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Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
81–90 of 157 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#82Its likely a combination of many factors. i) The demographics of the user base. Maybe "Young Hacker News" happens inside discord or whatever. ii) The fact that the past keeps growing . The body of interesting developments keeps growing and while some stuff is obsolete / nostalgic, other stuff is totally not. In fact revisiting the mindset and vision of past decades is many times very inspiring and educational. iii) T…
Not sure what you mean by 3, tech is just, well, technology; it can be used for good or bad, just like nuclear bombs. I see a lot of upcoming innovations that will be a net good for humans in the future.
I can't speak for the author, but that comment rings true to me. The tech world did shift at some point from intending to produce things that improve people's lives to intending to produce things that mine people's attention, data, and wallets.
The modern tech industry feels much more mercenary and cruel than the tech industry of the past. Whether or not it actually is, or if this is an illusion, could be debated (I personally think that it actually is).
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure what you mean by 3, tech is just, well, technology; it can be used for good or bad, just like nuclear bombs. I see a lot of upcoming innovations that will be a net good for humans in the future.
I can't speak for the author, but that comment rings true to me. The tech world did shift at some point from intending to produce things that improve people's lives to intending to produce things that mine people's attention, data, and wallets. The modern tech industry feels much more mercenary and cruel than the tech industry of the past. Whether or not it actually is, or if this is an illusion, could be debated (I…
It doesn’t help that we wasted a decade on social and crypto, which have by and large both ended up as duds, if not harmful (see CO2 emissions from Ethereum which ended up going proof of stake anyway).
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#84Its likely a combination of many factors. i) The demographics of the user base. Maybe "Young Hacker News" happens inside discord or whatever. ii) The fact that the past keeps growing . The body of interesting developments keeps growing and while some stuff is obsolete / nostalgic, other stuff is totally not. In fact revisiting the mindset and vision of past decades is many times very inspiring and educational. iii) T…
Not sure what you mean by 3, tech is just, well, technology; it can be used for good or bad, just like nuclear bombs. I see a lot of upcoming innovations that will be a net good for humans in the future.
I have been wrestling with a terrifying idea lately:
The Internet, in its current form, is not a force for good. And the way it is going, it will be a net negative for humanity as a whole.
The Internet itself is just bits pushed between computers, but the things we have built on it are dystopian, are a huge cause of the current loneliness epidemic (epidemics have an end date, this is a trend), and it's a way to control the masses.
The Internet, in a vacuum, could elevate humanity. But whatever we have now, it exploits our shortcomings for the profit of the few, and we are simply not made to have most of our social interactions behind a screen that's always within our cone of vision.
It's been hard to live with this, as a software engineer. A veritable crisis of faith for me.
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#85Its likely a combination of many factors. i) The demographics of the user base. Maybe "Young Hacker News" happens inside discord or whatever. ii) The fact that the past keeps growing . The body of interesting developments keeps growing and while some stuff is obsolete / nostalgic, other stuff is totally not. In fact revisiting the mindset and vision of past decades is many times very inspiring and educational. iii) T…
(i) definitely applies. I often see younger hackers talking about “the orange website”, never in positive tones. HN is seen as older, richer, and with various negative tendencies.
> HN is seen as older, richer, and with various negative tendencies.
HN users are mostly (but certainly not entirely) from a very specific and narrow demographic. It's true that the tech world is much broader and more varied than is reflected here.
This isn't a criticism of HN. Most fora have users from very specific and narrow demographics. Just different ones.
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing like generative AI has ever happened. This is new, which is part of why it’s so exciting. No I don’t think these things are going to become sentient (in their present form at least) but no technology has ever been able to do what these models do.
It's significantly less exciting when you know that the economics of generative AI means that it's largest and most popular use case will be for uninteresting things like automating the graphics for a block of Facebook ads.
Also significantly less exciting when you sense it is probably much more like pinterest (more of the same) than the wonderful cgi dinosaurs of jurassic park 1993.
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure what you mean by 3, tech is just, well, technology; it can be used for good or bad, just like nuclear bombs. I see a lot of upcoming innovations that will be a net good for humans in the future.
I have been wrestling with a terrifying idea lately: The Internet, in its current form, is not a force for good. And the way it is going, it will be a net negative for humanity as a whole. The Internet itself is just bits pushed between computers, but the things we have built on it are dystopian, are a huge cause of the current loneliness epidemic (epidemics have an end date, this is a trend), and it's a way to contr…
> The Internet, in a vacuum, could elevate humanity. But whatever we have now, it exploits our shortcomings for the profit of the few, and are simply not made to have most of our social interactions behind a screen that's always in our cone of vision.
This reminds me of broadcast television. When TV first started becoming a thing that regular people had, it was widely considered to be a force for good. Being able to educate the masses, to provide people with good information they need to know, to bring communities together.
In less than 20 years, TV showed itself to be a failure at all of those things. To the point where in 1961, Newton Minnow proclaimed TV to be "a vast wasteland" and bemoaned its failure to live up to its potential during a speech at the National Association of Broadcasters.
The internet (well, the web, really) is following a very, very similar trajectory.
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#88Without data I'd call it an example of the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon ( a subset of Pareidolia).
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#89Its likely a combination of many factors. i) The demographics of the user base. Maybe "Young Hacker News" happens inside discord or whatever. ii) The fact that the past keeps growing . The body of interesting developments keeps growing and while some stuff is obsolete / nostalgic, other stuff is totally not. In fact revisiting the mindset and vision of past decades is many times very inspiring and educational. iii) T…
ii) graph the integral of human population and this is exponentially true. There is exponentially more past every year. iii) I’m convinced that the single worst social/cultural event of the previous 25 years (and maybe longer) was the invention by social media of algorithms that bias what you see toward what maximizes engagement. Think about what this does. I put it this way: one person passes you on street and smile…
Perhaps the concern should be directed toward mobs of ignorant humans following a new found religion created by AI
https://theconversation.com/gods-in-the-machine-the-rise-of-...
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
ii) graph the integral of human population and this is exponentially true. There is exponentially more past every year. iii) I’m convinced that the single worst social/cultural event of the previous 25 years (and maybe longer) was the invention by social media of algorithms that bias what you see toward what maximizes engagement. Think about what this does. I put it this way: one person passes you on street and smile…
Perhaps the concern should be directed toward mobs of ignorant humans following a new found religion created by AI https://theconversation.com/gods-in-the-machine-the-rise-of-...
The most plausible dangerous AI scenario is exactly this, or some version of it; the use of AI by humans to brainwash and manipulate huge numbers of other humans.
This isn't autonomous AI takeover. It's humans getting their hands on a brand new kind of rock and bashing each other over the head with it like they have with every previous kind of rock.
It's not that I have zero concerns about AI, just that I'm not on the Yudkowski freakout train. There is no such thing as a technology that can't be used for evil.