachings.

Any skilled engineer is competent enough to prove that all the hyperloops are a scam. That’s there is no way to bore tunnels for ‘a fraction of a price’ the modern equipment does. That we can’t make ICBM rockets as a means of transportation. We can’t make a comprehensive blood test based on a single droplet, and to immediately produce a miraculous cure for some yet unidentified conditions. And that everything that has been really done exists only because of the subsidies and government lobby, not because it’s cheap, reliable and convenient.

Elizabeth Holmes’ single mistake was that she was slightly ahead of time. In the 2020s Theranos would be ‘saved’, ‘recapitalised’ and the charlatan would produce promise after promise, whitepaper after whitepaper as her company’s only product.