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Programming in the Apocalypse

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Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#101

Post by formerly_proven »

mcculley wrote: post #44
skyfaller wrote: post #16

I agree that we need to plan for climate adaptation (preparing for predictable problems) and resilience (preparing for unpredictable problems), but I have a few kneejerk responses: - Although it's looking increasingly unlikely that we can avert climate disaster, we can never give up. For example, 8 degrees of warming would be much worse than 4 degrees of warming, and could mean the difference between human extinction…

> human extinction and the mere collapse of our civilization How do you imagine human extinction being an outcome? It seems to me that the worst case scenario is large loss of population which would decrease greenhouse gas output. There would still be some increase in temperature even once we stop emitting, but wouldn't people in colder climates still survive?

There's some fairly absurd doomerism going on in the "climate catastrophe tomorrow" camp where climate change will (somehow) turn earth into a barren rock and we're inches away from triggering a self-reinforcing climate resonance cascade of unforeseen consequences.

It's of course a very urgent issue, but I think exaggerating it until it becomes a threat to "all life on earth" levels is a) dishonest b) does nothing to convince sceptics that it's a real issue, quite the opposite c) is not really all that actionable (at least not in a good way).

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#102

Post by digitalsushi »

formvoltron wrote: post #17

At some point, we'll have to put a fine dust in the upper atmosphere. We seem to have most of the building blocks already for renewable energy. Just need to focus on it and assemble them together... and decide it's worth giving up fossil fuel related things that are still functional.

We need some sort of a dust to touch up the oceans a bit, too. Maybe one that can tidy up the plastic and the acid.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#103

Post by rectang »

waynecochran wrote: post #87

Based on this I felt like some of the big winners in 2050 will be Rust, Clojure and Go. These will be less than we think of Cobol today. The paradigms will be completely different by then. Declarative languages have the best shot at surviving since they are the least tied to today's paradigms. We have to figure a may to program for fine and coarse grain parallel machines -- and not von Neumann fetch-decode-execute st…

"Can programming be liberated from the von Neumann style?" — John Backus, 1978

44 years later, it hasn't happened. I'm skeptical that it will happen in the next 28.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#104

Post by agentultra »

Consider also the support systems in place for agrarian production that enable programmers to do what we do.

We’re in the midst of a mass extinction event. If we lose the eco systems that support us we’ll go into decline as surely as every other species as high on the food chain as we are.

I’m not sure if civilization will collapse but it does seem like something that is probable. Do we have enough people with the expertise to maintain or build computing devices with limited access to fabrication? Can we still cobble together useful stuff from the piles of e-waste?

One easy thing we can do is push for policies that make it easier to access public infrastructure. Low-cost access to the poles, towers, etc.

Interesting times ahead.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#105

Post by tasuki »

madrox wrote: post #97

The pandemic taught me a lot about apocalypse. While people are a lot slower to buy into collective action and changing their way of life than I thought, society is far more robust than I expected. Covid looked nothing like a pandemic film, thank god. With that in mind, I have some ideas on what programming will look like in 30 years: 1. New frameworks and abstractions for making apps even more disposable while maint…

> The pandemic taught me a lot about apocalypse.

I don't think it has taught you much. All things considered, despite all the suffering by unlucky individuals, when you consider humanity as a whole, covid is an insignificant blip. If it's significant at all, it's only because of our response to it.

> Covid looked nothing like a pandemic film, thank god.

Covid was not 1% as bad as any pandemic featured in a film. Humanity has seen way worse, and we could still see way worse in the future.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#106

Post by boringg »

tasuki wrote: post #105
madrox wrote: post #97

The pandemic taught me a lot about apocalypse. While people are a lot slower to buy into collective action and changing their way of life than I thought, society is far more robust than I expected. Covid looked nothing like a pandemic film, thank god. With that in mind, I have some ideas on what programming will look like in 30 years: 1. New frameworks and abstractions for making apps even more disposable while maint…

> The pandemic taught me a lot about apocalypse. I don't think it has taught you much. All things considered, despite all the suffering by unlucky individuals, when you consider humanity as a whole, covid is an insignificant blip. If it's significant at all, it's only because of our response to it. > Covid looked nothing like a pandemic film, thank god. Covid was not 1% as bad as any pandemic featured in a film. Huma…

Our response was actually what made it a much more insignificant blip (thanks public health + vaccines), and technically we aren't through it yet.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#107

Post by openknot »

skyfaller wrote: post #16

I agree that we need to plan for climate adaptation (preparing for predictable problems) and resilience (preparing for unpredictable problems), but I have a few kneejerk responses: - Although it's looking increasingly unlikely that we can avert climate disaster, we can never give up. For example, 8 degrees of warming would be much worse than 4 degrees of warming, and could mean the difference between human extinction…

>"- This post, as dire as its predictions are, may underestimate the difficulty of computing in 2050, given current trends. If you are/were living in Ukraine recently, programming is not most people's top priority, they have other problems. Famines, extreme weather events, and resource wars will affect programmers who live in comfortable locations today."

It's true that programming was not a top priority outside of survival, though to many programmers in Ukraine, it was still a major one.

This report (source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/04/ukrainians-are-built-differe...) from CNBC in March documents this: "Those developers, along with other Ukrainian civilians in the country, are now being forced to defend their homes and cities while sheltering from Russian bombs. But many are still continuing to remotely work for their employers, supporting the local defense effort by day while sending in their deliverables by night.

“Yes our teams are sending deliverables from a f—ing parking garage in Kharkiv under heavy shelling and gunfire in the area. Amazing humans,” Logan Bender, chief financial officer at a San Francisco-based software licensing company, said in a story posted to Instagram on Tuesday by venture capital meme account PrayingforExits. "

I would personally prioritize survival over work at that point, and avoid praising sending deliverables in a warzone as a moral good (over ensuring the safety of your family), but it's evidence that even in extreme conditions, people still want to program as part of their work. As for why there would be a want to program in extreme conditions, some discussions on Reddit and Slashdot in response to the article suggested that programming was a way for these workers to get their minds off their current situation.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#108

Post by coldtea »

madrox wrote: post #97

The pandemic taught me a lot about apocalypse. While people are a lot slower to buy into collective action and changing their way of life than I thought, society is far more robust than I expected. Covid looked nothing like a pandemic film, thank god. With that in mind, I have some ideas on what programming will look like in 30 years: 1. New frameworks and abstractions for making apps even more disposable while maint…

>Covid looked nothing like a pandemic film, thank god.

That's probably because it was not that great impact wise. If it was more like the Spanish Flu, with a huge death toll across all ages (as opposed to 1/10th the death toll, and mostly focused on older people and co-morbidities) it would have absolutely have looked like "a pandemic film".

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#109

Post by imwillofficial »

soco wrote: post #72
imwillofficial wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notice those who have the most information, policy makers and the rich in control have not changed their jet set lifestyle by one iota. Still polluting the skies on their way to Davos

Because they don't need to care about consequences. No matter how high the sea level rises, enough money gets you a higher place to stay.

No, it shows they don’t believe it.

Obama’s recently purchased beachfront property is a testament to this.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#110

Post by coldtea »

formerly_proven wrote: post #101
mcculley wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> human extinction and the mere collapse of our civilization How do you imagine human extinction being an outcome? It seems to me that the worst case scenario is large loss of population which would decrease greenhouse gas output. There would still be some increase in temperature even once we stop emitting, but wouldn't people in colder climates still survive?

There's some fairly absurd doomerism going on in the "climate catastrophe tomorrow" camp where climate change will (somehow) turn earth into a barren rock and we're inches away from triggering a self-reinforcing climate resonance cascade of unforeseen consequences. It's of course a very urgent issue, but I think exaggerating it until it becomes a threat to "all life on earth" levels is a) dishonest b) does nothing to…

>will (somehow) turn earth into a barren rock

Well, hundreds of millios displaced and/or dead would be enough. Doesn't have to "turn earth into a barren rock".

And as for "suddenly", many systems tend to have a breaking point, especially systems, like the environment, which have feedback loops that can easily feed into each other and make things worse fast. Collapse is seldom linear or a nice gradual curve.

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