Ask HN: What is not going to change in future? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What is not going to change in future?

#41

Post by czbond » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 1:53 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #4

Human nature, and the rate of learning.

I agree without change - but going to postulate a question:

Let's say I believe it is my destiny to make sure all humanity evolves to become enlightened and reach the next rung?

Let's also say a constraint is I disbelieve in humanity as an entire collective body can reach enlightenment by itself - and therefore must be pulled, due to human base desires.

Knowing this, how can I accomplish it? I have theories, but I don't want to pre-form the suggested solutions.

Re: Ask HN: What is not going to change in future?

#42

Post by demondemidi » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 1:54 PM UTC

nuz wrote: post #14

Math, physics, chemistry won't change. Who knows if software will be nearly recognizable in 10-20 years from now, but the reality of the world will not.

20 years is nothing. Code still looks the same essentially. Lots of “new” patterns are just ancient patterns rediscovered by people who never had exposure to the old ones. Code in 100 years might be different but probably not by much. I don’t see cpu arch radically changing. I hope it does.

Re: Ask HN: What is not going to change in future?

#43

Post by vasili111 » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 1:54 PM UTC

Tainnor wrote: post #22

Theoretical CS fundamentals are not going to change. Practically, that means among other things: - Unless somebody finds a polynomial algorithm for an NP-complete problem (which is a taller order than just proving P=NP), several interesting problems will continue to be infeasible to solve exactly in the general case with large data. - If, in addition, quantum computers don't prove to be viable, commonly used cryptosy…

AES is considered quantum resistant.

Re: Ask HN: What is not going to change in future?

#44

Post by demondemidi » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 1:54 PM UTC

Feels like Reddit over here.

Re: Ask HN: What is not going to change in future?

#45

Post by flohofwoe » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 1:55 PM UTC

I think the Lindy Effect is as good a guess as anything else to predict the future ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

(e.g. it's more likely that C, Fortran and Cobol are still around in 50 years than some of the more recent programming languages)

Re: Ask HN: What is not going to change in future?

#46

Post by golergka » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 1:56 PM UTC

Keegs wrote: post #35

Humans. Marcus Aurelius wrote Meditations about 2000 years ago and it’s still useful for navigating modern life. On the surface, life has changed a ton over generations because of technological advancement. Underneath that though, basic human worries and basic human needs haven’t changed and probably never will.

First book is basically a gratitude journal. But when he goes into logical reasons for being a good person, his foundation is the assumption of providence and gods that have created the universe and everything and guide all that happens. If you're not a religious person, his reasoning wouldn't work for you.

Re: Ask HN: What is not going to change in future?

#47

Post by CM30 » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 1:57 PM UTC

I suspect basic HTML won't change much if at all. We're still using tags like html, head, body, title, h1-h6, p, img, etc after all these years, and I don't see them going anywhere.

Of course, unless some sort of weird tech shift happens that makes the browser obsolete altogether, I suspect most HTML/CSS/JavaScript won't ever change anyway. Browsers are backwards compatible to a similar degree as Microsoft and Windows. If even stuff like the center tag are supported in 2024, most things aren't going anywhere.

On a less specific note, I guess poor planning and software development practices? Feels like planning how long things are going to take hasn't got much better in the last few decades, with things like 'agile' barely making a dent in it. I suspect projects overrunning, feature and scope creep, big budget disasters, etc will probably be issues in society til the end of time.

Re: Ask HN: What is not going to change in future?

#48

Post by blowski » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 1:59 PM UTC

wkirby wrote: post #39

Most of having a job is people skills. Whether we’re writing jQuery by hand or prompting ChatGPT 9.5 to output our work, your most important job skills will still be collaboration, communication, and in some cases just being a good hang.

I do agree, but this is HN, so I'm going to do a thought experiment.

Imagine ChatGPT could "translate" from grumpy-old-curmugeonish into friendly-human in realtime, then which soft skills would still be valuable? Imagine going to a shop and being served by a grumpy curmudgeon whose poor English was translated instantly into great customer service.

What changes with this? To what extent will this ever be possible?

Re: Ask HN: What is not going to change in future?

#49

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 1:59 PM UTC

diarrhea wrote: post #27

jefc1111 wrote: post #20

People building things without first checking if anyone actually wants or needs them first.

What a killjoy. Who cares? Let me toy around.

You want to toy around? Go for it.

A product manager wants our team to build something that nobody actually needs? I may wind up getting laid off for that.

Re: Ask HN: What is not going to change in future?

#50

Post by golergka » Tue, Mar 12, 2024, 1:59 PM UTC

yldedly wrote: post #12

gwbas1c wrote: post #4

Human nature, and the rate of learning.

I wonder about the latter. It's known that high quality, one-on-one teaching can greatly improve learning speed. Could near future generation AI learn to be a teacher on par with the best human ones?

Even better abstractions have already radically improved the rate of learning. Try learning math by medieval books written before modern notation: the most basic, middle school things like trigonometry will look like arcane mysteries.