As long capitalism is allowed to exist, its prime directive aka "ACCUMULATE WEALTH AT ALL COST" will ALWAYS win over whatever mankind needs, for it is the capitalist class that effectively rules over the "free" world. This is no conspiracy theory. This is a cold, hard fact.
We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't
171–180 of 421 posts
Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recommend you read Humankind by Rutger Bregman. It disputes this notion, successfully in my opinion.
There have been many societies based on the idea that people can be convinced to be unselfish. They've all failed. Bregman has an impossible uphill battle against a vast historical record. Reading the synopsis https://www.amazon.com/Humankind-Hopeful-History-Rutger-Breg... it appears Bregman has made a mistake. He posits that cooperation is unselfish. This is incorrect. He's right that cooperation works, but people c…
It isn't Bregman's premise that people can be convinced to be unselfish, but rather that they are kind an unselfish by nature, and that it is modern society that made us egoistic.
The book does a far better job of making the argument than I, or its synopsis, ever could.
Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't
#173If your solution would work except for some reason, then you don’t actually have a solution . A drill that works in space except for all that vacuum and radiation isn’t actually a space drill. It’s a space drill for some alternate reality, meaning the one you’re not actually in. You haven’t solved the problem. You’re not as good of a problem solver as you think you are, sorry. Stop acting like you’ve solved it. You h…
The author almost, but not quite, reached the point where they realize they contradict themselves: Claiming that socialized healthcare would cure cancer, but not explaining how to move the US to socialized healthcare (nevermind that countries with socialized healthcare haven't cured cancer either). Claiming that we could lay fiber cable to every house, but not how to actually do it. Claiming that an alternative voting system would improve policits, but not how to move to an alternative voting system.
The "solution" presented here is a first step in _mapping_ the problem and doesn't even begin to solve anything.
Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't
#174For 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…
He doesn't even give an example of "ancient human tribes," but modern day nomads whose traditions have also developed over thousands of years. If ancient human tribes were so great at avoiding tragedy of the commons, I would be eating a mammoth steak right now.
The author explained very well what they meant (optimizing for lower risk vs profit) and this has little to do with preserving mammoths. That would be a very peripheral concern (if it was one at all).
Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't
#175Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't
#176Who is "we"? When engineers are not subject to licensure, don't be surprised when management, pushed by bean counters, let the bean counters make the decisions. Subject engineers to licensure, including ethics clauses, including clauses for building for repairability and minimum expected product lifetimes. Legally protect engineers from dismissal or retribution for invoking these clauses. Then see how much crap we co…
And then, sadly, you’ll most likely get beaten by some foreign country’s slap-shit-together-and-ship-it junk. Because people don’t think in terms of TCO and product lifespans, they see that “-30%” and “$X.99” and buy things that possibly even unable to do what they really need them to do, because ad made a different impression. Solving junk requires much more than licensing and certifications (unless somehow it’s don…
If medicine can achieve a gatekeeping function, so can engineering.
Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't
#177Who is "we"? When engineers are not subject to licensure, don't be surprised when management, pushed by bean counters, let the bean counters make the decisions. Subject engineers to licensure, including ethics clauses, including clauses for building for repairability and minimum expected product lifetimes. Legally protect engineers from dismissal or retribution for invoking these clauses. Then see how much crap we co…
And then, sadly, you’ll most likely get beaten by some foreign country’s slap-shit-together-and-ship-it junk. Because people don’t think in terms of TCO and product lifespans, they see that “-30%” and “$X.99” and buy things that possibly even unable to do what they really need them to do, because ad made a different impression. Solving junk requires much more than licensing and certifications (unless somehow it’s don…
I would have agreed with you before COVID and the Russo-Ukrainian war. Today, the world is slowly changing direction on globalization. There is increasing understanding, at the national policy level, of the value of more localized supply chains, where local manufacturing is encouraged through tariffs. This is besides newfound focus on privacy and data sovereignty, and the race by cloud providers to build globally-accessible datacenters all over the globe. The next step will be a focus on localizing not just the data but the software itself: the operators, the code, and finally developers.
> unless somehow it’s done globally, worldwide
The vehicle for this is the WTO, or at least, it used to be, before the US decided to take its teeth away. Giving it teeth requires moral leadership. It doesn't happen overnight, but it starts with licensure, then working through the WTO to establish new rules and tariffs for violators.
Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't
#178For 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…
>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.
And yet other societies in the present do the right things in a lot of areas even with comparable groups of people.
Not to mention today we have tools like the fast text, voice, and even video communications, the internet, roads, distributed power structures, an educational system, etc. to combat scale issues.
>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 similar problems. Details differ and some things are better (and others worse!) but overall: it's not that different.
Is it really a wash? Or rather most things are better in other western countries with big economies?
>"We could fix everything, we just don't" seems far too simplistic. "Everything" encompasses quite a lot
Which doesn't really matter, as it's a figure of speach. It means "most things" or even "a hell of alot of things".
Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't
#179as this fantastic video about the popcorn button explains. Our economic race to the bottom has been sabotaging almost every aspect of engineering in our society. To save a few cents per microwave, the cheap microwaves don’t include a humidity sensor and then lie about having a popcorn button when it can’t actually work properly, which leads to everyone saying “don’t use the popcorn button” and now nobody uses the pop…
Technology Connections just did a thing about this. I can confirm that some KitchenAid microwaves use a sound sensor instead of humidity.
That’s the video mentioned in the quote:
“What's the deal with the popcorn button?” https://youtu.be/Limpr1L8Pss
Great video and channel, good stuff.
Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Re your edit, what disqualifies eg smartphone app permissions from being capabilities? As far as I can see - they literally are.
A capability is essentially a handle to a file or folder, chosen by the user at runtime using a "powerbox" (much like a file-open dialog). The OS doesn't give access to anything other that the files chosen by the user, so no matter how confused or evil the program, it's not going to have unauthorized side effects. Permission flags just flags, not capabilities.
That’s how several iOS permissions work. For instance, you can trigger an image picker and receive a handle for an image asset without gaining permission to read the photo library.