This is the closest analogy for what's about to happen
Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?
81–90 of 98 posts
Re: Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if I will witness the real revolution in my lifetime.
Things have to get very bad before people start to act, it’s not there yet
I think we are knocking on the door of almost there, at least in the US from my armchair. Things weren't "that bad" in 1917ish Russia, it was a slow gradual imperceptible decline and then we got Lenin and his entourage as accelerants. Doesn't take much to start a fire.
What is "bad"? Hunger?
Re: Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the speedups and conveniences of modern IT and the Internet have been massive: I can bank from my pocket, review the best photos out of 100k+ just when riding a tram, get virtually any good produced anywhere delivered to my doorstep in 1-3 business days (and it will be the exact kind and make I chose, not something that happened to be available), read virtually any book ever published while my appointment is…
> I can bank from my pocket My opinion on that is, it's not such a big gain compared to legacy banking with checks, phone calls etc. All the operations you can do now you could do with legacy banks, just a bit slower. Given banking is not something you do every second, the overall speedup is tiny.
When I was a kid, my dad would schedule a monthly visit to the bank. This is one afternoon freed. With 21 in the month, solid 4% of afternoons saved to do something else. Plus the peace of mind because you can check whatever you want whenever you want.
With e-commerce my shopping is down to just groceries. Clothes, electronics, tools, spare parts, furniture, all show up at my door magically without hunting them down in stores. I remember a small repair being half a day. It's an hour now.
My dad certainly did not and could not have maintained a 12 cafe outings a month habit. I can do it with a newborn. Still probably deflationary compared to his activity.
Re: Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's very myopic view. The gains by the rise of IT have been staggering in e.g. medicine. Modern drug discovery would be impossible without advances in computation, and we are getting breakthrough drugs all the time thanks to that. > We could already telegraph someone across Atlantic, we could extract knowledge in library, we could do accounting. The speedup is small compared to horses vs steam power for transporta…
Clearly written by someone who's never lived without steam power (semi tongue in cheek). But seriously, your ability to expediently research just doesn't compare to the ability to ship a metric ton of freight across the country without marshalling an army of people for months on end. As one example.
Clearly written by someone how did not get cancer that was deadly few years ago but now can be effectively suppressed.
I can make same argument - shipping back in time was absolutely possible, but many calculations we are performing now were not.
Re: Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't think in terms of dollars. Think in terms of stuff and services. You don't see the internet in terms of dollars because it often makes it cheaper to do something that was possible before. That looks like a negative, in terms of GDP. In terms of what people can do, and can afford to do, though, it opens enormous doors. Want some information? Don't need a library. Want to plan a trip? Don't need a travel agent. W…
> Don't need a library. This isn't as much of a positive as you seem to be implying. You can just go to a library. Or a travel agent. And it's probably better for you. It's not a downside.
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Re: Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?
#86The growth will be in stocks and capital gains, in the consolidation of wealth by a few individuals. If GDP increases, that’s just money left on the table by the ultra wealthy.
Surely you realise that average person can just buy stocks and reap benefits of it? And I'm not sure if you are serious about stock price-GDP division (typically higher stock prices are associated with INCREASE in GDP, not decrease).
Re: Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?
#87The growth will be in stocks and capital gains, in the consolidation of wealth by a few individuals. If GDP increases, that’s just money left on the table by the ultra wealthy.
I wonder if I will witness the real revolution in my lifetime.
If revolution happens, lives of almost everyone would become much worse. And for sure lives of IT workers which would be in kulaks category.
(disclaimer: it's first world i.e. USA/EU perspective, I know there are other places where revolution could potentially be good).
Re: Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?
#88Re: Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ones that can change it won’t because they benefit from the system being how it is. Being a politician is a gateway to money and power. The fundamental flaw of the constitution is that it had no ethics built in, it’s up to the voters to pick better, our press to report truthfully without bias and those have failed as well.
> The fundamental flaw of the constitution is that it had no ethics built in Yes, that would have been a really good intent to make explicit, to guide the courts. I think of that when the Supreme Court or a state court rules process is more important than a convicts demonstrable (with new evidence that has come to light) innocence. Really horrific given that one out of eight death row inmates are exonerated. That lev…
Of course the founding fathers didn’t have time to do that or address slavery either
Re: Is the Industrial Revolution a good precedent for explosive growth today?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. I believe that growth caused by the rise of IT, be it Internet or LLM, will be marginal, because the benefits for humanity are very marginal compared to that caused by steam engine, wing, antibiotics or telegraph. Everything IT does is slightly simplifying things we already could do. We could already telegraph someone across Atlantic, we could extract knowledge in library, we could do accounting. The speedup…
I think the speedups and conveniences of modern IT and the Internet have been massive: I can bank from my pocket, review the best photos out of 100k+ just when riding a tram, get virtually any good produced anywhere delivered to my doorstep in 1-3 business days (and it will be the exact kind and make I chose, not something that happened to be available), read virtually any book ever published while my appointment is…
Banking from your phone isn't as transformative as just banking. It's incremental.