91–100 of 421 posts
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We still lost with nothing to show for it but debt for generations, millions of unnecessary deaths, and the TSA. Enjoy the debt service, “support the troops,” and millimeter wave backscatter scans without your shoes.
The US hasn't been invaded since 1942. That's what we have to show for it.
For a lot of things the problem is essentially a problem of scale. Those "ancient human tribes" who did so much better were tribes of 100-200 people, and it's actually not that hard to "do the right thing" with a relatively small group of people. Blaming it on the two-party system is such a short-sighted US-centric point of view. There are plenty of countries with other types of democracies, and they have roughly sim…
We're lucky we live in an environment that mostly provides us with the basics to survive. We hope that powerful tech like AI will give us the power to put us in control of our destiny.I think we need to be careful what we wish for because I don't think we actually know what we want.
We can't go backwards now anyway, so best of luck to us.
Cool article though, we seem too like to waddle around in our own shit.
For a lot of things the problem is essentially a problem of scale. Those "ancient human tribes" who did so much better were tribes of 100-200 people, and it's actually not that hard to "do the right thing" with a relatively small group of people. Blaming it on the two-party system is such a short-sighted US-centric point of view. There are plenty of countries with other types of democracies, and they have roughly sim…
Problem is that incentives, especially financial incentives, have so much control over our democracy. Why don't we fix the housing crisis? Because homeowners will vote out politicians who reduce their house value. Same answer for why we don't fix global warming, farming subsidies, carried interest loophole. For everything wrong like this, there's a small but determined group of people who will defend the status quo,…
> We could be running fiber-optic cable to every house in America, and we even know how much it would cost. That's the problem, isn't it? It costs too much. Of course we can fix everything, we could also do everything in the universe, but the question is at what cost? So here's my modest proposal: > I am here to remind you that it will only get worse unless we do something. The problem isn't painful enough. Have you…
> That's the problem, isn't it? It costs too much. Is it though? Or is it that there is not enough profit for someone to make from running fiber to every home? To be clear I’m not trying to lead with the question but actually ask something and that the difference might be useful.
In one example it cost something like $200M for a population of 150,000. That’s $1.3k per person. Good luck getting the taxpayer to sign up for that without a clear revenue model.
It’s being done, but not as some kind of blind “hey you know what would be great” leap.
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The US hasn't been invaded since 1942. That's what we have to show for it.
If you think there was any risk in the Middle East invading the US after September 11th, that is an exceptionally weak position to take. No one is invading the US, it’s either terrorist attacks you can’t defend against due to the asymmetric nature or ICBMs. Making peace with that is emotionally expensive but financially cheap. America has no appetite for emotional fortitude at nation state scale. Cheaper to send econ…
> What they don’t tell you is that we already have solutions for a lot of problems, we just don’t use them. Sometimes this is because the solution is too expensive, but usually it’s because competing interests create a tragedy of the commons. If you have a solution that can't be used because it costs too much money or other societal concerns, then you don't have a solution. Part of making a solution is finding someth…
I don’t think it’s fair to mark some parts of the argument “not the real world” when the argument is a whole block. The societal changes being discussed in the article are the main proposed path to a solution, not the particular cancer cure. Yes it involves some changes in the amount of profit some people will make. Yes potentially even destabilizing capitalism somewhat. These kinds of changes might not be comfortabl…
Problems are not purely technical, they always have a social component.
If you have a solution but its too expensive, that's not a full solution, that is half a solution. Maybe the other half is government grants or whatever, but you can't just talk about it as if the problem is solved. The social factors are just as much a part of the problem to be solved as the scientific part. Someone needs to figure them out. It is hard work that needs to be done and is how problems actually get solved.
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That’s the same as it costs too much.
For governments and infrastructure they don’t need to make a profit they can subsidise. That is somewhat the point of a government. Costs too much is still an objection but “no immediate profit” isn’t. Whether that is true for fibre, I don’t know it is a complex topic.
In the exact same way, any solution that would work “except humans” is a non-solution. Maybe it’s a near solution, or a solution for a different time. But it’s not one right now.
When you find yourself getting angry at the world, it’s worth considering that just maybe you’ve made the approximately easiest mistake in problem solving: underestimating the difficulty of the problem (especially someone else’s problem).
If I ranted and raved about how it’s a crime against humanity we don’t already have underground moon bases, you would just think I’m unhinged. Sure, it’s theoretically possible, but problems don’t get solved at the speed of my imagination.
“But if we had perfect coordination…” yeah, well, if it didn’t take so much energy to leave Earth’s orbit, we’d do it more often. But it does, so we don’t. We also don’t have total software security and all cancers cured. I’m sorry. Everyone is doing their best.
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A lot of the people fighting against these things are not feeling the pain. Many people in my family are some degree of anti-vaccine / masking mandates. I can guarantee you that if a single close family member ended up hospitalized due to covid, their tune would do a fast 180. All of their beliefs are based on whether someone they care about had something happen to them.
That sounds like a stereotype — “people who disagree with me are just dumb and emotional!”
And yes, the loudest ones about it in the family are dumb and emotional. That tends to be the case for most people who do less thinking and more repeating their point louder and louder.
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> the question is at what cost? The world will be a wonderful place when schools have all the funding they need and the Air Force must hold a bake sale to pay for new fighter jets. The US spent $8,000,000,000,000 on the "war on terror" [1], while 21% of adults are illiterate [2] [1] https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar [2] https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/research/literacy-statisti...
It's much more expensive to lose a war.
It would be hard to argue that Afghanistan lost that much. Although I guess they "won" (if you call what happened winning. )
But the "war on terror" wasn't a "traditional war". It wasn't like some landing by foreign forces at Venice Beach. It was a manufactured political construct that served political purposes.
It handily created a jobs program called the TSA. Which is grossly over equipped to confiscate shampoo. All the world has airport security. Very few places have (or need) TSA levels of intrusion.
The "war on terror" was indeed lost. It was lost when the US became "terrified". In all of the troubles the IRA couldn't do that to the UK. Endless bombs just resulted in "carry on".
In the US the war continues all the time. The TSA bears witness to this.
But at this point it employs so many people, doing meaningless, unskilled work, that you may as well treat it as a jobs program.