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The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

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Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#191

Post by nehal3m »

Aerroon wrote: post #178
nehal3m wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, without judgement, your perspective may be wildly skewed because you’re American (going by your post history). I suspect the negative externalities in a society built around cars don’t register with you because to you it is the normal state of the world. As a Dutchman, I grew up in a built world that is based around the human scale and to me your parent’s claim comes across as astonishingly obvious.

I suppose in the Netherlands they use carts and horses to stock up the supermarket? To transport coal to the powerplant (or the wind turbine blades to where the wind turbine will be built)? Surely a bicycle isn't enough for that. You might be only talking about personal cars, but you've got to remember that trucks share the same infrastructure cars use. Modern city wealth wouldn't be possible without engined vehicles…

Sure, industrial scale transport and personal transport share a rolling platform with an engine, but they're different platforms with different requirements, different economics and different lifecycles.

However, you're making my point for me. If you fail to invest in good public transport it will suck. That is downstream from designing your society around cars instead of transportation for everyone. Bikes do not work for extremely long distances (although school children here will happily pedal 10km to school and back on the daily), but those long distances are a requirement precisely because infrastructure is designed around cars. Even so you can take bicycles on trains and use them for last mile transport at your destination, or store a bicycle at your destination train station (most have lockers or guarded storage) if it's a commute.

Regarding bad weather; if winter is bad enough for bicycles to fail, then certainly it is not safe to drive either, and lethality is orders of magnitude higher. Generally though people here ride bike paths that are shovelled and brined just as the roadways are.

Bikes have their own infrastructure that they do not share with trucks. It is for human beings only.

Here's some reasons to hate cars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umgi-CbaSRU

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#192

Post by grvdrm »

throwanem wrote: post #174
grvdrm wrote: post #111

Two years ago, I was enjoying a drink with my wife, her friend, a very senior female VC partner, and another friend. Somehow we talked AI in some depth, and the VC at one point said (about AI): “I don’t know what our kids are going to do for work. I don’t know what jobs there will be to do.” That same VC invests in AI companies and by what I heard about her, has done phenomenally well. I think about that exchange all…

And people wonder why I'm doing all I can to ensure that world will never, ever again even pretend to try to find a place for me.

Correct! Mobile typo - sorry!

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#193

Post by nothinkjustai »

grvdrm wrote: post #111

Two years ago, I was enjoying a drink with my wife, her friend, a very senior female VC partner, and another friend. Somehow we talked AI in some depth, and the VC at one point said (about AI): “I don’t know what our kids are going to do for work. I don’t know what jobs there will be to do.” That same VC invests in AI companies and by what I heard about her, has done phenomenally well. I think about that exchange all…

VC’s aren’t exactly known for being both wise and intelligent.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#194

Post by mplanchard »

snackerblues wrote: post #155
viciousvoxel wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term "toxic individualism" doesn't mean that individualism is inherently toxic, like "toxic masculinity" doesn't mean that about masculinity in the general case. These terms mean the over-expression of their worst aspects.

[flagged]

This comment seems to be both reductive and in bad faith.

Of course there is an idea of non-toxic masculinity that doesn't just equate to !masculinity. People love to bring up examples of non-toxic masculinity in media. Someone on reddit has even compiled a megalist of examples of non-toxic masculinity in film: https://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/comments/eb0ir1/a_megalist_...

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#195

Post by lossyalgo »

Marha01 wrote: post #169
Kbelicius wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> THIS! I am shocked that some people don't realize that modern civilization and our modern quality of life depends on cars to a huge degree, even for people don't personally drive. Such a lack of knowledge about modern industry and logistics.. I'm more shocked that somebody thinks that modern civilization and logistics depend on personal cars. Can ypu expand on your statement that modern industry and logistic depend…

The distinction between personal and commercial cars is too small to allow effectivelly banning one while keeping the other. Any country that tries to do so will inevitably overshoot in one of the directions: either the ban will be too permitting, so people will still use personal cars, just less as today, or the ban will be too broad, which would negatively affect the commercial or logistical use cases and the econo…

I don't think anyone is arguing about banning ALL vehicles, much less all personal vehicles, but rather to simply become less car-centric. Most cities which top the list of highest quality of life worldwide all have fairly good public transportation options and/or are very walkable.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#196

Post by nehal3m »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #175
nehal3m wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, without judgement, your perspective may be wildly skewed because you’re American (going by your post history). I suspect the negative externalities in a society built around cars don’t register with you because to you it is the normal state of the world. As a Dutchman, I grew up in a built world that is based around the human scale and to me your parent’s claim comes across as astonishingly obvious.

The Netherlands has 513 cars per 1000 people compared to the US rate of 779. A significant difference, certainly, and it's plausible that there's a threshold effect where a society built around 50% more cars faces unique problems. But this doesn't at all seem consistent with the original idea that automobile technology itself is bad.

You might think so, but a flat number comparison doesn't do justice to the vast differences in urban planning. Check out this video, it describes Dutch urban planning pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#197

Post by treis »

MarcelOlsz wrote: post #152
ernst_klim wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to eliminate "useless eaters" It can't. It can't even deal with emails without randomly deleting your email folder [1]. Saying that it can make decisions and replace humans is akin of saying that random number generator can make decisions and can replace people. It's just an automation tool, and just like all automation tools before it it will create more jobs than destroy. All the CEOs' talks about labor replaceme…

People have this misconception that first it was one way, and then , and they'll wake up and suddenly it is another. It's a slow creep. 10 years ago there were 5 of us on a team each responsible for something specific. Now I can do all of that. Teams and companies will downsize. How do you see AI creating more jobs? (I need some hope right now lol).

It's made it cheaper to do whatever it is you did therefore the demand for it will go up. It's somewhat of an open question of where the new equilibrium is. Historically that can go either way. We have fewer farmers that we once did because there's a limit to how much food people will eat. But we probably don't have fewer carpenters as a result of power saws and nail guns. We probably have more because the demand to build things out of wood is effectively unbound.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#198

Post by netcan »

Ifkaluva wrote: post #100

I don’t think this is the right take. To take the car analogy: it matters how we use the car. The car in itself can be used to save time and energy that would otherwise be used to walk to places. That extra time and energy can be used well, or poorly. - It can be squandered by having a longer commute that defeats the point - Alternatively, it can be wasted by sitting on a couch consuming Netflix or TikTok - Alternati…

"The Medium is the Message" applies... or some analogy to that idea.

Yes, individuals have choices. But in a collective, dynamics occur and those dynamics can't usually be overcome by individuals.

Social media could be used differently, but the way it exists Irl is determined by the nature of the medium, the economic structure and other things outside of individuals' control.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#199

Post by thom »

ForHackernews wrote: post #110
lukev wrote: post #17

This is a must-read series of articles, and I think Kyle is very much correct. The comparison to the adoption of automobiles is apt, and something I've thought about before as well. Just because a technology can be useful doesn't mean it will have positive effects on society. That said, I'm more open to using LLMs in constrained scenarios, in cases where they're an appropriate tool for the job and the downsides can b…

All blocked in the UK, sadly.

https://archive.is/eXuD0

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#200

Post by cryptopian »

Aerroon wrote: post #178
nehal3m wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, without judgement, your perspective may be wildly skewed because you’re American (going by your post history). I suspect the negative externalities in a society built around cars don’t register with you because to you it is the normal state of the world. As a Dutchman, I grew up in a built world that is based around the human scale and to me your parent’s claim comes across as astonishingly obvious.

I suppose in the Netherlands they use carts and horses to stock up the supermarket? To transport coal to the powerplant (or the wind turbine blades to where the wind turbine will be built)? Surely a bicycle isn't enough for that. You might be only talking about personal cars, but you've got to remember that trucks share the same infrastructure cars use. Modern city wealth wouldn't be possible without engined vehicles…

There's a lot of people in this comment thread interpreting the post's analogy as "ban all cars forever" rather than "consider how to use them as part of a wider societal strategy that makes places better for everyone".

You can implement all kinds of transport badly. Trains can suck if they don't take you where you want to go, bicycles suck if wherever you live doesn't provide acceptable parking methods.

Cars are great in a vacuum, but once a city decides it's going all in on cars and bulldozes the place, they provide problems for anyone else. Buses will suck because they're stuck in traffic and walking will suck when you're getting around on the side of 3 lane highways or vast surface parking lots. Most importantly, driving will suck, because everyone has to drive everywhere, and that creates more traffic for the rest of us. You get in a doom loop where you build more lanes, which drives more vehicle traffic. If you make the alternatives more viable, people take up those alternatives and vehicle traffic eases.

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