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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?

#511

Post by throwanem »

chungusamongus wrote: post #506
throwanem wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand why you would rather "get into anecdotes" than answer my point. I don't understand why you keep posting, save perhaps that "the guilty flee where no man pursueth." The account you're using is without history or reputation. All you have to do to make this end is stop.

I did address your point by directly refuting it, and you responded with a total non sequitur. Are you okay buddy? I'm making a relatively basic argument about the ability of households to make ends meet and you're quoting bible passages, looking into my account history, and making random accusations. The guilty flee where none pursueth? You're literally attempting to prosecute me, lmao. But please, "pursueth" away.…

It's remarkable to me that you should be so concerned with my perspective, if you believe me insane as you now claim. (What will it be next? That I have too much time on my hands? That's often next from here.)

Evidently you are concerned with my perspective, considering the effort you keep going to to continue to gain its benefit. I've explained why I think that is, and I'm not likely to change my mind at this point. You should really think about why it means so much to you to keep trying to negotiate otherwise.

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

#512

Post by DavidPiper »

Animats wrote: post #445

"I could retrain, but my core skills—reading, thinking, and writing—are squarely in the blast radius of large language models." Yes. For the lifetime of almost everyone alive now, reading, thinking, and writing have been valued skills which moved one up in society's hierarchy. This is a historical anomaly. Prior to 1800 or so, those skills were not all that useful to the average farmer. There were more smart people t…

I'm seeing a lot of comments like this lately:

"Oh well, we were in an anomalous time of social growth, time to go backwards! We won't even need to read or write or think! It's all just too bad, but that's just the way the world works, like it did in 1800." [or pick your date before any current person was alive]

Lots of people have started considering a time of significant "progress" as "an anomaly", as if the world should always just be the way it was in, say, 1800, like that was actually the realistic pinnacle of human society. You also seem to be loosely basing this argument on the availability of "rich nerds", which seems like a bizarre non-sequitur. Computing once didn't exist, and we still valued reading, writing and thinking.

I'm kind of baffled by how regularly I see comments like this. Like, come on. This is basically the AI black pill, no?

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

#513

Post by xienze »

23j423j423hj wrote: post #278
armonster wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The best way I've ever heard it described is that in a car-dominant society, every new neighbor in your neighborhood is somebody in your way, taking up your spot, making you late in your commute. The psychological effects of this are enormous and under discussed.

And in a public transport-dominant society every neighbor is also someone in your way, taking up a spot at the restaurant you walk to, filling up the subway train and therefore making you late in your commute…

There’s no free lunch. Doesn’t matter where you are, more people = more crowds.

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

#514

Post by throwanem »

chungusamongus wrote: post #507
EinigeKreise wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea behind principles is that you're supposed to stick to them anyways.

Lets put aside the fact that none of you have coherently outlined what supposed principles are relevent here. The thing worth noting is, the argument presented in the article seems to be consequentialist, and I'm saying it will fail to produce the consequences the author supposedly wants.

I have at no point been less than direct, straightforward, and clear. You have radically misunderstood my argument because you are motivated to do so.

Mr. Kingsbury, author of the article under discussion, has considerably better sense than I, and so far as I know never comments here. You've radically misunderstood his argument too, though, for what little that knowledge may aid.

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

#515

Post by sillysaurusx »

pjc50 wrote: post #496
Animats wrote: post #445

"I could retrain, but my core skills—reading, thinking, and writing—are squarely in the blast radius of large language models." Yes. For the lifetime of almost everyone alive now, reading, thinking, and writing have been valued skills which moved one up in society's hierarchy. This is a historical anomaly. Prior to 1800 or so, those skills were not all that useful to the average farmer. There were more smart people t…

> Physical robustness. Strength, perhaps brutality. Competence in physical tasks. Honesty. Parentage. Birth order (see primogeniture.) Those matter in per-technological societies, and they matter in failed societies now. Those are perhaps humanity's core values. This is really bleak to me. We can do better than primogeniture, and of course the gender discrimination that goes along with it. You might as well write tha…

Although primogeniture has been discriminatory for basically the entire time it's existed, the discrimination isn't inherent. It's an implementation detail. Modern British Royal succession now uses absolute, gender-neutral primogeniture since 2013.

In fact, there are few things less discriminatory than a random birth order. You may as well be assigned a random number at birth, and the lower your number, the more you're paid. In such a system, there's nothing to discriminate against; the ordering is absolute and immutable, and everyone is treated equally.

I agree that it's a bleak idea, but Animats wasn't talking about subjugating women.

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

#516

Post by chatmasta »

dang wrote: post #249

Here are the articles in this series that got significant HN discussion (in chronological order for a change): ML promises to be profoundly weird* - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47689648 - April 2026 (602 comments) The Future of Everything Is Lies, I Guess: Part 3 – Culture - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47703528 - April 2026 (106 comments) The future of everything is lies, I guess – Part 5: Annoyance…

fyi, the entire domain is unavailable in the UK “due to the online safety act.”

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

#517

Post by gosub100 »

Gigachad wrote: post #491
nradov wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is very little connection between ownership and who does the driving. I still want to own my own cars even if a computer does most of the driving. That way it's always available, and more importantly I can keep my own stuff in it.

Rental cars are expensive because they are covering the risk and increased wear and tear of rental drivers. As well as the downtime of when the car is rented to you but you aren’t driving it. Self driving cars would make this massively cheaper and remove most of the reasons to own a car. It would make about as much sense as owning a train for most people.

Yep just like how massively cheaper housing is to rent, right?

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

#518

Post by sillysaurusx »

Question: The author makes this article available on the web as a series of posts, a PDF (https://aphyr.com/data/posts/411/the-future-of-everything-is...) and an EPUB. What do you suppose their tooling looks like?

Is there a single "document containing all the words," and it updates the website, pdf, and epub whenever you change it?

What struck me was that the presentation is beautiful. It seems worth emulating. But that raises the question of what format you'd write your original words in. Do you suppose they just use Markdown files, or something more elaborate?

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

#519

Post by Planktonne »

SkyeCA wrote: post #264
Planktonne wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's simply untrue; you're deliberately misinterpreting terms to grind a tired axe. It is perfectly possible to be both masculine and non-toxic without being feminine. Refusing to allow that is toxic in itself.

> you're deliberately misinterpreting terms Using the term "toxic" to describe things is an issue because people have an immediate negative reaction to it and go on the defence. Wording matters a lot and I'm unsure why there's such an insistence on calling things "toxic" when other words would both better describe issues and cause a less visceral reaction.

People deliberately and cynically choose to have that reaction (or pretend to). It's an adjective like any other, not even an inflammatory one.

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

#520

Post by realo »

Animats wrote: post #445

"I could retrain, but my core skills—reading, thinking, and writing—are squarely in the blast radius of large language models." Yes. For the lifetime of almost everyone alive now, reading, thinking, and writing have been valued skills which moved one up in society's hierarchy. This is a historical anomaly. Prior to 1800 or so, those skills were not all that useful to the average farmer. There were more smart people t…

Well... 19th century engineer could have a large multi-story brownstone with family and , more importantly, servants and house personnel. A butler, etc...

Today? On an engineer's salary? Ha!

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