If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble • Hacker News Board

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#31

Post by gnaritas » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 5:06 PM UTC

tezza wrote: post #20

engtech wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

off-topic: you should edit your comment to get rid of the three spaces before your bullet point. The three spaces indicates pre-formatted text, so it won't line wrap. It creates scrollbars on your comment, so less people will be able to read your points.

I do it deliberately, as I have very poor vision and find it impossible to read block text these days. Please excuse my preference for commenting this way.

Your readers preferences should trump your own; I don't presume you write comments for yourself to read.

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#32

Post by btilly » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 5:07 PM UTC

jswinghammer wrote: post #3

I think if you just discount all modern innovations then it's easy to say nothing has changed of note. My TV looks better than ever. Should I just discount that as progress because it's still a picture displayed in my living room? If you suggest the iPhone 5 which allows me to get anywhere without planning with turn by turn directions, communicate with family on the road, make dinner reservations, and answer a work r…

Regulation (another word for taxes) and taxes are much higher than in prior periods.

Citation needed.

Actual numbers, such as the ones at http://www.deptofnumbers.com/blog/2010/08/tax-revenue-as-a-f..., emphatically disagree with you.

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#33

Post by jerf » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 5:07 PM UTC

tezza wrote: post #20

engtech wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

off-topic: you should edit your comment to get rid of the three spaces before your bullet point. The three spaces indicates pre-formatted text, so it won't line wrap. It creates scrollbars on your comment, so less people will be able to read your points.

I do it deliberately, as I have very poor vision and find it impossible to read block text these days. Please excuse my preference for commenting this way.

For the rest of us, the comment ends up entirely cut off by the overflow: scroll CSS attribute.

I would suggest the use of an extension that allows you to edit text in any editor you like, where you can freely use any font you like, such as It's All Text! for Firefox. That would solve this problem on any site you use.

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#34

Post by irishcoffee » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 5:12 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #30

hooande wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasons your iPhone 5 lets you get directions, communicate and make dinner reservations are the global information infrastructure and the tcp/ip protocol, both products of a national innovation policy. I know that most people under 30 directly credit Steve Jobs for everything that they do on their phones. But it took a massive national investment to set up the basics of the internet, which provided the iphone wit…

"The reason your iPhone 5 lets you get directions, communicate and make dinner reservations is the global information infrastructure and the tcp/ip protocol, both products of a national innovation policy." And on you go in that vein, but that's massively reductionistic. For one thing, if that is so true, then why did the iPhone 5 not exist 30 years ago, which is still many years after those advances? The Internet and…

It could be argued that the huge stack of software simply build on languages created in the 60's, 70's, and 80's, and the hardware movement you mention is the evidence of Moores Law in action. I do not think these are evidence of radical innovation.

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#35

Post by neebz » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 5:13 PM UTC

Whenever my father uses Skype, he still can't grasp the fact that we can make long distance video(!) calls for free. He keeps reminding me that when he had to walk 3 km by foot to a Public Call Office and book a call for a max. 3 minutes to talk to my grand mother. That was only 35 years ago.

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#36

Post by antidoh » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 5:16 PM UTC

You can innovate all you want, but if people don't want or need it they aren't going to buy it.

Moving from a farming/subsistence economy where most people had something to do with food production to survive, to our present post-farming/industrial whatever-this-age-is was a huge leap, and there was a lot of peripheral infrastructure to build up.

Now we're there, and yes there's more room for innovation, but there's no existential leap forward in front of us.

We have enough. We're not fundamentally changing the way of the world (not in developed countries). That doesn't generate a lot of peripheral work.

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#37

Post by jlouis » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 5:17 PM UTC

What if they are wrong as in completely wrong? Then I dare say we are also in trouble. The only road not littered with trouble is if the current state and pace can be kept.

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#38

Post by streptomycin » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 5:19 PM UTC

Not that I'm an acolyte of Kurzweil, but he does make a pretty convincing case that humans have a tendency to locally linearize things that really aren't linear, and then extrapolate linearly out into the future. This seems as if this may be one more example of that.

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#39

Post by nrcha » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 5:20 PM UTC

It's like saying that there will be no more exciting music and it all pretty much ended with Mozart and Beethoven. And one thing that is very consistent for human kind (with few very bright exceptions, of course), is the poor ability to predict future innovations and technologies. If you look at 100 year old drawings of year 2000, you will see flying steam engines, coal powered robotic maids and biplanes used for public transportation. So.. let's just wait and see what happens. A cure for cancer may be just as exciting breakthrough as electricity was in its time, and it may as well be just around the corner :)

Re: If Peter Thiel And Garry Kasparov Are Right, Then We're In Trouble

#40

Post by Osmium » Wed, Dec 05, 2012, 5:22 PM UTC

jswinghammer wrote: post #3

I think if you just discount all modern innovations then it's easy to say nothing has changed of note. My TV looks better than ever. Should I just discount that as progress because it's still a picture displayed in my living room? If you suggest the iPhone 5 which allows me to get anywhere without planning with turn by turn directions, communicate with family on the road, make dinner reservations, and answer a work r…

> Regulation (another word for taxes) and taxes are much higher than in prior periods. It should surprise no one that these have negative effects on growth.

Are you sure about this? If you're talking about manufacturing regulations, I'd be more wary about buying electronics or toys manufactured in China...

Regulations that are good for the consumer can ultimately be good for the companies that make the goods too, because they create a stable and responsible marketplace.