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Make the future bright again: On building a new philosophy of progress

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Re: Make the future bright again: On building a new philosophy of progress

#11

Post by abss »

rektide wrote: post #3

I hate to say it, but the tech industry is the roadblock. Most of what happens is far off, remote, unobservable, unlearnable. People cannot understand what is happening on the things they deal with the most. Everything is black box apps powered by vast cloud data centers. Humanity has zero chance to find their footing in this world, to comprehend what goes on about them. Tech is to blame, tech is the problem, and the…

Maybe the real issues emerge from capitalist system rules and incentives and the current tech industry is just shaped and emerged as a result?

Re: Make the future bright again: On building a new philosophy of progress

#14

Post by h0l0cube »

donatj wrote: post #10
safety1st wrote: post #7

His philosophy doesn't resonate with me. Broadly speaking, since the industrial revolution scientific and technological progress has been about increasing productivity and available energy. This has had profoundly positive effects on our lives but in a developed country it's not obvious that becoming another order of magnitude more productive will automatically lead to people having even better lives. In the advanced…

This list of problems really just sounds a lot like the goals of humanity at large for the last couple hundred thousand years. To have plenty, more than your neighbors, and enough that you don’t need to deal with other people (what hell is, to wit).

> and enough that you don’t need to deal with other people (what hell is, to wit)

This is actually a new phenomenon. I'm not sure if it's just because I'm older, but I've literally grown to see this shift in mindset. There was a time when it was common to invite neighbors over for dinner, now more often than not, it seems like people want to have bigger fences and less interaction with their community. Meanwhile, all mental health indicators are going in the wrong direction in the developed world.

Re: Make the future bright again: On building a new philosophy of progress

#15

Post by RandomLensman »

safety1st wrote: post #7

His philosophy doesn't resonate with me. Broadly speaking, since the industrial revolution scientific and technological progress has been about increasing productivity and available energy. This has had profoundly positive effects on our lives but in a developed country it's not obvious that becoming another order of magnitude more productive will automatically lead to people having even better lives. In the advanced…

If in the developed world most policies now are based on the premise that the future is bleak (climate change, war, deficits, ...) then it comes as no surprise that actual progress isn't high on anyone's agenda. Until the future is seen as a land of opportunity again, things will remain bleak.

Re: Make the future bright again: On building a new philosophy of progress

#16

Post by TaylorAlexander »

donatj wrote: post #10
safety1st wrote: post #7

His philosophy doesn't resonate with me. Broadly speaking, since the industrial revolution scientific and technological progress has been about increasing productivity and available energy. This has had profoundly positive effects on our lives but in a developed country it's not obvious that becoming another order of magnitude more productive will automatically lead to people having even better lives. In the advanced…

This list of problems really just sounds a lot like the goals of humanity at large for the last couple hundred thousand years. To have plenty, more than your neighbors, and enough that you don’t need to deal with other people (what hell is, to wit).

Wait why do we need more than our neighbors to be happy? I mean, I don't believe that personally. It is also unachievable for humanity as a whole to all have more than our neighbors.

Re: Make the future bright again: On building a new philosophy of progress

#18

Post by jmeister »

safety1st wrote: post #7

His philosophy doesn't resonate with me. Broadly speaking, since the industrial revolution scientific and technological progress has been about increasing productivity and available energy. This has had profoundly positive effects on our lives but in a developed country it's not obvious that becoming another order of magnitude more productive will automatically lead to people having even better lives. In the advanced…

> Admittedly, it does seem slightly ludicrous to forget about one’s immortal soul and instead busy oneself, as Faust does, with the pro­ject of reclaiming land from the sea.

> We should acknowledge that there are many perils with the scientific and technological trajectory on which we find ourselves. But we should never forget that the alternatives to technological acceleration are far from ethically or politically neutral.

> Technology means doing more with less. In the absence of technological progress, we end up with a zero-sum world, in which there must be a loser for every winner.

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/06/against-edenism

Yes this is from Peter Thiel. Yes it is not very persuasive. But it is worth thinking what the alternatives are and if they can be any better.

Re: Make the future bright again: On building a new philosophy of progress

#19

Post by tudorw »

safety1st wrote: post #7

His philosophy doesn't resonate with me. Broadly speaking, since the industrial revolution scientific and technological progress has been about increasing productivity and available energy. This has had profoundly positive effects on our lives but in a developed country it's not obvious that becoming another order of magnitude more productive will automatically lead to people having even better lives. In the advanced…

AI will shift things, if I can boot up another doctor or therapist or educator that's 80% as good as a human, in comparison to nothing at all, that's good, so one professional doctor could oversee a small squad of AI doctors and sign off on treatments. Whether this makes things better or worse, who knows! The apocalypse has been arriving since we invented the word.

Re: Make the future bright again: On building a new philosophy of progress

#20

Post by euroderf »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #16
donatj wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This list of problems really just sounds a lot like the goals of humanity at large for the last couple hundred thousand years. To have plenty, more than your neighbors, and enough that you don’t need to deal with other people (what hell is, to wit).

Wait why do we need more than our neighbors to be happy? I mean, I don't believe that personally. It is also unachievable for humanity as a whole to all have more than our neighbors.

Yeah, srsly. Just inserting the word "more" suddenly ties the comment to an entire discredited life philosophy of competitive acquisition.
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