Ask HN: What makes you optimistic about the future? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What makes you optimistic about the future?

#41

Post by burntoutfire » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 8:50 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #8

marvel_boy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I don't think it's particularly relevant what your science book of the 60's says. Of course controlling fusion is a hard problem. Nobody said it was going to be easy, or if they did, they were a fool. But there's no reason to think we won't get there eventually. It might not be in my lifetime, but so what? I'm not trying to be that myopic here. I'm reminded of something I read, I think it was in Engines of Creation […

We even stopped trying getting to cheap nuclear energy, which seems to be a vastly simpler problem.

Re: Ask HN: What makes you optimistic about the future?

#42

Post by moonchrome » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 8:50 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #35

I can go to historic archives of any time period that left a written record and find someone with a pessimistic take like your. Obviously the details are different, but there are always many bad signs for someone to point out. In the end life isn't perfect, but it generally has gotten better

>In the end life isn't perfect, but it generally has gotten better

I agree with your point, but people take this as a given (that because things are better now they will keep improving). It can get worse, and it doesn't need to bounce back in the long run.

Re: Ask HN: What makes you optimistic about the future?

#43

Post by rdl » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

Anonymous electronic cash, something we've needed for decades, is basically possible today (finally) due to technology, proven market demand, infrastructure, "legitimate use cases", etc. There will probably be multiple systems, and then market mechanisms to interconnect. They will lead to the greatest loss of power by states and other coercive institutions vs. individuals ever seen in the history of mankind.

Re: Ask HN: What makes you optimistic about the future?

#44

Post by alex_young » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 8:52 PM UTC

Kye wrote: post #30

kradeelav wrote: post #19

- We have the accumulated knowledge of the entire human history at our fingertips and can avoid a large chunk (not all, obviously) of the pitfalls that befell our ancestors. maladies that basic sanitation eradicates, old deadly diseases like leprosy, polio, being eaten by lions, mass starvation ... those are things that are not a Thing in developed countries, and a lot more developing countries than before. The amoun…

Where are the helpers?

Most places you look: https://seandietrich.com/mendon-missouri/

Re: Ask HN: What makes you optimistic about the future?

#45

Post by bryanlarsen » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 8:53 PM UTC

In the short term, all the fundamentals of the economy are doing well -- unemployment rate, corporate profits, wages are up, et cetera.

Sure the stock market is doing poorly. The stock market isn't the economy.

Re: Ask HN: What makes you optimistic about the future?

#46

Post by kbelder » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 8:53 PM UTC

throwaway6734 wrote: post #33

Stop dooming. It's the best time to be alive. Millions of people are being pulled out of poverty and we continue to make massive scientific achievements.

Absolutely.

Best time to be alive, so far; but a hundred years from now, it'll probably be even better, except for all the naysayers talking about how cheap fusion is going to drain the oceans in 100,000 years, and decrying that the poorest people are stuck with substandard personal holovids.

Re: Ask HN: What makes you optimistic about the future?

#47

Post by lulzury » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 8:54 PM UTC

There's many things to be optimistic about, but the complex nature of society means progress will likely look like a slow crawl towards the right direction, but we'll eventually get there.

One place to look at are teenagers. They grew up with the internet and open access to information. If you sit down and speak with any of them, they are more aware of the areas that need improvement and are not afraid to speak out about them, regardless of the fact that modern society tries to throw everything at them to keep them from doing so.

Re: Ask HN: What makes you optimistic about the future?

#48

Post by dmitrybrant » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 8:54 PM UTC

I have a mostly Pinkerian view of the modern world, which is to say that by nearly all metrics, the world is better today than it has ever been, and is continuing to improve.

Will we go through local minima while on the path towards absolute upward progress? Of course we will. Right now we might be in a local minimum. Maybe we haven't reached the bottom of the current local minimum yet. Maybe we won't reach it during this generation. But we will get through it.

The other thing is that we simply can't predict societal progress simply by pointing to current trends and extrapolating to the next 5, 10, etc years. Think about the following:

70 years ago, there wasn't a single artificial satellite in the sky. 50 years ago, there wasn't a single personal computer in anyone's home. And 20 years ago, there wasn't a single smartphone in anyone's pocket. All of the above happened within a single human lifetime. I'm saying that it's taking shorter and shorter intervals of time for society to completely transform itself, and we simply can't know what the next transformation will be. For me, that's a prospect worthy of excitement instead of dread.

Re: Ask HN: What makes you optimistic about the future?

#49

Post by fancyPantsZero » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 8:54 PM UTC

Kye wrote: post #30

kradeelav wrote: post #19

- We have the accumulated knowledge of the entire human history at our fingertips and can avoid a large chunk (not all, obviously) of the pitfalls that befell our ancestors. maladies that basic sanitation eradicates, old deadly diseases like leprosy, polio, being eaten by lions, mass starvation ... those are things that are not a Thing in developed countries, and a lot more developing countries than before. The amoun…

Where are the helpers?

Bill Gates, for one. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/13/business/gates-foundation...

Re: Ask HN: What makes you optimistic about the future?

#50

Post by orev » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 8:55 PM UTC

burntoutfire wrote: post #31

uberman wrote: post #4

I'm not going to sugar coat it. From my perspective lots of stuff looks grim and increasingly people seem just resigned to it. Microtransactions required to activate heated seats in your car. The threat that companies will sell your period tracking information. Health providers "sharing" data with Google. Amazon products mapping and doing image recognition on the items in your home or providing video police without a…

> Microtransactions required to activate heated seats in your car. I'm sorry, but the fact that this is the first thing you list under "grim" is just comical to me. This isn't even a 1st world problem, this is a 0.1-world problem.

The thing about the future is that it hasn’t happened yet, so we need to predict based on history. 1) Things that start in high-end luxury items eventually trickle down to the base models. 2) Always on mobile connectivity is getting cheaper and better. 3) It’s obvious to everyone that every companies goal is now to get all users on the hook for a recurring subscription.

It really doesn’t take a genius to see how all those things will come together on the near future. A subscription to heated seats is merely an example of where things are clearly headed.