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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?

#281

Post by glenstein »

simonh wrote: post #207
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,…

>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, He did not think the currency issue was close at all, "Not much contest here" and granted that one unequivocally to Kelly. On the others I don't agree with Patrick at all. On environment we are quite possibly heading towards a disaster, but it's s…

>He did not think the currency issue was close at all,

Thank you for catching that, I stand corrected with respect to the judging of the economy. It's interesting that there are commenters here taking issue with my point disputing that, when it turns out not even the judge, Bill Patrick, felt that question was close! People will really debate anything.

As you point out, Bill did, however, remark that the other questions were close, and asserted that Kirk was not merely close, but correct(!) on the other two questions. I am surprised about that, for reasons more or less along the lines you mention.

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

#282

Post by XorNot »

yesenadam wrote: post #231
lwhi wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'd say it's generally known - everyone is aware of nukes and what nukes can do. The difference is they're considered much more of a known quantity these days: you can't use them, you don't use them, and you also can't fight a direct war with any country which has them. The idea of the "mad Russians" launching against the US has worn out, but watch what happens when you talk about Iran or North Korea having them.

What's more worrying is that most nuclear policy in the US was centered around condensing launch authority solely with the President of the United States - there's a heck of a lot of assumption that that person is a sane, rational elder statesmen type.

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

#283

Post by me_me_me »

hummusman wrote: post #227
simonh wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. I'm a capitalist and free marketeer, but support social security systems and even public health care. I think the US goes too far, particularly it's health care system is appalling, but I have to admit it's thin employment protections do make it a lot more flexible and responsive to economic conditions. Just look at how rapidly it recovered from the 2008 crisis compared to Europe, it was a whole year ahead of u…

Not sure this is particularly true, it took the US 6 years from 2008 to recover all the jobs lost in the recession [0]. I would assume the bulk of those were low-skilled, manufacturing roles, the ones ever more at risk of being rendered obsolete by automation. [0] https://www.cbpp.org/great-recessions-jobs-deficit-much-deep...

Well given that the biggest looser of 2008 crash were the poorest slice of society that almost could afford a house.

They were tricked into loans they couldn't afford. And with all blue-collar jobs being exported at alarming rate to Asia, i would say that the recovery after that recession doesn't ring true to me.

Sure economy and gdp are higher up, but its not because poor recovered. They were left behind.

Trump won presidency mainly because he turned to those people and promised them the good old time, where the town had its steelworks and everyone had quite life.

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

#284

Post by TeMPOraL »

tremon wrote: post #273
dingaling wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you need the other 18,000 bombs? Second-wave strategic targets ( surviving silos, airfields, ports and C3 facilities ) Tactical targets ( tank formations , POL depots, troop assembly areas, aviation FOBs ) Naval targets ( submarines, surface vessels, sonar installations ) Mobility targets ( bridges, valleys, tunnels ) Plus accounting for failed weapons, losses en route, missed targets...

If you have made so many enemies that you need 18,000 nuclear bombs to feel safe, I question your attitude to life.

As others have said - the primary reason is that you need 1+ nukes to take out the other side's launch sites, and the other side knows this so they spread the siloses across their whole territory - so now you need 1+ nukes for every silo they have (or suspect they have), and they need 1+ nukes for every silo you have (or suspect you have), and this is a positive feedback loop.

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

#285

Post by CryptoPunk »

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…

You need to look at per capita GDP, not GDP.

In any case, the US has very high levels of per capita social welfare spending.

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

#286

Post by jessaustin »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #85
dimitrios1 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't get people I am close with to even consider engaging in conversations about firmly held beliefs they have if I even remotely present myself as possibly holding a different opinion.

Understand that this is the norm. And understand that when you present differing opinions without being asked, you’re acting selfishly — you’re not doing it because you care about them, you’re doing it for yourself. Ultimately it depends what you want out of your personal relationships. I’ve found people who are willing to talk. But I haven’t found people who genuinely change their mind about deeply held beliefs with…

You are assuming a great deal.

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

#287

Post by glenstein »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #147
hawkice wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't close! Is there anyone who thinks we live in a society that almost had a socialist revolution? Where's the eco-collapse (not just damage, collapse, and multiple collapses as well -- this guy was basically saying there'd be no outdoors)? We can barely hit a 2% inflation target and you're saying dollars are close to worthless? Edit: The guy was saying all of civilization would collapse and the survivors would…

Not OP, but we are a far cry from a techno utopia. We really had two opposing world views, one where technology would help us achieve a better life, another where it would contribute to us falling off a precipice. Neither won. On the plus side we have a world where global poverty is falling and more people are developing middle class life styles, we have amazing technology like gene editing, incredible computational…

This isn't just "gee, technology sure comes with tradeoffs." It was literally claiming the dollar to be worthless, a global class war, and for most of the continent of Africa to be uninhabitable. It was claiming all three would happen.

I feel like people come into these questions wanting to treat them like trick questions, and wanting to show off that they can't be tricked. And so, if a bet like this has an obvious answer, well, maybe that's a trick! And you aren't fooled because, hey, technology has tradeoffs, and global warming is real. Therefore the guy predicting Africa would be uninhabitable was right!

There's a satisfying quality of switcheroo. But it's also nuts because it's not a trick question, and those observations are true but irrelevant to assessing the terms of the bet.

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

#288

Post by TeMPOraL »

rramadass wrote: post #169
lamontcg wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah we're just likely to cruise along operating as "ABoringDystopia" until we hit some kind of fairly hard stop. I don't know what that is going to look like though so I'm not taking any concrete bets. I certainly don't know what comes after.

Jacques Ellul also has a lot to say on the effects of Technology on Society. I think the following factors, broadly speaking; will be our (i.e. Civilization as we know it today) downfall; * Environmental Disaster as a consequence of rampant consumerism. The planet simply cannot sustain it. Our current "Renewables/Recyclables/Carbon Credit etc." policies are a joke. We have forgotten that our planet is a closed system…

I mostly agree with the points, except for:

> Evolution has always proceeded as a loosely coupled federation of highly cohesive units

No, it did not. Evolution does what it does, things that are good enough at surviving survive. For instance, multicellular organisms, and in particular large animals, are "megapolises with huge populations and pegged to a 'common currency'". Fragility is a more nuanced topic too, large coupled systems are vulnerable to internal problems, but they can also withstand external forces that would kill the equivalently populous "loosely coupled federation". All in all, evolution is probably not the best thing to draw lessons about organization from, because a) any system of organization you can think of is likely already effectively used in some organisms, somewhere, and b) evolution doesn't care about well-being of individual cells, but we care about the well-being of individual humans. That last constraint means we can't just do thing the way evolution does, which is throwing crap at the wall and seeing what sticks.

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

#289

Post by yesenadam »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #275
yesenadam wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not generally known, particularly by the generation that was born at the tail end of the Cold War (like myself), and by people born later. We grew up without the fear of that particular flavor of Armageddon. But MAD is still what keeps the world relatively peaceful. It also gives rise to certain paradoxes - like any attempt to create a better defense against nuclear weapons is also the biggest threat to mankind,…

> But MAD is still what keeps the world relatively peaceful.

There seems a kind of anthropic principle here - it seems successful, but we wouldn't be here talking about it if it had gone terribly wrong, which has come very close to happening more than a few times, apparently.

The risk of that is >0, but the cost is...infinite. That doesn't seem obviously worth the gamble, to say the least.

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

#290

Post by TeMPOraL »

yesenadam wrote: post #289
TeMPOraL wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not generally known, particularly by the generation that was born at the tail end of the Cold War (like myself), and by people born later. We grew up without the fear of that particular flavor of Armageddon. But MAD is still what keeps the world relatively peaceful. It also gives rise to certain paradoxes - like any attempt to create a better defense against nuclear weapons is also the biggest threat to mankind,…

> But MAD is still what keeps the world relatively peaceful. There seems a kind of anthropic principle here - it seems successful, but we wouldn't be here talking about it if it had gone terribly wrong, which has come very close to happening more than a few times, apparently. The risk of that is >0, but the cost is...infinite. That doesn't seem obviously worth the gamble, to say the least.

I think it's less of an anthropic principle, and more the realization that it's the only stable equilibrium available once nuclear weapons become available.
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