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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?

#351

Post by yesenadam »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #290
yesenadam wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Sorry, by "here" I didn't mean in the sentence I quoted, just in this field.

I just don't buy the apparent absolute certainty it won't kill everyone. Then anything else would have been preferable to the "stable equilibrium" we were assured was necessary. But we won't be around to talk about it. That eternally living under MAD is 'the only way' seems to me more like a religious belief than a realization of a fact. A uniquely insane/evil one, however you want to describe killing everyone on Earth. Perhaps it's not considered so evil or insane to do that if you meant well?

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

#352

Post by adamcstephens »

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…

> Are we in a higher level of conflict between rich and poor now than in the past? I'd say no.

I’d argue the drivers for the war are already here, but the only reason the war isn’t class based is the rich and powerful have convinced the lower classes to attack each other instead of them. They’ve successfully driven in dividing lines such as race and religion to distract us as the plunder to their hearts content.

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

#353

Post by [deleted] »

croes wrote: post #276
JamisonM wrote: post #170

There are a lot of frustratingly silly responses to this article supporting Sale's side of this bet. This is utter madness, Sale wasn't even close! By virtually every material measure society has improved in the intervening time, in spite of the horrendous response to the financial crisis of 2008 and even the bungled response to SARS-COV-2. Lots silly self-indulgent stuff that is really indirectly about alienation an…

Climate change is still not solved, and if you think the response to the financial crisis of 2008 was horrendous an response to SARS-COV-2 was bungled, wait for the hard hits of climate change. "Not even close" could be premature.

[deleted]

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

#354

Post by Digit-Al »

eternalban wrote: post #298
fabianhjr wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are some of Ada Lovelace's notes on Menebrea's paper on Babbage's Analytical Engine: http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/tap/Files/ada-lovelace-notes.ht... > Again, it [the Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action…

Is the claim here that what Ada Lovelace wrote is original to her and not Charles Babbage? To be specific: is the claim here that Lovelace saw in Babbage's invention something he himself failed to see and anticipate? [please don't simply downvote. This is a sincere question. Do we know the answer?]

Yes, we do know the answer. We have many letters written by them.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34243042

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

#355

Post by simonh »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #319
olau wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know that was because of their job market? As far as I'm aware, that was because they printed tons of money. Money was printed in the EU too, but stopped much sooner - far too soon. As if people forgot about Keynes. And actually I think you have some of this backwards. If you have a good social security net, you don't have to protect workers as much. Likewise, health care is an investment in human capital.…

Well the British recovery was almost certainly slowed by the introduction of austerity following the return of the Conservatives to power. The European (i.e Eurozone/EU) recovery was knocked back by the raising of interest rates by the ECB in 2011. And finally, the US did recover better because they put a lot more proportionally into stimulus (even though it wasn't enough, as later events showed). I'm not sure that y…

Nowhere near as flexible as the US though. The ability to hire and fire quickly without high costs has helped the USA recover from crises many times in the past as well. Employers in countries with high protections for workers are often reluctant to hire because it costs so much to slim down the work force once you employ them. It's not like the aftermath of 2008 was the first time this has ever been tested.

To be clear I'm not saying their system is superior, I think it goes too far. Poverty and what I consider labour exploitation are much more common over there. Also I think it's pretty clear now that significant increases in minimum wages don't seem to significantly increase unemployment, for example, but on severance pay particularly it's pretty clear this is a tradeoff.

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

#356

Post by gelert »

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 would have to say that 'derided by scholars' is a bit much. Most historians who are aware of the luddites in any detail would agree with this take. While Luddites were derided in the past since around the 1930s and works like Herbert Butterfield's the Whig interpretation of History Historians have been very wary of ideas like 'the march of history' and luddites are certainly presented within the scholarship as an example where views have changed away from that kind of narrative.

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

#357

Post by biztos »

herewegoagain2 wrote: post #349
biztos wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't personally, no; in fact I'm more likely to end up (accidentally?) contributing to the autonomous trucking revolution.

The faded-out version is what I think will happen in the USA. My point was that there are countries with much more confrontational labor movements (France in particular) and I think there will be truck smashers (burners, blockers, etc) there long before a majority of truckers become ex-truckers.

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

#358

Post by adamcstephens »

giantg2 wrote: post #135
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One consumes information online, that information causes introspection and a better perspective of one's identity. Usually it's not one specific event but a bombardment of information that over time, hopefully gives someone more perspective and their place in the world. On the other hand, it closes some people off and causes the echo chamber. Cuts both ways.

I don't know. I can see it going both ways, but I think that modern technology has reduced introspection for many people. In the news today, it's all about sound bites and hyperbolic headlines. I thing the intellectual attributes of news sources has declined. I thought I saw a study or thread on HN supporting the claim, but now I can't find it.

News is very polarizing by design. Just like with social media, news profits more off of driving polarization. So they frame everything to drive traffic and viewers.

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

#359

Post by Dirlewanger »

vlunkr wrote: post #94
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.

As a counterpoint, I've seen lots of people become more accepting because of the way the internet connects people. If you lived in a rural place before, you likely had very little interaction with minority groups outside of how they were portrayed in media. Now it's possible to interact with all kinds of people and recognize them as people instead of stereotypes. I don't deny that there are echo chambers and major co…

This reads like a technocrat's hopeful vision of the Internet in the early 1990s. Sure, in theory it's true, but we all know in reality that that's not how the majority of humanity is using the Internet.

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

#360

Post by notsureaboutpg »

imtringued wrote: post #255
hawkice wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stakes were so extreme that it _is_ pretty easy to answer. Sure, there have been economic cycles, but the bet was whether the dollar is _worthless_ -- we are so far from it the Fed still can't reliably meet their inflation targets. A rebellion of the rich against the monied? Surely you're joking. And while global warming marches on, the 'significant number of environmental collapses' haven't happened, and we know…

If there will be any collapse it is still 50 years out. A war doesn't count. The world got better after WW2. Life finds a way.

Ummm, did it though?

Like metrics wise it did, but you're not counting the massive loss of life and the vast disenchantment in the world after (which is admittedly hard to measure).

Millions of people were ethnically cleansed, that's not worth any kind of material progress. If you are trying to say we progressed materially in spite of ethnic cleansing, you don't understand that eliminating large swaths of the population will obviously result in material benefit to those who remain...

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