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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?

#341

Post by dfgdghdf »

XorNot wrote: post #329
dfgdghdf wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps there's another way to put this. In an ineffective public healthcare system, people are denied treatment because the public body has determined it is not worth the cost. In an ineffective private healthcare system, people are denied treatment because they cannot afford to pay. > Being denied treatment because you can't afford it is objectively worse then being denied treatment because the system is busy. Is i…

And it will matter just as little if you can't afford to pay. The problem is, you seem to think you'd be able to - but that is statistically improbable. The cost of heart bypass surgery in the US (literally the highest in the world) as of 2019 was USD$123,000 - https://www.statista.com/statistics/189966/cost-of-a-heart-b... . That's not including the costs of follow up treatment, the increased cost of your insurance…

I want to be clear that I do not think the US system is a good one.

However, we should not be blind to limitations of a UK style system. There are also in-between alternatives, such as in Germany or to a lesser extent Japan.

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

#342

Post by biztos »

jboynyc wrote: post #238
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 late…

I frankly expect "smashing them to bits" (or setting them on fire) to be the response in France when self-driving cargo trucks are introduced.

In America and a lot of other rich countries I can imagine a large workforce just sort of slowly dissipating as they are made redundant by the unstoppable force of technology, but at least a few places may strongly disagree about the unstoppability, and put it to the test.

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

#344

Post by prepend »

natmaka wrote: post #313
SirHound wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And just imagine all the tribal wars. Talk about forgetting your history

I was under the impression that in a distant past tribal wars ceased at the first blood, serious wound or at worse first victim, and didn't induce a major risk for non-combattants. Modern politics and weaponry changed transmuted tribal wars into contemporary wars, some with systematic massive massacres and such. If true it may mean that most 'classic' tribal wars were way less damaging than WW1 or WW2. In any case it…

> I was under the impression that in a distant past tribal wars ceased at the first blood, serious wound or at worse first victim, and didn't induce a major risk for non-combattants.

Not sure where this comes from. Tribal wars frequently ended in genocide, mass destruction, etc. The book Sapiens covers some of the evidence for how Neanderthals were exterminated.

I agree though that total nuclear war would be way worse than all the tribal wars in history. Although, interestingly, it seems like threat of nuclear war has prevented lots of wars. There have been no wars between major powers since nuclear wars. Maybe the closest was the Korean War, but China wasn’t a nuclear power back then.

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

#345

Post by Joker_vD »

kebman wrote: post #272
fabianhjr wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I don't want to be a stickler, but Europe isn't a country. It is simply inaccurate to claim that "Europe have a more stable society compared to the USA." There are countries within Europe that has extreme wealth, and extreme poverty, while most countries in Europe are still far better developed than, say, most countries in Africa. With that said, the best developed countries in Europe do seem to have a better social…

Why is it inaccurate to claim that? Sure, Europe is not one country but is made out of several countries, but so what? The USA is comprised out of states, some of them poorer than other; heck, even inside a single country there are richer and poorer regions/counties/lands/whatever, with money/labour flows and dynamics very similar to the international ones.

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

#346

Post by adamcstephens »

prepend wrote: post #339
ajmadesc wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony of this comment is you say > The global poverty line has been on steady decline That's about right. We measure poverty as less than $2 per day. It's an arbitrary number. It would need to be $7.50 to prevent malnutrition and lower than 50% mortality. If we use the 7.50 mark the number of people in poverty has increased dramatically since the 80s.

> If we use the 7.50 mark the number of people in poverty has increased dramatically since the 80s. This seems surprising to me. What do you think is the best source for me to learn about this metric? I found a lot of info on the methodology behind $1.9/day [0] but couldn’t find much by looking for the $7.50/day mark and how it has changed over time. I found this guardian article referencing $7.4/day [1] but the link…

https://www.jasonhickel.org/the-divide

The author addresses this question, along with how the UN has continually shifted the goal posts to reinforce the narrative that poverty has been reduced.

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

#347

Post by goodcanadian »

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…

On the others I don't agree with Patrick at all. On environment we are quite possibly heading towards a disaster, but it's still very far off. I doubt we'll even be in a situation to unequivocally call this one for Sale even in another 25 years. Maybe in 50, sure, but the bet was about the conditions in 2020, not 2045 or 2070.

And this is what scares me. From my point of view, we are already well into multiple major environmental disasters. I wonder how much worse it has to get before more people realise that.

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

#348

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

wait_a_minute wrote: post #193
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anxiety from modernity hits different today. We are bombarded with the most realistic forms of imagery ever in human history. What was once a black and white picture in a magazine is now a video in HD. 50-60 years ago you weren't constantly bombarding yourself with people who have more than you. Today, people go on instagram and see the rich living the dreams they'll never be able to attain, despite being told th…

There can't be war because the next World War would most likely make us extinct. We need another approach, one that puts us on a path to prosperity and sustained growth as a species. Everyone could have an amazing life, we really just need people to work on improving distribution of goods/services.

That's a pretty confident position to take. Really war could be all around us. If climate change continues unabated, large swaths of the earth will no longer be able to produce food. Hot temperatures will cause mass migration (we're already seeing this, see Syria). Billions of people, unable to be fed - desperation - war.

> We need another approach, one that puts us on a path to prosperity and sustained growth as a species. Everyone could have an amazing life, we really just need people to work on improving distribution of goods/services.

People in the US literally refuse to wear masks to protect others around them. Do you really think this is possible?

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

#349

Post by herewegoagain2 »

biztos wrote: post #342
jboynyc wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 late…

I frankly expect "smashing them to bits" (or setting them on fire) to be the response in France when self-driving cargo trucks are introduced. In America and a lot of other rich countries I can imagine a large workforce just sort of slowly dissipating as they are made redundant by the unstoppable force of technology, but at least a few places may strongly disagree about the unstoppability, and put it to the test.

Do you personally feel like smashing such a truck? Or would only ex truck drivers feel that way? Because if they are simply being faded out of existence (replacing retiring drivers with AI), there won't be any ex truckers to smash the trucks.

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

#350

Post by rendall »

A12-B wrote: post #323

"Like the raging denialist in the White House, the cantankerous anarchocommunalist has quit the game after the final score left him short." This is such a bitter note. I would have paid the 1000, but Kelly was very predatory. He set up a gotcha interview and then a surprise bet on some pretty wild claims from both sides. In any case, the world has clearly gotten worse and more unpredictable, so the spirit of the bet…

> the world has clearly gotten worse and more unpredictable

By what measure? Crime? Child mortality? Global poverty? Death by warfare?

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