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The scarcity of the long term

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Re: The scarcity of the long term

#71

Post by pbw »

denton-scratch wrote: post #15

> The only real scarcity would be of a long attention span. I get the author's drift, and broadly agree. But I don't think it's really a long attention span that would get in the way of (e.g.) a Mars colony, or interstellar travel; it's that people's views change from one generation to the next. My kids have been imbued with some of my attitudes, sure; but I've not had much of a hand in the raising of my grandchildre…

> people's views change from one generation to the next

I think that's what Kevin Kelly means by attention in the essay.

He writes:

> It is much easier to build a rocket that will sail 500 years to the nearest star, then it is to ensure that the future generations of people born on board that 500-year rocket maintain the mission

So he doesn't mean we'll flake out and flit our attention to something else on a whim. He's saying if we drop a project due to changing beliefs, opinions, and goals, that's "not having a long attention span".

I don't love his use of the word "attention" to mean that, but I think it's pretty clear what he means by the word from the essay.

Re: The scarcity of the long term

#72

Post by fritzo »

alexpotato wrote: post #38

Seeing a lot of comments about human lifespan, projects shouldn't take more than 5 years etc The Florence Cathedral took over 140 years to build. There is clear precedent that humans can design, plan and then execute a project that spans multiple lifetimes. Even better, they didn't have a final design when they started: > While the main structure of the nave was completed by 1380, a solution to constructing a dome to…

That's a good example, but I wonder if people now have more options and are more career-mobile. 700 years ago masonry was a family profession. Now it would get brain drained by AI.

Re: The scarcity of the long term

#73

Post by kjkjadksj »

denton-scratch wrote: post #15

> The only real scarcity would be of a long attention span. I get the author's drift, and broadly agree. But I don't think it's really a long attention span that would get in the way of (e.g.) a Mars colony, or interstellar travel; it's that people's views change from one generation to the next. My kids have been imbued with some of my attitudes, sure; but I've not had much of a hand in the raising of my grandchildre…

Take a peasant in italy in the year 600 bc, 600 ad, and 1600ad. Does life look any different really? Probably not. Multiple different rulers in this time but life had been basically continuous with respect to how the majority of people lived through these ages. I’d wager you could go up to the early 1900s in some Italian villages and still see an overwhelming amount of similarity in how daily life played out.

Re: The scarcity of the long term

#74

Post by WillAdams »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #61
psychoslave wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know, look at how Knuth is still at work on TAOCP. Sure not everyone is Knuth (I am definitely not at least). Having a life long goal require a conjunction of passion for a topic that requires that much attention span and relevant available resources to explore it. I dare to say that having enough resources at hand including not being interrupted too often with other hassles and hazards from life is the bigge…

I’d argue that is something different than I’m suggesting, though I certainly agree that having a consistent project across a lifetime is rare but not that rare. The difference is that Knuth is providing something of value to others, while your grandmother’s fully complete American Girl doll collection she started at age 5 is of limited value. Your last point is really the key takeaway: How do we create a global soci…

I would settle for a society which:

- afforded every citizen access to whatever education which they might choose/be interested in

- the chance to become the best version of themselves which is possible

- the leisure time to apply their talents to a project which makes the world a better place

It's kind of hard though, when the best school I ever attended, one which separated academics from social classes and allowed students to work at their ability level (up to 4 grade levels ahead through 4th grade, but after, one could work as far ahead and as fast as one's abilities allowed, and faculty members were dual-credentialed as high school teachers and professors at a local college, so students could easily graduate high school _and_ be conferred a 4 year degree, some students received multiple college degrees when graduating at age 18) which excelled at education was deemed an illegal arrangement by the Mississippi Supreme Court because it conferred an unfair advantage to those students who were able to apply themselves and take advantage of it, with no commensurate compensation for those who were unable to do so.

Re: The scarcity of the long term

#75

Post by NoraCodes »

denton-scratch wrote: post #15

> The only real scarcity would be of a long attention span. I get the author's drift, and broadly agree. But I don't think it's really a long attention span that would get in the way of (e.g.) a Mars colony, or interstellar travel; it's that people's views change from one generation to the next. My kids have been imbued with some of my attitudes, sure; but I've not had much of a hand in the raising of my grandchildre…

> Chinese imperial rule lasted much longer, maybe 1,500 years?

This is true only if you consider many dynastic orders with significant periods of instability in between to constitute a single uninterrupted period "Imperial China". No single dynastic order lasted more than 500 years, arguably none more than 300.

Re: The scarcity of the long term

#76

Post by pm215 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #49
lloeki wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So essentially the problem is one of being able to foster a meme+ that outlives the scale of an individual's life. + the original meaning, not the internets one, which is only an extremely short-lived subset.

> to foster a meme+ So, I guess, pyramid-building; that's a collective project spanning a few centuries. I struggle to think of any collective project that spans centuries, that isn't fundamentally a religious enterprise.

It depends a bit, I think, on how much drift you accept without considering the project to have changed so much it's not the same thing. But for instance some of the older universities in Europe are pretty much the same institutions working on the same goal (educating people) in the same buildings for many hundreds of years. The details of what the education provided ought to be, the balance between education and research, and the administrative details have changed quite a bit, but I think you can still make a case for this being the same non-religious collective project.

Re: The scarcity of the long term

#77

Post by [deleted] »

denton-scratch wrote: post #15

> The only real scarcity would be of a long attention span. I get the author's drift, and broadly agree. But I don't think it's really a long attention span that would get in the way of (e.g.) a Mars colony, or interstellar travel; it's that people's views change from one generation to the next. My kids have been imbued with some of my attitudes, sure; but I've not had much of a hand in the raising of my grandchildre…

[deleted]

Re: The scarcity of the long term

#79

Post by lukas099 »

roenxi wrote: post #50
lukas099 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like survivorship bias. A lot of projects fizzle out. Vietnam War comes to mind.

Now I'm not exactly sure what the Vietnam war was supposed to achieve, and insofar as it fizzled out we need to define what, exactly, the aim was. I suspect it was pointless and fizzled out due to pointlessness eventually overwhelming the ability of the Americans to fight. However, if it was to combat communism/the USSR, which is my hazy understanding of the official justification, note communism has largely been exp…

> Those who argue that the United States’ opponents won the war cite the United States’ overall objectives and outcomes. The United States entered Vietnam with the principal purpose of preventing a communist takeover of the region. In that respect, it failed: the two Vietnams were united under a communist banner in July 1976. Neighbouring Laos and Cambodia similarly fell to communists. Furthermore, domestic unrest and the financial cost of war made peace—and troop withdrawals—a necessity, not a choice.

From https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War

In fairness, it also says that some people think the US won because it won the major battles and inflicted more casualties. That sounds like winning the battle but losing the war, to me.

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