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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?

#391

Post by TaupeRanger »

lamasery wrote: post #144
masfuerte wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said cars not driving. Yes, the supermarket needs trucks to deliver the food. It doesn't need cars.

Ambulances: good. Trucks: good. Busses, even: good. Cars? Waaaay less clear they're net-beneficial.

Traveling to work in a personal car to get to the job that requires you to drive an ambulance: apparently bad? Likewise driving to your trucking job? Also bad? To the grocery store workers? Also bad? To the operations and support employees that provide your internet, your email, every app you use, the water treatment plant, your local government, the restaurants you order from, your insurance company. Yes...getting to work and allowing society to run at levels of efficiency required to support the population is very clearly beneficial.

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

#392

Post by geremiiah »

nradov wrote: post #310
geremiiah wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point is, if an AGI becomes powerful and capable enough of replacing 99.999% of humanity, the likes of Sam Altman and Elon Musk won't be able to control it.

An electrician with access to a circuit breaker will be able to control it.

The AI would have redundancy, both in terms of its power source and also because it can literally replicate itself and have multiple instances running all over the world. Also, an army of drones that you'd have to dodge just to go anywhere near any critical infrastructure.

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

#393

Post by TaupeRanger »

Marha01 wrote: post #114
TaupeRanger wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Troll post? No, they do not "unequivocally" make your life worse. "Other people's cars" facilitate thousands of aspects of modern living and society that you apparently take for granted. You can choose to ONLY look at the negative impacts, but the comment as stated is ridiculous. The only way you receive food (except from your backyard inner-city garden?) is through people DRIVING. The way you receive packages is by…

> "Other people's cars" facilitate thousands of aspects of modern living and society that you apparently take for granted. You can choose to ONLY look at the negative impacts, but the comment as stated is ridiculous. 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 knowledg…

Obviously true, but apparently we're in a hornets nest of anti-car coastal folks here? Very strange comment thread overall.

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

#395

Post by jimbokun »

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…

More and more urban centers are banning cars in their cores. Especially older cities built before the automobile existed.

An analog might be the push for banning phones in schools. Setting apart times and spaces where serendipitous human interactions are encouraged by the lack of distractions.

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

#396

Post by ertgbnm »

jexe wrote: post #394

I'm concerned that there's no real way to "opt out" of an AI future realistically. Is this something that people are seriously thinking they'll be able to do and successfully stay gainfully employed and contributing to the world?

Agreed. I think the starting comparison actually works here. It's a bit like the automobile. The advice of "just don't" doesn't work for cars. It takes a deliberate effort on every scale of society to accomplish, it's not something an individual can just do and succeed at. An American can't just not have a car the same way someone from the netherlands might be able to.

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

#397

Post by jimbokun »

armonster wrote: post #46
baal80spam wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just because a technology can be useful doesn't mean it will have positive effects on society. You say it in a way that it sounds like automobiles don't have a positive effect. I don't agree - they have some negative effects but overall they have a vast net positive effect for everyone.

Their negative effects are much more vast, subtle, and cultural. You could say many of the broad and widespread mental issues we have in the US is the result of automobiles leading to suburbanization and thus isolation of people. It has created an expensive barrier of entry for existing in society and added a ton of friction to doing anything and everything, especially with people. That's not even getting into the cl…

There are countless use cases for point to point personal transportation not covered by public transit options.

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

#398

Post by jimbokun »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #351
anon84873628 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes exactly. Let's simplify it to the individualist vs collectivist spectrum. Cars became a self-reinforcing driver of individualism, especially in net new geographies. The negative effects are resisted better in societies/regions that were built long before them. (For both the cultural reasons and plain physical reasons, like not having wide enough roads). In the car centric places, a few generations later they beco…

The thing is, the Amish don't try to tell the rest of the world that their way is the "obviously correct" way and that everybody else is doing it wrong, the way anti-personal mobility advocates do.

Robustly advocating for your opinions is not an act of oppression.

The advocates of the automobile have been far, far more successful at shaping US society, laws, culture and our physical environment.

I imagine that’s also true in many other nations to a lesser extent.

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

#399

Post by nonameiguess »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #372
skrtskrt wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Anti-personal mobility” is beyond absurd, absolute loony-bin stuff. “Anti-personal mobility advocates” do not exist. Transit advocates exist, and improvements in transit also massively benefit those who need to or prefer to drive.

Most motorists absolutely hate e-scooters and e-bikes. They hate them with a white-hot passion. You will never see more road rage than against a scooter when I ride it in a traffic lane. The scooter goes about 17mph, and with 3+ traffic lanes available to cars, they will pile up behind a scooter, scream out their open windows, honk and cut me off, and spit in my face: yes literally spit all over my face, because they…

e-scooters kind of sit in an uncanny valley of shittiness. I'll upfront say it's not at all fair to anyone using them responsibly, but there's a lot of cultural baggage that is going to make them uniquely reviled compared to alternatives. For instance, I've longboarded all around the city of Dallas for years and nobody has ever honked at, cut me off, or spit on me. But temporary rental scooters with no permanent docking station carry with them the stigma of:

- People riding them on sidewalks to putting pedestrians in danger

- "Parking" them right in front of someone's gate, blocking the entrance to their house

- Obviously drunk partiers using them in lieu of getting a ride or taking the bus

- Groups of them sitting around half knocked over completely blocking a sidewalk or other pathway meant for cyclists, runners, walkers, and other pedestrians

Fair or not, you're like the kid using a razor scooter at the skate park. Nobody likes you but it doesn't mean they hate everyone at the skate park. They just hate scooter kids.

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