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We've made the world too complicated

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Re: We've made the world too complicated

#161

Post by Terr_ »

XorNot wrote: post #148
Terr_ wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe natural complexity is not supposed to be something we deal with, just something we live with. Your ancestors did that, and invented unknowable gods and spirits to explain/blame everything on, so that people can give up trying to understand or manage the unmanageable.

Although it's worth noting theres evidence the earliest civilizations like the Sumerians did this at least in part as a "fill in the blanks" exercise. The gods were their dark matter - a stand in for the problem that they were trying to predict the rains, rather then invent a suitably large father/mother to take responsibility away from them.

Agreed, it wasn't necessarily from a place of laziness. I'm just frustrated with this narrative of "Our Ancestors Were One With Nature", since:

1. It is imaginary nostalgia for a golden-age that didn't exist.

2. It is its own covert form of human hubris/egotism, suggesting we had something uniquely different from what all other species struggle with. Closely related to the inverted-snobbery of claiming only humans do $EVIL_THING.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#162

Post by stiglitz »

keiferski wrote: post #49

I think this feeling of everything being too complex is a natural consequence of work that is done for long-term abstract ends, rather than immediate and local ones. At least I think it is for me. Working remotely for an international software company is great for its lifestyle flexibility, but sometimes I just want to be a baker, chef, bike repairman, etc. that solves an immediate problem for a real person standing…

Described by Marx (in too many words, unfortunately) as “alienation”

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#163

Post by bethekidyouwant »

MajorTakeaway wrote: post #98
patwards wrote: post #95

I was trying to explain to my wife how I felt last night. AI and the pressure to use it and balancing the potential and with the pitfalls is stressing me out. But it’s more than that. This post perfectly captures the feeling.

You're really not alone in this. Nature exposure has helped a lot since the industrial revolution as far as any mental health concerns go. A return to the old world, full of trees and brush is still there for all of us. This is what people mean by 'Go touch grass'. They're not being literal but it's a few simple words that just say go experience primitive roots for a few hours and come back to the artificial world we…

People said the same thing in 1800s on the eastern seaboard they even built cute little rail lines.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#164

Post by antonvs »

argee wrote: post #133
collingreen wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is like the zen version of "simpsons did it!"

It would be if they hadn’t asked that question at the end, which is a fair question.

Well, Zen tries to build a whole religion around the idea, losing the spirit of simple easily comprehensible advice that can be expressed in a single sentence.

So one answer to “what new” could be “delivering the advice without unnecessary complication”. Although I can’t really tell if the advice above covers the whole of Zen, which is part of the issue.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#165

Post by RetroTechie »

hnthrowaway0315 wrote: post #36

Well that's how you get convenience and comfort. That's how you build civilizations. Specialization started many millennium ago, when people probably didn't know much, if anything, about other careers. I'm sure we all want to throw away working laptops, get out and enjoy nature sometimes. But no, LIVING in the nature is completely a different thing. Camping for a few days or even a month might be fine, but most peopl…

The great thing about living in modern times is you can do both, and mix & match as much as you want.

There's still countries/areas with large swats of land where it's you against nature. Nothing more, nothing less.

But (contrary to your ancestors millenia ago) you can bring a phone, camping gear, preserved foods, use a lighter to get that fire started, or play Tetris in-between grizzly bear attacks. ;-)

Likewise, people have options whether to 'live in the fast lane' & make lots of money, disappear into the Amazon forest, or somewhere in between. Or do the latter for 3 weeks a year only.

Explore the world, move around, try things & find out what suits you best. Oh and of course: everything changes (and will keep doing so).

Personally I do feel people (from developed countries) should get out into nature more. A good % of people have lost touch with the natural world that we all depend on. And it shows.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#166

Post by whackernews »

bethekidyouwant wrote: post #157
pj_mukh wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get into the this conversation a lot, when you point out the obvious historical context to "all this change", the response is always "Oh so you want to do nothing?" or "helpless to stop what's happening". That's not the implication of historical context. But it screams for a change in narrative, we aren't helpless, we live in the greatest time, and it can be even greater. If we are to continue the march of civiliza…

The amount of women having children hasn’t changed since the 80s about 80% the difference is how many they choose to have

I think you are both saying the same thing?

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#167

Post by Zambyte »

scoofy wrote: post #128
angrydev wrote: post #110

Oh boy, I don’t know about this one. You are born into a body that is so complicated we will perhaps never understand how all of it works. Our society if anything wrangled so much of the chaos of the natural world. It’s hardly simple to live in a world where you are under constant threat from animals, and other humans.

Technology has always existed. The people that lived in nature had no idea how it worked. To them, a plow was technology and I’m sure there were people complaining about it. We only understand nature now because of technology. I’ll take scrolling myself to death at 80 over smallpox and dying of a trivially curable infection at 40 every time.

The plow is very obviously life sustaining technology. Plows help make food, food is required to live. I find it extremely unlikely that there was any noteworthy amount of "complaining" about it at any point in history. Every technology exists on a spectrum of obviously good to obviously bad. Lots of things are not in the middle of that spectrum.

> I’ll take scrolling myself to death at 80 over smallpox and dying of a trivially curable infection at 40 every time

Luckily we don't have to choose either.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#168

Post by cdrini »

_nxwj wrote: post #145
cdrini wrote: post #140

Thought-provoking write-up. One part of this is the "meaning of human life". Part of that for me is: humans are the only known lifeform that can look at the stars and try to understand. And, to the best of our understanding, this ability arose from winning a billion biological lotteries, from the blind system of nature and natural selection which by complete coincidence, stumbled on intelligence as a beneficial trait…

You might find this interesting https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2025/10/2025-a-space-absurdity/ Your view might fall under planetary management and beyond. Across so many people maybe the dominant view would prevail in a consensus, but it doesn't seem to be the case. https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/environmentalissues/chapter/1...

Interesting reads! Apologies, that's not what I intended to communicate, but I can understand where that conclusion came from.

I think understanding and exploring the universe is an essential "success metric" for intelligent life like humanity -- but I don't think it's at the expense of all else. I mentioned it because it, to me, makes a humanity that abandoned complexity a "failed" humanity. Although again, on an individual basis I think this is a fine option.

An underlying principle I believe in is an avoidance of waste. It's this principle that underpins part of why I think there is an obligation for humanity to understand/explore: to avoid wasting our improbable "gift". This principle constrains the principle of understanding/exploration and relates to Earth. Earth and life on Earth is itself rare and the result of its own biological lotteries. To blindly exploit Earth's resources is not only wasteful but shortsighted as well towards humanity's own survival. So I think I'm in stewardship on that spectrum, but need to sit with it a bit more.

With regards to the first article, I think it outlines many of the complexities around humanity's space travel and habitation. For me, the key bit is understanding and exploration; ie the seeing/understanding of what the universe is/has (on Earth as well as elsewhere). I don't actually think this has to be humanity. I think more broadly the obligation I've mentioned lies with intelligent life not necessarily humanity (we just happen to be the only example of such we're aware of). Habitation isn't as big a piece for me. If we can send robotic "eyes" for intelligence to see through, or if we create other intelligent life with different properties from humanity that can see/explore, I consider this goal met.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#169

Post by notahacker »

BirAdam wrote: post #125
j_maffe wrote: post #38

> I'm writing this with technology I will never fully understand in a building with rooms I can never enter, living in a country dictated by laws I can't control. We spend the majority of our waking hours and lives in an abstract world of compressed life. The moment I walk through my door I'm in a zoning area on a city-owned sidewalk, flanked by ugly metallic monsters, floating through a sea of strangers. This has be…

This isn’t entirely true. A stylus is easy to understand, as is paper. Buildings of stone are relatively easy to grasp as well. Being a polymath was once doable. Today to truly master anything requires a lifetime of dedication.

Plenty of people master more than one domain. It's actually easier when the knowledge is more accessibly distributed in more generalised form, so you don't have to find out how to build stone vaults that don't collapse by trial and error

Ancient civilizations were full of laws people didn't control and property they didn't own, enforced by weapons they had no idea how to make imported from regions they knew nothing of and would have no opportunity to ever visit. And you didn't really understand the priest's explanation for why the gods had determined your infant sons deserved to die any better than the average person nowadays understands the antibiotics that could have enabled them not to die...

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#170

Post by tomhow »

globnomulous wrote: post #106

Extinctions followed homo sapiens across the planet millennia before the emergence of the technologies that you seem to think make the world 'complicated.' The Greek work biblos, for book, derives from the name of the region of the Levant (Bublos) that produces much of the best paper in the ancient world, until people denuded it, turning it into a desert. Iran and Afghanistan were green when the Hittites and Babyloni…

Please don't be curmudgeonly on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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