Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 87 posts

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#71

Post by noobermin »

entropyneur wrote: post #22
_ph_ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less smoking is very good for the population health. While population increases are not good by themselves, all reduction in mortality is very good for everyone who has not to die. Interestingly this seems to have the consequence that the birth rates decline strongly as observed in many places. Drilling is not bad because of "evil corporations", but because it regularly is accompanied by harming the environment, be i…

> Less smoking is very good for the population health. But what is population health good for if not enjoying life? Including (for some people) things like smoking a cigarette.

You assume the majority of smokers are either a) not new smokers and b) aren't actively trying to quit.

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#72

Post by contingencies »

avz wrote: post #54
candu wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and hundreds of millions worldwide who have been saved from malaria or lifted out of extreme poverty would likely disagree with you: what good is super-human synthetic intelligence several decades from now (assuming that's even a tractable generalization of largely task-specific ML models) if you're not sure where your next meal comes from?

> if you're not sure where your next meal comes from? This is certainly work in progress, but: "31. In 1990, more than 60% of people in East Asia lived in extreme poverty. As of 2016, that proportion has dropped to 3.5%."

I'm calling BS. East Asia basically just means China, because it dwarfs other populations. IMHO >60% of Chinese were certainly not living in extreme poverty in 1990, unless economically defined via free market rhetoric and bad statistics. The reality is that people used to grow more of their own food and buy less, so the need for free-market capital was limited. Perhaps this is the source of the mistake.

There was and still is far more extreme poverty in South Asia.

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#73

Post by noobermin »

contingencies wrote: post #72
avz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you're not sure where your next meal comes from? This is certainly work in progress, but: "31. In 1990, more than 60% of people in East Asia lived in extreme poverty. As of 2016, that proportion has dropped to 3.5%."

I'm calling BS. East Asia basically just means China, because it dwarfs other populations. IMHO >60% of Chinese were certainly not living in extreme poverty in 1990, unless economically defined via free market rhetoric and bad statistics. The reality is that people used to grow more of their own food and buy less, so the need for free-market capital was limited. Perhaps this is the source of the mistake. There was an…

This actually sounds interesting as a fact but I would like to see some evidence/links.

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#74

Post by barney54 »

dbingham wrote: post #20
newswriter99 wrote: post #11

Some of these are objectively good, such as world literacy increasing, less pollution in the atmosphere or survival rates increasing for endangered species. Then it lost me with "Oh and smoking bans are good and global human population increases are good and also drilling=evil corporations so banning it across the board=good" Those are debatable. Not very politically neutral is it.

At this point drilling is objectively evil. Climate scientists have been saying for a while that we can't afford to burn our existing reserves, let alone burn what comes out of new wells, if we're to have any chance of averting catastrophic climate change. Smoking bans are probably debatable. But to be fair, it wouldn't be political neutral even if it weren't for those particular statements. There are plenty of peopl…

Your characterization of climate science is incorrect. If you read the reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, they understand that there are trade offs to carbon controls. These controls are expensive and those costs harm humanity.

Drilling for oil and gas greatly increased human well-being by improving transportation options. You can argue about carbon restrictions and where to draw the line, but saying that drilling is objectively evil is not a statement based on science.

For example, some scientists argue some moderate warming is net beneficial. http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/news/the-economic-imp...

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#75

Post by csallen »

CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #68
csallen wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't downvote you, but I can only assume you're being downvoted because you ignored this: By order of subjects: nature conservation, global health, political and economic progress, climate change response, less violence, sustainable economy and agriculture, endangered animals, charity. It's pretty clear that this was the main point to counter your claim that the list was dominated by a single theme, yet you ignor…

Nature conservation, climate change response, sustainable agriculture, endangered animals. That's all under the same theme I was talking about in my comment. It's half of your list.

Not saying you're wrong, just saying you should have said that in your response to the parent, otherwise it comes off as you dodging his point.

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#76

Post by dredmorbius »

contingencies wrote: post #72
avz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you're not sure where your next meal comes from? This is certainly work in progress, but: "31. In 1990, more than 60% of people in East Asia lived in extreme poverty. As of 2016, that proportion has dropped to 3.5%."

I'm calling BS. East Asia basically just means China, because it dwarfs other populations. IMHO >60% of Chinese were certainly not living in extreme poverty in 1990, unless economically defined via free market rhetoric and bad statistics. The reality is that people used to grow more of their own food and buy less, so the need for free-market capital was limited. Perhaps this is the source of the mistake. There was an…

Pretty much exactly this. Global reductions in poverty equate to reductions in $2/day income threshold in two countries: China and India.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/china-i...

Accomplished at the cost of tremendously increasing resource consumption, particularly energy:

China: https://m.imgur.com/Vj5VwS9?r

India: https://m.imgur.com/elFJjGP?r

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#77

Post by jimbokun »

arcanus wrote: post #19

Missing the biggest triumph of 2016 by far: the victory by DeepMind's machine learning algorith at Go over the greatest living human player. At this time last year it was highly questionable if humans would ever lose to algorithms at games as complex as Go. Now we have reason to be optimistic that an entire class of problems are amenable to solution through computation, and more evidence super-human synthetic intelli…

There is no reason to think this is a positive development for humanity. Could very likely be a step on the road to our extinction.

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#78

Post by contingencies »

noobermin wrote: post #73
contingencies wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm calling BS. East Asia basically just means China, because it dwarfs other populations. IMHO >60% of Chinese were certainly not living in extreme poverty in 1990, unless economically defined via free market rhetoric and bad statistics. The reality is that people used to grow more of their own food and buy less, so the need for free-market capital was limited. Perhaps this is the source of the mistake. There was an…

This actually sounds interesting as a fact but I would like to see some evidence/links.

Just look for photos of any place in China in the 1990s, or ask someone who lived there.

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#79

Post by protomyth »

noobermin wrote: post #69
protomyth wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A conservative's list would be very different: opened up vast new areas to oil drilling! Outlawed abortion in more countries! Rolled back environmental regulations that protect penguins over jobs! Reduced crime with stiffer prison sentences! and that's why liberals lose elections - one of these years we'll skip the caricatures

You ignore the last two elections. We'd all do well to avoid succumbing to recent-ism.

Not really, I guess you mean 2012 and 2008, but looking at 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016; you see a pretty interesting trend in both national elections and state houses.

Re: Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

#80

Post by carterehsmith »

estsauver wrote: post #65
candu wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and hundreds of millions worldwide who have been saved from malaria or lifted out of extreme poverty would likely disagree with you: what good is super-human synthetic intelligence several decades from now (assuming that's even a tractable generalization of largely task-specific ML models) if you're not sure where your next meal comes from?

Well, I founded a startup that's using ML to help turn satellite data into credit risk profiles for the world's poorest farmers so we can sell them fertilizer and seed. So... I think tensor flow is going to be pretty great for the 1K farmers we're working with this year and ~50k we're going to try and reach next year.

> help turn satellite data into credit risk profiles for the world's poorest farmers so we can sell them fertilizer and seed

Not sure if satire or serious :].

Post reply on HN