We've made the world too complicated • Hacker News Board

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#211

Post by IncreasePosts » Sun, May 17, 2026, 3:29 AM UTC

gerdesj wrote: post #181

drivers99 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But evolution doesn't make those developments improbable or coincidental. I recently read a book called Time's Second Arrow about how selection, when present in systems that can create many combinations, naturally evolve more functional information, which is the number of bits it takes to identify specific combinations that are (in a certain contexts) more functional. (log base 2 of the number of possible combination…

"But evolution doesn't make those developments improbable or coincidental." (not sure what you are on about with respect "Time's Second Arrow") So, why are you not enslaved by your lizard overlords? 8) Homo is a bit of a johnny come lately and yet has managed to travel to the moon and back. We only have a single extant example of hom sap to work with. We can work backwards, within reason, and still not manage to come…

We(mammals) kind of were enslaved by those lizard overlords. Mammals evolved around 225 million years ago and by the time dinosaurs went extinct (through no fault of their own!) 160 million years later, mammals were, at best, small nocturnal mouse-sized creatures. Anything bigger was stomped out by the dinosaurs before it could leave a trace.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#212

Post by petre » Sun, May 17, 2026, 3:31 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #200

jmilloy wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are overlooking the part of the quote that says "but he somehow didn't know when to stop". Given the option of somewhere with or without modern medicine and housing, yes people choose the "civilized" version even when it is complicated, hazardous, meaningless, addictive. That doesn't mean it isn't appropriate to critique the parts of modern life that have more to do with people trying to have more money a…

How much money and power is required? Should we stop technological development now or do humans still need new stuff?

Others won't stop it, the'll just invade later on. Look at Lebanon for instance.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#213

Post by petre » Sun, May 17, 2026, 3:36 AM UTC

umeshunni wrote: post #179

_nxwj wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> civilized man, who refused to adapt to his surroundings now finds he has to adapt and re-adapt every hour of the day to his self-created environment This feeling is exactly what I've experienced. Like we can never sit down without the walls changing around you. I always have to be on my toes. Another key human distinction is being able to think into the future, where we sometimes get stuck.

This has probably been true only in the last 300? 500? years. Before that, things were the same for 1000+ years for most of civilization, barring any large invasions from neighboring kingdoms, or some far away empire (mongols etc).

> barring any large invasions from neighboring kingdoms, or some far away empire (mongols etc).

Russians? It's still true today.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#214

Post by Tanoc » Sun, May 17, 2026, 3:38 AM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #191

jmilloy wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are overlooking the part of the quote that says "but he somehow didn't know when to stop". Given the option of somewhere with or without modern medicine and housing, yes people choose the "civilized" version even when it is complicated, hazardous, meaningless, addictive. That doesn't mean it isn't appropriate to critique the parts of modern life that have more to do with people trying to have more money a…

> I think you are overlooking the part of the quote that says "but he somehow didn't know when to stop". I don’t think you can extract that point in isolation when one of the anchors for “didn’t know when to stop” includes 10 years of schooling for children as being too far. So the point in the past is at least anchored to the pre-education era. You seem to be talking about modern-modern era problems as you imagine t…

Pre-education is swinging too far in the opposite direction for your own argument. Jacobus Uys the guy who wrote The Gods Must Be Crazy was sixty when the film came out in 1980. He watched the entire shift from the machine age to the nuclear age to the information age. His required childhood education in the 1920s and 1930s would've been six to eight years with highschool as optional. His parents who were children in the 1890s likely would've had education be entirely optional. He lived through the change from school being a privilege to being required and watched as it grew from six to eight to twelve years. The film itself is literally about the dichotomy between a post-agrarian tribe and nuclear age civilians and how less than a century separated most of the world from being one before they became the other. He wasn't reaching back to some pre-modern past, he was commenting on the rapid expansive changes he had seen during his own lifetime.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#215

Post by Forgeties79 » Sun, May 17, 2026, 3:39 AM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #193

_nxwj wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> civilized man, who refused to adapt to his surroundings now finds he has to adapt and re-adapt every hour of the day to his self-created environment This feeling is exactly what I've experienced. Like we can never sit down without the walls changing around you. I always have to be on my toes. Another key human distinction is being able to think into the future, where we sometimes get stuck.

> This feeling is exactly what I've experienced. Like we can never sit down without the walls changing around you. I always have to be on my toes. That is basically how all animals live, either under threat from competitors or predators.

Is that how we have to live?

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#216

Post by FarmerPotato » Sun, May 17, 2026, 3:41 AM UTC

GeoAtreides wrote: post #69

> I'm writing this with technology I will never fully understand that's on you. It takes just a bit of effort, and I suppose time, to have a very good idea of what happens, at all levels, between the moment i had this comment in mind and you the reader conceptualizing it in your mind. Are some details missing? Sure. We still don't know where thoughts come from and I, personally, don't have the mathematically training…

That's one path to take through life: it's called "engineer". They learn a little about every power of 10 of space and time.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#217

Post by luqtas » Sun, May 17, 2026, 3:43 AM UTC

petre wrote: post #210

Aurornis wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you are overlooking the part of the quote that says "but he somehow didn't know when to stop". I don’t think you can extract that point in isolation when one of the anchors for “didn’t know when to stop” includes 10 years of schooling for children as being too far. So the point in the past is at least anchored to the pre-education era. You seem to be talking about modern-modern era problems as you imagine t…

The issue with 10 years of school is that we outsource schooling and childcare to others specialized on these matters. In the past we spuld teach them how to hunt, fish or take care of plants, animals.

i don't know where you want to take this critic but there's a lot of learn that is meant to be forgotten. transfer of learning is a scientific phenomenon. how it's useful for the day to day is at least questionable, as it's pretty hard to measure. if you take with a pretty rational look it feels insane to teach kids nobel prize type of knowledge that can't be understood or figured out entirely by crytalized knowledge (which is also a scientific term). how much that's necessary and how some fields like regulating emotions, arts and even critical thinking are missing on the grade, the quote about "we didn't know where to stop" feels pretty prevalent. it's not impossible to find a phd graduate working in some job someone without high-school graduation could learn, probably at the same rate/time span

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#218

Post by lotsofpulp » Sun, May 17, 2026, 3:46 AM UTC

Forgeties79 wrote: post #215

lotsofpulp wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This feeling is exactly what I've experienced. Like we can never sit down without the walls changing around you. I always have to be on my toes. That is basically how all animals live, either under threat from competitors or predators.

Is that how we have to live?

Many/most people don’t, and haven’t for a very long time. Being afraid of losing one’s job is quite a step up from being afraid of a rival tribe ransacking your village. Or a predatory animal. Or bacterial infections.

Obviously, things could be better. But they could be much, much worse.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#219

Post by fwipsy » Sun, May 17, 2026, 4:12 AM UTC

It seems it's become fashionable these days to believe that happiness is impossible, or even non-existent; that all positive emotions are intrinsically transient. I think this attitude mostly comes from the phenomenon this author describes where you can forget (or just never know) what it's like to be happy. I don't agree with his proposed remedy.

First, I think that very few people have been privileged to enjoy the "simple" lifestyle he wants. Most cultures have either struggled with nature to survive, or avoided that struggle through restless progress. Any culture/organism that was content within it's niche would be outcompeted by fitter cultures/organisms. Ironically, the author is probably one of those best positioned to achieve his ideals; but they don't, because culture has evolved to program them to struggle.

Second, if the bears don't get you, the boredom will. Moderation is key, and it's good to have some mental stimulation too. You don't need to live in nature all the time to be happy. You just need to prioritize spending some time relaxing.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#220

Post by CyLith » Sun, May 17, 2026, 4:19 AM UTC

fwipsy wrote: post #219

It seems it's become fashionable these days to believe that happiness is impossible, or even non-existent; that all positive emotions are intrinsically transient. I think this attitude mostly comes from the phenomenon this author describes where you can forget (or just never know) what it's like to be happy. I don't agree with his proposed remedy. First, I think that very few people have been privileged to enjoy the…

I strive for a “simple” lifestyle not because I believe it will be enjoyable. Quite the opposite. A simple lifestyle is much more laborious, arduous, and mentally taxing in terms of all the minutiae I need to worry about to achieve even modest levels of comfort. E.g. Do I have enough wood stored for the winter?

I strive for a simple life because it gives meaning to life, and a connection to the earth and other living things. It keeps me resilient in the face of hardship and less reliant on other people. It also provides a connection to the past and our heritage.