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A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

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Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#61

Post by devlopr »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #29
devlopr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious to hear a bit more. Who are these men? The non-tech jocks? There must be non-tech females left? Are you speaking about the average looking male group who can't get tinder hookups?

I think the prevalence of social media (Not just dating apps) has somewhat shafted average men since now women have far more access to (EDIT: highly) desirable men. The world continuously becoming more sexually liberal also means that women are more likely to pursue these men, and so average men are looked down upon moreso than before. I'm sure plenty of people have seen the Tinder/Bumble studies where men rated wome…

My other point of view is the opposite will happen.

Men will find happiness in porn, paid sex and virtual sexual experiences and will find that women can't live up to those experiences and men will not be satified with regular women.

An average women's sexual peak is later in life and they will not be as satified with virtual sex in the same way.

There will be a need for younger men from an older women group that could bridge the divide.

If you are young and want casual sex go on courage life not tinder for better results.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#62

Post by glenstein »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #58
glenstein wrote: post #37

A comment I made on this when it was posted a few days ago: I am surprised that this was regarded as a close decision. I guess a lot depends on wording, but when one person is predicting the dollar will be worthless, and the person in the role of judge claims that given global economic uncertainty, it's a "close" question, I wonder if they're just saying that to be diplomatic. Obviously there's a lot of uncertainty,…

It was close, in 2008. It was frighteningly close. Not before or since, but yeah, I'll give them "close" on that one. ("Worse than 1930" was part of the criterion. We didn't come close to that in terms of the final outcome, but we were, I think, within a very few days of getting there.)

Here was one of the predictions in the words of one of the participants in the bet:

>“The first [measurement] would be an economic collapse. The dollar would be worthless, the yen would be worthless, the mark would be worthless—the dislocation we saw in the Depression of 1930, magnified many times over.

The dollar is not worthless and not close to worthless. There's no reasonable interpretation of that outcome, or of reality, where the dollar becoming worthless was "close" to an accurate prediction. I truly, honestly don't know how to reason with someone who is going to dispute that.

Another prediction was that we would be in an active global military conflict between rich and poor nations. Also not close.

Another prediction was "Africa, from the Sahara to South Africa, becomes unlivable."

If words actually mean things, none of these were close.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#63

Post by dukeofdoom »

wait_a_minute wrote: post #53
dukeofdoom wrote: post #51

I think in many ways yes. A local island that now has been turned into residential units, still has some old buildings from the 1920s. Including a dance hall. Its abandoned now. But the scale and grandeur of the place, has played on my imagination. What it was like to be in there with a thousand other people on a weekend just out dancing. No internet, or TV. I've also seen some street photos from NY from that time pe…

It may be the case that socio-economic issues have worsened those things, not technology. And that we are not fully leveraging technology in order to improve lives.

I don't know if thats alway the case. People used to have liaisons, read books, play music together, go to church, play card games, garden, ride horses, and so on. Often surrounded by friend and family. Just seems like the quality of the average moment was better back then. The experience more authentic and often more social and more dangerous.

For example if you liked to go out and play poker in a local bar in the 1920s. It Required actual poker skills, but also good banter, and had an element of danger to it. Seems like your brain neurones would be firing, just to keep up with the banter at the table while you downed whiskey trying not to lose too much money.

Now so many people stay at home, watch some TV or watch some porn, fall asleep and go to work the next day. And things are safe, virtual and fake.

Technology has made movies possible, I love movies. But I value the experience of reading a book differently. Its a much richer and deeper experience. And technology made it very cheap now with things like kindles. But still I think there's been a decline in the amount of people reading books. Even though I think society would be enriched from more people reading books. Its now the average person has easier lazier entertainment to occupy them.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#64

Post by [deleted] »

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #52
benrbray wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure exactly what you're hinting at, but I think you should take a cold, hard look at yourself and the expectations you place on your potential partners. Do you imagine them as actual human beings with their own thoughts, aspirations, preferences, goals? What does such a person have to gain (emotionally / socially) by choosing YOU in particular for a partner? In all relationships, romantic or not, personality…

The share of young men not having sex has tripled in the past decade: https://twitter.com/_cingraham/status/1111607604348805120 What do you think accounts for this change? Seems pretty plausible to me that it has something to do with technology. Perhaps it has something to do with dating apps, perhaps young men are substituting porn for real intimacy, perhaps some combination. Either way, doesn't seem like a good cha…

[deleted]

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#65

Post by dragonwriter »

8ytecoder wrote: post #11
notsureaboutpg wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's such a silly way of measuring the answer. Books existed in the Middle Ages (e.g. Dark Ages, yes people will say we don't call it that anymore but still). Tech could have regressed our society in manifold ways and destroyed and rotted away many many institutions and there would still be books. They should have a measure by which to mark this bet's conclusion. Arguments can be made for both sides.

Orthagonal and nitpick. I couldn't parse the "e.g., Dark Ages" part until I realised what you may have meant is "i.e., Dark Ages". I read "e.g.," as "for example" and "i.e.," as "that is". (English is not my first language)

> I read "e.g.," as "for example" and "i.e.," as "that is".

That's what each means, correct.

> (English is not my first language)

That's okay, it's not the first language of id est and exempli gratia, either.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#66

Post by antman »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #50
mseepgood wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problems of 2020 weren't rooted in tech, however.

Say theoretically everything was the same in this timeline EXCEPT there is no reddit, facebook, twitter, or 4chan. QAnon has no platform available. Hell, maybe we still have blogs but you aren't plastered echo-chamber friendly messages you have to actually search for stuff to read or maybe go to a phpbb forum. Trump without Twitter, QAnon, 4Chan would've probably played out differently. Without a way for society to c…

What was the actual importance of QAnon? Just a newsreel skevomorphism, an entity easy to defeat as it was easy to setup. Pretty much irrelevant, disenfranchised people still exist. QAnon and other crazy but promoted ideas have served as smokescreens hiding actual problems and at some point people will take their shot at going against some actual structural issues. No easy way out and who knows when that tipping point is but 2100 sounds very optimistic for those structures hold.

On the other hand Tech can work as a cheap social stabililty agent as seen successfully in China.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#68

Post by SideQuark »

helios_invictus wrote: post #31

Reading the 3 categories the judge put together, I'd have to say that the win does go to Sales. Economic Collapse: Kelly, the "economy" is doing just fine if you're in an upper percentile. For most people the economy is not working for them. Global Environmental Disaster: Sales, many signs point to more chaotic and worse environmental conditions to come. The War Between Rich and Poor: Much like question one this one…

>For most people the economy is not working for them.

For most people in the world, they are quite a bit richer than their ancestors, even by 50 years ago.

In fact, the number pulled from poverty over the past 50 years is astounding.

Even in rich places like the US, the poor today are vastly richer than 50 years ago. Median wages are at all time highs as well.

So how do you conclude "for most people" (which I take to mean at the very minimum more than 50%) "the economy is not working for them." Which people are these? How do they compare for income or assets or access to things to their ancestors?

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#69

Post by dragonwriter »

Talanes wrote: post #41
8ytecoder wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orthagonal and nitpick. I couldn't parse the "e.g., Dark Ages" part until I realised what you may have meant is "i.e., Dark Ages". I read "e.g.," as "for example" and "i.e.," as "that is". (English is not my first language)

As a native english speaker, "for example" and "that is" code as basically the same style of skip-over phrase: just there to lead into the important part. I'm curious what distinction you are reading into it. I'm sure that as a native learner I was more apt to just take mental shortcuts rather than resolve these ambiguities.

> As a native english speaker, "for example" and "that is" code as basically the same style of skip-over phrase: just there to lead into the important part.

As a native English speaker, seriously, WTF?

“That is” (for which two different latin-derived abbreviations are frequently used in English, i.e. and viz.) leads into an equivalent alternative to what precedes, while “for example” (for which e.g. is a latin-derived abbreviation) leads into an example intended to illustrate the broader category which precedes it.

They are not equivalent, nor are they “skip over phrases”.

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