We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't • Hacker News Board

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#241

Post by MrPatan » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 9:32 AM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #185

arp242 wrote: post #58

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…

I've lived in a few places around the world. By far the best-run one was the Isle of Man, which (when I lived there) had a population of around 30K. It has an independent parliament (Tynwald, the oldest continuous parliament in the world), and it makes its own laws. The government has very little graft. Politicians seemed to genuinely work for the benefit of their constituents [0]. I always attributed this to the fac…

Is the secret in the running of it? The policies?

Or is there a source of funds in the Isle of Man that is not applicable to the rest of the world? Like, if it was applied to the rest of the world the funds would stop going to the Isle of Man?

Is there also something not present in the Isle of Man that elsewhere is a sink for money? Something you would have to stop incentivising in other places if you want to have them "rolling in money", but that many people can't bring themselves to do?

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#242

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 9:34 AM UTC

EMIRELADERO wrote: post #172

WalterBright wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Kindness is selfish behavior - we receive many rewards for it.

It has its limits, though. Not enough people are willing to sacrifice their lives and well being for others to make a society based on that.

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#243

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 9:40 AM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #240

pmontra wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if that's because of communism or because in any country with one party in power for too many years there is a drift to authoritarianism first and eventually to dictatorship. There are examples even in Europe and around it right now. Of course communism as ideology cannot allow competing not communist parties. That would be heresy and the first years after the revolution in Russia 100 years ago show how it g…

"Of course communism as ideology cannot allow competing not communist parties." Only when we are talking about marxist communism. Anarcho communism is (in theory) fine with alternatives by design.

[deleted]

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#244

Post by otikik » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 9:43 AM UTC

mardifoufs wrote: post #162

otikik wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That argument could be applied to prohibition too for example. If we just changed society enough... we could be alcohol free! Same for drug usage. But the thing is, if you have to literally change society to do something maybe it's not such a practical or useful idea.

Women voting. Black people voting. Saturday. A lot of changes happen and stick around afterwards.

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#245

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 9:55 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #215

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not gonna argue that it’s precisely a wash, but I’m not aware of any country without political factions who strongly oppose each other and think the country would be much better if everyone else would just get on board. What can sometimes be true is that multiparty systems make the hardness of problems more legible ; if you have 5 different parties with 5 different perspectives on how the education system ought t…

> The author mentions, for example, that we know “providing free college to everyone would be a good idea”. But we don’t know this, and there are many other rich countries that don’t do it; in some, college is entirely unavailable to people who don’t enroll in the appropriate high school track. We can change this however to "we know that massively cheeper or free college to anyone in the appropriate high school track…

[deleted]

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#246

Post by maxbond » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 9:55 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #221

maxbond wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but notice that you didn't answer my question, but instead repeated your original assertion. Let's say I declare that your observation is not true of me personally. Note that this doesn't necessitate any evidence external to me; I could introspect and discover this about myself, however you don't have the ability to "introspect" into my own mind. How could you prove to me I'm mistaken? And please note, I…

> How could you prove to me I'm mistaken? By having a conversation with you. I'd point out your pride and self-satisfaction at being unselfish. If I knew of you more than that, I'd point out your selfish behavior. It's not hard, look at the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the cookie you ate, your grooming, and so on.

You wouldn't think much of my clothing. I've never owned a car. My grooming is minimal, my appearance just doesn't cross my mind. But I do like a nice cookie.

I behave selfishly sometimes, no question. Does that really define the entirety of who I am? Why would it define me more than, say, when I feel bored, or when I behave generously, or when I do things on impulse? Afterall, I try to avoid behaving selfishly, so I spend a lot more time in these other frames of mind. Why shouldn't the totality be what defines me or anyone else?

Flattening a human being into mere selfishness might be a convenient assumption to build models around, but the map is not the terrain.

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#247

Post by jpc0 » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 9:56 AM UTC

someguy5281 wrote: post #68

solatic wrote: post #42

Who 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…

> Subject engineers to licensure That'd be great. It can also finally define a standard for things like clean code, development cycles and and design patterns. Companies keep claiming to promote these things but it seems to be just a lot of equivocations.

> clean code, development cycles and and design patterns

We can't even agree that these things are in fact good ideas.

Singleton is a design pattern, generally considered a bad one but it has important uses when used correctly.

Clean code is good but only when done the correct amount, when done in a zealous manner just slows down development and adds extra overhead which will again cause mistakes.

If anything I feel design by contract will become more of a standard, look at the JPL recommendations, they don't explicitly call it design by contract but it's build into the spec.

Not enough "software engineers" even know what invariants need to hold, what preconditions need to be true and what postconditions need to be in place.

Don't believe me, look for the equivalent of:

    try {   
       // some code  
    } catch(...) {   
       // Handle all these errors we didnt know about and handle explicitly
    }

In almost any codebase and it will be there.

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#248

Post by ProllyInfamous » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 9:59 AM UTC

jampekka wrote: post #238

marcus_holmes wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived in a few places around the world. By far the best-run one was the Isle of Man, which (when I lived there) had a population of around 30K. It has an independent parliament (Tynwald, the oldest continuous parliament in the world), and it makes its own laws. The government has very little graft. Politicians seemed to genuinely work for the benefit of their constituents [0]. I always attributed this to the fac…

Isle of Man does have the benefit that its economy is based on international tax evasion, money laundering, online gambling etc sleazy stuff that essentially siphon off money from places where the actual labor is conducted.

"But beware, this country comes with a curse!"

[That's bad].

"But it comes with a FREE FROGURT!"

[That's good].

"But the frogurt is ALSO CURSED!"

[That's bad].

"But it comes with a FREE TOPPING!"

[That's good].

"The country has a long history of sociopathic ideation on its socioeconomic participation within a larger global economy, typically as a parasite to vice."

[...].

"That's bad."

[*] A bad take on Simpson's [did it, first!]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i73-lpVV-Jo

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#249

Post by erremerre » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 10:01 AM UTC

I have not bough anything in Amazon since 3 years ago, and honestly, it was because I was given an Amazon card as a present, otherwise it would be 6 years ago.

I go the extra mile to do that. I do because I hate the commingle inventory, and because I think is getting to big.

I see no impact at all on my behaviour. My friends, avid amazon consumer see me like a strange person for not buying there. I don't evangelise neither I go the extra mile to explain the situation more than "Jeff Bezos doesn't any more of my money".

I could repeat this situation with any single measure that we as individual can take. They are basically worthless.

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#250

Post by littlestymaar » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 10:04 AM UTC

Telemakhos wrote: post #208

moring wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 votin…

There are two unexamined assumptions in the article: first that the “we” in “we can solve everything” is synonymous with “government,” and next that “we” know the correct answers. The former is a very twentieth century notion. The identification of government with society (“we”) went hand in hand with the idea that government should have power in every domain of human life and co-opt or liquidate every competing auth…

> Governments have never solved many problems at all—-homelessness comes to mind

North Korean dissidents in South Korea disagree strongly with your claim: several of them publicly expressed their shame to see such a rich country failing to fulfill this very basic human need when their super poor communist country of origin had no such problem. Homelessness is a society-wide self-inflected wound: it could be stopped in a few years, but that would be landlord gentry's biggest nightmare.