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Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

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Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#31

Post by TeMPOraL »

olddustytrail wrote: post #29
actionfromafar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 is easy to imagine - a large enough collapse that making new ones is very very hard, especially compared to scrounging and repurposing the huge amount of existing ones. Imagine a huge population decline, and search parties looking through the ruins for useful tech, like computers, decades later. Such a society could probably make new computers, but the cost of making new, much worse specced computers, may not be co…

No it isn't (No1 easy to imagine). Computers are only useful because we have a stable society that we can build on. Post apocalyptic societies have zero practical use for computers.

Post-apocalyptic doesn't necessarily mean unstable. We weren't post-apocalyptic back in the 1930s or 1950s, and computing machines had plenty of uses already (and even earlier).

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#32

Post by TeMPOraL »

anthk wrote: post #15

[flagged]

> Embrace utilitarism.

As long as everyone else embraces it, we seem to be doomed to a market economy, that (all its virtues notwithstanding) unfortunately makes:

> Design durable, low powered and hackable computers with easy protocols to exchange data over a flakey network

not possible. As long as other people also take utilitarian approach, then the only things we can get are "low powered" and "flakey network". Durability, hackability and easy protocols are anathema to those who make money on technology at scale.

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#33

Post by Syonyk »

> Solid-state computer components, on the other hand, have no mechanical decay, so they are practically eternal.

I wish.

Electrolytic capacitors seem to have a functional lifespan of about 10-20 years, transistors do wear out, electromigration is a problem in chips in the "hundreds of years" span discussed, and there are all sorts of other interesting failure modes of "solid state" electronics that mean they're not going to last hundreds of years without some pretty massive heroics - and that's when you can repair it at all.

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#34

Post by vanderZwan »

nh23423fefe wrote: post #3

This kind of speculative fiction doesn't work. Usually the template is described as: take some part of the world and tweak it and then press play and see what the world looks like now. Instead this is just "invert some part of culture" which makes no sense. Culture is the emergent externalized collective intelligence of social creatures. You can't invent a culture which would preserve this property without asserting…

You're basically missing the whole point of speculative fiction in this style, which is "we start with imagining a world which has these conclusions. Trying to imagine it forces us to try to make sense of what could lead to those conclusions."

You assert it's incoherent. That's part of the point: it's incoherent with your current understanding of our current world. There might be other circumstances that lead to a such world without being incoherent. If the conclusions in a piece of speculative fiction are appealing, it may be worth thinking of what it takes to reach those conclusions.

The thought exercise of trying to make it coherent is part of the point.

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#35

Post by Gordonjcp »

> It is commonly thought to be futile to even try to make youngsters interested in computers – they simply don't yet have the required patience or concentration.

You say that, but I find it far easier to explain how to solve computer problems over the phone to older people than younger people.

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#36

Post by Gordonjcp »

Syonyk wrote: post #33

> Solid-state computer components, on the other hand, have no mechanical decay, so they are practically eternal. I wish. Electrolytic capacitors seem to have a functional lifespan of about 10-20 years, transistors do wear out, electromigration is a problem in chips in the "hundreds of years" span discussed, and there are all sorts of other interesting failure modes of "solid state" electronics that mean they're not g…

[flagged]

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#37

Post by naravara »

curtisblaine wrote: post #18
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1: for some reason, the world stops making computers, but keeps the ones that already exist Step 2: 100 years pass Step 3: computers are now an old (and dying) tradition, kept going only by a small group of people who understand how to care for the machines. Was that so hard?

Step 1 is really hard if computers are useful (why do you stop making something that's useful?), but step 3 is simply not believable: a society that has machines that could, at the minimum, help solving complex calculations and engineering problems much better than humans decides to completely ignore them. That's not how societies work.

I can imagine it, but it would require a lot of worldbuilding to explain.

I reckon the primary means of computing for the lay person becomes interacting with prompts to make the computer do what you want, but the actual knowledge of software engineering and computer science is gone. Even the prompts, due to linguistic evolution, are in a language that regular people don't understand and people's mastery of the language is akin to moderns trying to reconstruct something like Akkadian. We sort of know what specific words mean and the general grammar, but we simply don't know 90% of the vocabulary to express most ideas. Whatever the language model was populated on training data from an archaic language and is also full of weird idioms and phrases and misspellings that we can't reconstruct in an organized way.

In this context, the computers might be able to solve some basic problems for us, but everything we do with them is basically just received incantations from other crusty old people. Innovations keep happening, but they're small scale and mostly revolve around finding out new ways to tweak the incantations to do novel things. But the most we can do is say, like, "draw a picture" or "sort this list."

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#38

Post by camtarn »

Gordonjcp wrote: post #36
Syonyk wrote: post #33

> Solid-state computer components, on the other hand, have no mechanical decay, so they are practically eternal. I wish. Electrolytic capacitors seem to have a functional lifespan of about 10-20 years, transistors do wear out, electromigration is a problem in chips in the "hundreds of years" span discussed, and there are all sorts of other interesting failure modes of "solid state" electronics that mean they're not g…

[flagged]

Let me Google that for you:

"All electrolytic capacitors with non-solid electrolyte age over time, due to evaporation of the electrolyte. The capacitance usually decreases and the ESR usually increases. The normal lifespan of a non-solid electrolytic capacitor of consumer quality, typically rated at 2000 h/85 °C and operating at 40 °C, is roughly 6 years. It can be more than 10 years for a 1000 h/105 °C capacitor operating at 40 °C. Electrolytic capacitors that operate at a lower temperature can have a considerably longer lifespan."

( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague )

"Electromigration decreases the reliability of integrated circuits (ICs). It can cause the eventual loss of connections or failure of a circuit. Since reliability is critically important ... the reliability of chips (ICs) is a major focus of research efforts. ... With increasing miniaturization, the probability of failure due to electromigration increases ... In modern consumer electronic devices, ICs rarely fail due to electromigration effects. ... Nevertheless, there have been documented cases of product failures due to electromigration."

( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration )

Before dismissively replying, maybe do your research.

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#39

Post by l33t233372 »

Gordonjcp wrote: post #36
Syonyk wrote: post #33

> Solid-state computer components, on the other hand, have no mechanical decay, so they are practically eternal. I wish. Electrolytic capacitors seem to have a functional lifespan of about 10-20 years, transistors do wear out, electromigration is a problem in chips in the "hundreds of years" span discussed, and there are all sorts of other interesting failure modes of "solid state" electronics that mean they're not g…

[flagged]

Can you explain what you mean?

In 100,000,000 years I can almost surely guarantee that your hard drive will be nonexistent. Surely there is a point between “fresh off the assembly line” and “disintegration” where the drive can be considered to be “worn out.”

Re: Inverted computer culture: A thought experiment

#40

Post by jdiff »

Gordonjcp wrote: post #36
Syonyk wrote: post #33

> Solid-state computer components, on the other hand, have no mechanical decay, so they are practically eternal. I wish. Electrolytic capacitors seem to have a functional lifespan of about 10-20 years, transistors do wear out, electromigration is a problem in chips in the "hundreds of years" span discussed, and there are all sorts of other interesting failure modes of "solid state" electronics that mean they're not g…

[flagged]

Electrolytic capacitors can dry out, boil out, oxidize, generally break down. There's many failure modes for them that can be caused by wear, age, or unuse.
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