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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?

#231

Post by yesenadam »

lwhi wrote: post #224
swarnie_ wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in 1985 the USA had 21,000+ nuclear weapons, USSR 39,000+. This is one of the facts from this era which seems completely irrational to me. Considering the damage each one of these devices can do why do you need so many. Lets presume you're in fact a genocidal maniac (i didn't say the roleplaying would be difficult America) 1 bomb per enemy military installation and 1 bomb per population centre over 100k population…

The doctrine was M.A.D. .. or mutually assured distruction[1]. I believe the (arguably crazy) idea was that the weapons wouldn't ever be used. The fact that each nuclear superpower has a similar amount of weapons assured that the equalibrium would stop the worst from happening. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction

That page says "Although the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, the MAD doctrine continues to be applied."

I get the feeling that's not generally known. Isn't that kind of extremely weird? I've never seen discussion of it on HN, for example, or maybe what to do about the prospect of living indefinitely under the threat of MAD. With more countries with nuclear weapons all the time. Well, you read here about people not wanting to have kids because of global warming, but not because of that. Is it just too big a problem to even think about?

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

#232

Post by wutbrodo »

fabianhjr wrote: post #206
simonh wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wasn't defending destroying the frames though, he was commiserating with the plight of the workers. In modern developed countries we have social security benefits, health care and such, to varying degrees depending on the country, to try and make sure people don't starve like that.

> He wasn't defending destroying the frames though Agreed > In modern developed countries we have social security benefits, health care and such, to varying degrees depending on the country, to try and make sure people don't starve like that. And the country with the highest GDP lacks anything other than the bare minimum social security and the article is very-USA centric. (Both China and Europe have a more stable so…

> the country with the highest GDP lacks anything other than the bare minimum social security and the article is very-USA centric.

As with many similar topics, the US actually spends a much higher amount on social welfare than people realize, more than most developed countries. As always, it just does so uniquely inefficiently, for reasons that are complicated and possibly related to our sclerotic politics.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/09/how-t...

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

#233

Post by bigfoot675 »

fabianhjr wrote: post #113

Regarding the first paragraphs where luddism is mentioned several times; Lord Byron, father to Ada Lovelace the first programmer, was one of the few on the House of Lords to defend the Luddites: > But the police, however useless, were by no means idle: several notorious delinquents had been detected; men liable to conviction, on the clearest evidence, of the capital crime of poverty; men, who had been nefariously gui…

I mean that's the definition of the term "luddite" in our current understand of English. The only thing that could be labeled as propaganda is the application of the term to that movement

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

#234

Post by vagrantJin »

konjin wrote: post #179
fabianhjr wrote: post #113

Regarding the first paragraphs where luddism is mentioned several times; Lord Byron, father to Ada Lovelace the first programmer, was one of the few on the House of Lords to defend the Luddites: > But the police, however useless, were by no means idle: several notorious delinquents had been detected; men liable to conviction, on the clearest evidence, of the capital crime of poverty; men, who had been nefariously gui…

>father to Ada Lovelace the first programmer Babbage was the first programmer seeing as he invented the first computer. Lovelace is a perfect mirror for our society: a vapid socialite with shallow understanding of the problems and a willingness to make grandiose claims without the ability to back them up. That she is a woman just makes it even more blatant that we care nothing for ability as long as it makes for a go…

I understand your gripe. I myself thought Ada Lovelace was a brilliant thinker and mathematician but not a programmer and had little to nothing with even the early precursors of modern computing - at least compared to someone like Alan Turing or George Boole.

But she part of a long line of those special people with far seeing "eyes" and undeniable talent.

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

#235

Post by simonh »

Daho0n wrote: post #184
jb_gericke wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually the global poverty line has been on a steady decline over the last three decades ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty ). We have made untold advances in the medical sciences (hello MRNA vaccines), we are rapidly divorcing ourselves from our reliance on fossil fuels, and we are living in a time when there is an unprecedented level of awareness for basal human rights (well, primarily in the West a…

It's not that simple. Sure "the good old days" wasn't that good, but that doesn't mean he was completely wrong. >We have made untold advances in the medical sciences Out of reach of a lot of humanity and for those that can access it it is not without risks (just look at the medical devices debacle in the US). It also isn't as good as we often seem to believe. For example the US is number 7 in Deaths by heart attack b…

The US is just one country and we're talking about the future of humanity as a whole. Here in the UK we've eliminated more than half our carbon emissions from energy generation, and generally the US is lagging far behind a lot of other countries. Covid aside, economic and health improvement trends globally have been incredibly positive. Since 1995 about a billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty. That doesn't look much like a collapse to me.

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

#236

Post by pjc50 »

swarnie_ wrote: post #225
simonh wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way to destroy an enemy nuclear weapon is by hitting it with one of your nuclear weapons. Add on top of that your other strategic targets and a reserve, and the fact that their calculation is the same as yours, and you can see where this is going.

With weapons distributed amongst all USSR holdings this implies the US was willing to nuke everything from Poland to north Vietnam.

Yes, that was the stated objective.

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

#237

Post by vagrantJin »

rramadass wrote: post #145
wernst wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but I'm reminded of this quote from Ernest Hemingway: “How did you go bankrupt?” “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” Massive change due to tech is always just waiting to happen. Here's to hoping it just changes society without destroying it.

>“How did you go bankrupt?” “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” Great quote! Gradually and unknowingly you approach a tipping point until some factor pushes you over the edge like the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back". I believe Sale was/is broadly right. Some of Nassim Taleb's ideas also play into this viz. our inability to predict the future and the catastrophic effect of non-linear and "black swan"…

Yes. Nassim Taleb is essential reading.

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

#238

Post by jboynyc »

fabianhjr wrote: post #113

Regarding the first paragraphs where luddism is mentioned several times; Lord Byron, father to Ada Lovelace the first programmer, was one of the few on the House of Lords to defend the Luddites: > But the police, however useless, were by no means idle: several notorious delinquents had been detected; men liable to conviction, on the clearest evidence, of the capital crime of poverty; men, who had been nefariously gui…

There's a recent book about this, subtitled "The Luddites Are Right About Why You Hate Your Job": https://www.versobooks.com/books/3184-breaking-things-at-wor...

> In the nineteenth century, English textile workers responded to the introduction of new technologies on the factory floor by smashing them to bits. For years the Luddites roamed the English countryside, practicing drills and manoeuvres that they would later deploy on unsuspecting machines. The movement has been derided by scholars as a backwards-looking and ultimately ineffectual effort to stem the march of history; for Gavin Mueller, the movement gets at the heart of the antagonistic relationship between all workers, including us today, and the so-called progressive gains secured by new technologies. The luddites weren’t primitive and they are still a force, however unconsciously, in the workplaces of the twenty-first century world.

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

#239

Post by yesenadam »

kumarvvr wrote: post #73

It destroyed the average Joe's faith in the average Joe. Now, people are more separated than ever, in their echo chambers, hating each other and firmly believing they are better and righter than the other.

Where is this you're describing? The USA, or some part of the USA?

Doesn't sound anything like my bubble, my city or my country. (Not the USA)

I have heard that bleak description before, just never experienced it.

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

#240

Post by simonh »

swarnie_ wrote: post #225
simonh wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way to destroy an enemy nuclear weapon is by hitting it with one of your nuclear weapons. Add on top of that your other strategic targets and a reserve, and the fact that their calculation is the same as yours, and you can see where this is going.

With weapons distributed amongst all USSR holdings this implies the US was willing to nuke everything from Poland to north Vietnam.

And the USSR was willing to nuke everything from Turkey to South Korea (going the long way).
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