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The world of tomorrow

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Re: The world of tomorrow

#91

Post by throwawayqqq11 »

shadowerm wrote: post #60
ryandrake wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're all so pessimistic about the future not because we think it's going to be captured by the plutocrats and oligarchs, but because we know the future has already been preemptively captured by them. They're all doing the work now to cement their positions in the future, and there's nothing the rest of us can do about it. I don't know what great inventions and technological leaps we are going to see in 2030, 2040, o…

As if all us peasants are using rotary phones while the plutocrats and oligarchs have these expensive iphones. What is actually interesting is while the plutocrats and oligarchs have more leg room and better food on their private jet, the airplane itself doesn't move that much faster than me in coach. You simply underestimate the financial mass of the mass market. These plutocrats and oligarchs only exist as part of…

They are working on automation to replace the bigger system, they rely on.

China just rolled out a police drone, even though china has more than enough people to train for that job.

This is where my dystopian nightmare begins. Autonomous weapon systems, so targeted and unlimited in reach and capability, that no number of civilians thrown into the frey will make a difference. A single machine gun could have stopped the french revolution, and yes, i think humans are very much capable of pressing that button.

Re: The world of tomorrow

#92

Post by kiba »

mandmandam wrote: post #83
kiba wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not really going to argue on the issue of Palestine since that is apparently what you refer to, only to say that I still think there's a meaningful difference. That's why turnout for the Dems was so much lower, as polls and protests had unambiguously promised would be the case. That and the economy, which Democrats insisted is great even as people struggle to survive. Dumb strategy, but the strategists still got…

> I am not really going to argue on the issue of Palestine since that is apparently what you refer to, only to say that I still think there's a meaningful difference. Yes, I'm referring to the genocide of Palestinians. It's not something I, or other American voters, could overlook. > you can't avoid the responsibility of voters No, and I don't, but when corporate media acts in lockstep with the duopoly's oligarch own…

Yes, I'm referring to the genocide of Palestinians. It's not something I, or other American voters, could overlook.

Unfortunately, I don't think the issue of Palestinians are important driving issues to American voters. I wish I have a source to point to but this is based on what I read.

Dems refused point blank. Trump's presidency isn't on voters, it's on the Dems themselves; and any analysis which misses this fact isn't worth a pig's fart.

I have said it before, collective responsibility and sin. There's no get out of jail free card for everyone. People made their decisions and now they have to lie with it. You can blame it on the oligarch or the media or whatever you want but it doesn't absolve voters of anything.

The only people who can truly sleep at night with a good conscious are people who voted Democrats and campaign workers who's working hard to execute strategies.

I wish I had engaged with my family more on political issues as they all voted for Trump in a battleground state. I won't be making that mistake again.

Re: The world of tomorrow

#93

Post by vouaobrasil »

circlefavshape wrote: post #57
Teever wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, people hate modern society because they understand that although things are better than they were they aren't nearly as good as they could be if it wasn't for rampant and unchecked corruption. What's worse is that people know that whole ecosystems and stable climate patterns are slipping away and will likely never come back.

> people hate modern society because they understand that although things are better than they were they aren't nearly as good as they could be How do you know how good things "could be"? Just because you can imagine something doesn't mean it's possible

> How do you know how good things "could be"? Just because you can imagine something doesn't mean it's possible

It's not necessary to know how good things could be. Part of the meaning of life is to work towards a good you think could be, and the modern oligarchy strips us of that right.

Re: The world of tomorrow

#94

Post by underlipton »

082349872349872 wrote: post #8
underlipton wrote: post #5

Growing up in the oughts, the future was Ghost in the Shell: SAC and Xenosaga and .hack//Sign and Gundam 00. I didn't see the dystopia; I imagined a glass metropolis beside a glittering bay, bleached and blue; VR diving into pools of ephemeral neon filament; trips to a space colony. The ISS had launched when I was in elementary school. 2012 came, and I graduated from college, and the Rift had its Kickstarter. I had a…

a view from a generation earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39084117 Re: Ghost in the Shell, I find it amusing that Gibson's 1984 opening line: " The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. " used to mean grey, but now could mean bright blue (or even black?) due to the march of progress...

I tend to think that the 90s actually did see its analogue to psychedelics in the internet. No need to be a psychonaut and fry your brain anymore; just surf the web. It's the same sort of ideal of connecting with universal knowledge.

There's even a heuristic to track these kinds of awakenings, roughly, and I'm absolutely certain you're not going to guess it. Got it in your head? Okay, wrong, it was "landmark black cinema." The Wiz came out in 1978 after 4 years of the musical. In 1995, we had The Lion King, followed by the Broadway play in 1997. If you look for something repeating the pattern, you find Black Panther in 2018 (alongside a glamour around a specific component of the web, social media and the mature smartphone).

I don't mean to make any sort of causative connection, but perhaps there is something about a widespread desire to "move forward" and "embrace openness" that also benefits the funding of these sorts of productions (and then the subsequent public enthusiasm for them upon release). And there's always a collapse back to conservatism shortly thereafter (Disco Demolition Day and Reagan; Bush and 9/11; COVID and its backlash, and the subsequent failure of Bernie Sanders to beat Joe Biden, and then Joe Biden/Kamala Harris to beat Donald Trump).

Re: The world of tomorrow

#95

Post by mindslight »

kiba wrote: post #80
mandmandam wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if Democrats aren't owned by oligarchs. Look at who funds them. Look what they do, instead of what they say.

I don't see how that matter. There was a meaningful choice.

There was certainly a meaningful choice, but it was between status quo conservatism where the plebs get thrown a few bones but no overall reform to ever-ratcheting corporate control, and spiteful populist destructive rage taking for granted everything we still do enjoy. Spite won. It's hard to tell if another Trump term will be merely another standard of living haircut via rampant inflation and corporate giveaways, or the actual end of US hegemony and western society, because the guy is a verbal diarrhea chameleon. But we as a society have bought the ticket, so I guess we're taking the ride regardless.

It is unfortunate that we didn't have a Luigi Mangione a few years ago, and maybe a few copy cats. Not because escalating to that type of accountability dynamic is something to be celebrated, but rather because the wide outpouring of understanding is the type of unifying pressure relief valve our society desperately needs, instead of being divided and conquered by different flavors of authoritarianism.

Re: The world of tomorrow

#96

Post by naming_the_user »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #22
DennisP wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For cars the US does have Tesla, Lucid, and Rivian. The first two are vertically integrated, making as many of their own components as possible. We also have Intel, and a pretty great rocket company.

> For cars the US does have Tesla (...) We also have (...) a pretty great rocket company And yet you all wish you didn't. Well, maybe not everyone, but it's the dominant view. This brings back a memory of a HN comment from a little over a decade ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7885128 I'll just quote it in full: If you want to track the death of the cultural vision of Silicon Valley -- the belief that some…

Well said.

In as much as I enjoy the discussions on this website (hence still visiting often...), I find there to be a few weirdly almost anti-factual positions.

Elon hatred being one. The launch of the Model S as a mass market vehicle was _magical_. Like holy shit levels of wow, you can drive this thing across the US and then Europe with a charging network and it _works_ and it scales. Every EV on the market today owes its' existence to that success against the odds.

A second one that comes to mind is the continuous bias against cryptocurrency with the refrain usually being that "it's not useful" or something. Exactly backwards - all of the scams and craziness and shitcoins etc are occuring precisely because it is useful, it's an absolute game changer to have a digital asset and despite even the maximalists worrying about things like 50% attacks or bugs we're 16 years on from bitcoin.pdf and it's STILL HERE.

There are plenty of others, it's sometimes very difficult for me to fathom why the site seems to take irrational stances seemingly randomly.

Re: The world of tomorrow

#97

Post by 082349872349872 »

underlipton wrote: post #94
082349872349872 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a view from a generation earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39084117 Re: Ghost in the Shell, I find it amusing that Gibson's 1984 opening line: " The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. " used to mean grey, but now could mean bright blue (or even black?) due to the march of progress...

I tend to think that the 90s actually did see its analogue to psychedelics in the internet. No need to be a psychonaut and fry your brain anymore; just surf the web. It's the same sort of ideal of connecting with universal knowledge. There's even a heuristic to track these kinds of awakenings, roughly, and I'm absolutely certain you're not going to guess it. Got it in your head? Okay, wrong, it was "landmark black ci…

The interesting thing about Disco Demolition Day is how localised (to North America?) that backlash seems to have been; I didn't get over here to Europe until this century, but as far as I can tell disco never "died" here.

Good point: Timothy Leary was moving in cyberpunkish circles shortly before his death, and my only IRL interaction with John McCarthy was at a cyberdelic-influenced party in a Bay Area tract house.

What a long strange surf it's been.

Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgR6UNeQxXEv

(see also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41826083 )

Re: The world of tomorrow

#98

Post by [deleted] »

naming_the_user wrote: post #96
TeMPOraL wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For cars the US does have Tesla (...) We also have (...) a pretty great rocket company And yet you all wish you didn't. Well, maybe not everyone, but it's the dominant view. This brings back a memory of a HN comment from a little over a decade ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7885128 I'll just quote it in full: If you want to track the death of the cultural vision of Silicon Valley -- the belief that some…

Well said. In as much as I enjoy the discussions on this website (hence still visiting often...), I find there to be a few weirdly almost anti-factual positions. Elon hatred being one. The launch of the Model S as a mass market vehicle was _magical_. Like holy shit levels of wow, you can drive this thing across the US and then Europe with a charging network and it _works_ and it scales. Every EV on the market today o…

[deleted]

Re: The world of tomorrow

#99

Post by chrisco255 »

openrisk wrote: post #55

A great essay, worthy of detailed reading as it contains so many interesting connections and associations from the past to explain the present and maybe forecast the future. Just one example among the many: > Making family-sized dwellings abundant and thus affordable for most people would be the single most effective step toward restoring faith in progress. We are drowning in stochastic parrots and cryptographically…

The affordability crisis is entirely a function of over regulation and NIMBYism. Supply and demand are economic laws and it turns out when you restrict supply and demand is held constant or increases, prices skyrocket.

Re: The world of tomorrow

#100

Post by kdmtctl »

underlipton wrote: post #5

Growing up in the oughts, the future was Ghost in the Shell: SAC and Xenosaga and .hack//Sign and Gundam 00. I didn't see the dystopia; I imagined a glass metropolis beside a glittering bay, bleached and blue; VR diving into pools of ephemeral neon filament; trips to a space colony. The ISS had launched when I was in elementary school. 2012 came, and I graduated from college, and the Rift had its Kickstarter. I had a…

Resonates me a lot, I am a decade older though. From my POV it looks like we were overgrown kids but now just getting old.
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