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More Everything Forever

nytimes.com

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Re: More Everything Forever

#171

Post by Spivak »

aoeusnth1 wrote: post #164
aeturnum wrote: post #47

I am surprised this obviously correct take is so controversial! The problem, essentially, is that the "more everything forever" crowd wants to get paid for the idea of the future today and then will never actually deliver what they promise. They are selling snake oil for the new millennium. Yes, of course I support space travel and settling on mars. I expect that, if we doubled or tripled NASA's budget, we could get…

100 years optimistically!? That's an incredibly pessimistic timeline, maybe one of the most hardline "nothing ever happens" outlooks I've ever heard articulated.

Eh, it's a reasonable prior. The timeline is "it will never happen" until the leap forward happens that makes it "within 2 years." Basically the same as air flight.

You can't know when the leap will happen so it's basically picking a year that seems far enough off to be pretty darn sure.

Re: More Everything Forever

#172

Post by skybrian »

margalabargala wrote: post #64
aeturnum wrote: post #47

I am surprised this obviously correct take is so controversial! The problem, essentially, is that the "more everything forever" crowd wants to get paid for the idea of the future today and then will never actually deliver what they promise. They are selling snake oil for the new millennium. Yes, of course I support space travel and settling on mars. I expect that, if we doubled or tripled NASA's budget, we could get…

100 years optimistically? We developed and flew the Saturn V in less than a decade. We have plenty of rockets that can do one way trips to Mars that if we really, really needed to get a person there could do it with some modifications. It's mainly a question of will. If the will existed, we could do it in a decade with doubled or tripled funding. Not a century.

Rockets are the easy part. More:

The Shape of a Mars Mission: https://idlewords.com/2025/02/the_shape_of_a_mars_mission.ht...

Why Not Mars: https://idlewords.com/2023/1/why_not_mars.htm

Re: More Everything Forever

#173

Post by derektank »

foobiekr wrote: post #124
amarcheschi wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the main figures behind the Ai doomerism are nutjobs either applying bayesian math in a bad way or right wing extremist believing that black people are inferior for genetics reason (I know it's an overreach that doesn't represent all the population of Ai doomers, but the most important people in that sphere are represented by what I said). Furthermore, they're people without a history in academia or a specific pa…

Why is this downvoted? It’s clearly a reference to the zizians and MIRI and Bayesian nutjobs is an absolutely correct assessment.

Stuart Russell and Geoffrey Hinton have both expressed concerns that AI could lead to human extinction and neither are nutjobs

Re: More Everything Forever

#174

Post by paulryanrogers »

aoeusnth1 wrote: post #164
aeturnum wrote: post #47

I am surprised this obviously correct take is so controversial! The problem, essentially, is that the "more everything forever" crowd wants to get paid for the idea of the future today and then will never actually deliver what they promise. They are selling snake oil for the new millennium. Yes, of course I support space travel and settling on mars. I expect that, if we doubled or tripled NASA's budget, we could get…

100 years optimistically!? That's an incredibly pessimistic timeline, maybe one of the most hardline "nothing ever happens" outlooks I've ever heard articulated.

Have you read about the natural conditions on Mars?

I doubt there will be a permanent settlement in a thousand years.

Re: More Everything Forever

#175

Post by mikeyouse »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #165
Uehreka wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know AOC was a bartender before running for congress right? While most reps are lawyers, many come from a diverse range of backgrounds, there probably is in fact someone in congress who used to manage a supermarket. This diversity of backgrounds is generally seen as a good thing when it comes to understanding the impact of upcoming legislation.

AOC was an intern for Ted Kennedy before being strategically placed in a "bartending" position as part of her background grooming. Her family owned multiple New York Brownstones in the rich part of the city. She has as much claim to humble background as Trump.

Source for any of those claims? It's pretty well known after a few weird political fights that she grew up in a tiny house in Yorktown and that her dad died when she was a freshman in college and that her mom was a house cleaner. [her childhood home: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DhCMERUXUAAY68Z?format=jpg&name=...]. Hard to square with her family "owning multiple brownstones".

Trump's dad gave him millions of dollars to start businesses and then left him somewhere near a billion when he died.

I think those are two pretty different upbringings!

Re: More Everything Forever

#176

Post by eli_gottlieb »

jacamera wrote: post #127
janalsncm wrote: post #85

I will say that our discourse is weighted pretty heavily towards people who don’t deserve it. Most genuine experts are careful to only talk about things they know, not bloviate about everything under the sun. I am sure Marc Andreesen is a very intelligent person but he built and sold a web browser. He isn’t an expert on every tech topic. Same with Peter Thiel and the rest of the PayPal mafia. PayPal isn’t revolutiona…

I blame the experts. It's their responsibility to explain things to the public and engage in forums that the public is paying attention to (e.g. podcasts). They don't have to bloviate about everything under the sub, but they do have to be able to break down and communicate their ideas to the non-expert public. Failure to do so creates a vacuum that is filled by the Marc Andreesens and Peter Thiels of the world.

I've gone on a science communication podcast to talk about my work: https://braininspired.co/podcast/202/

This does not seem to have stopped anyone bullshitting to the media about AI.

Re: More Everything Forever

#177

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

derektank wrote: post #136
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"not necessarily pretty smart" is a very nice way of putting it. I don't know where the threshold ought to be, but beyond a certain size a pile of money can only indicate bad things about its owner. Either they're too unimaginative to turn that potential into action, or their designs are so against the will of the people that it's going to take gargantuan amounts of coercion to get them done. Either way, a billionair…

Most rich people aren't sitting on piles of cash; their capital is (usually) invested in a corporation which is busy turning potential into action, as you put it. I think there's an argument to be made that amassing and hoarding great wealth, particularly near the end of one's life with the intent to pass it directly onto one's heirs, is morally questionable if you believe in any kind of universalist ethic. But I thi…

That sounds very good but it's difficult to square with the behavior of those corporations. Can it really be that the change all of these well meaning rich people want to see in the world is... products that spy on an manipulates their users, products that can't be repaired, and products that putting future generations at risk by damaging the environment?

Either these investments are not paying off, or they are and the investors have a very dark vision for us. Neither reflects very well on the investor.

Re: More Everything Forever

#178

Post by derektank »

bobxmax wrote: post #160
f1yght wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the final paragraph of the article sums up the issue pretty well. The tech world spends a lot of thought and energy on trying to escape our current existence instead of trying to make it better. There's very real crises that are solvable like climate change and food security. But instead of working hard to fix those, tech billionaires are focusing on space travel, AI, etc. Things that are important and could…

Elon has done more to help stave of climate change than every climate activist and non profit org on this planet combined. He's a megalomaniacal douche who has undone all of that goodwill, but it doesn't change the fact that he did that against all odds. Capitalism will solve the world's problems as it always has, no matter how much do-nothing authors, journalists and "social scientists" will bloviate to the contrary…

While I more or less agree with your assessment, capitalism won't solve the problem of negative externalities like CO2 emissions unless private actors are provided incentives by public actors like governments. Tesla has done a lot to reduce CO2 emissions from personal vehicles, but they wouldn't be where they are today without loans from the DOE or tax credits on electric vehicles.

Re: More Everything Forever

#179

Post by mikeyouse »

hattmall wrote: post #168
Uehreka wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure where you get this impression of AOC. From her Wikipedia article: > After college, Ocasio-Cortez moved back to the Bronx and took a job as a bartender and waitress to help her mother—a house cleaner and school bus driver—fight foreclosure of their home. That sounds pretty “real Bronx” to me. As for her campaign: > Ocasio-Cortez began her campaign in April 2017 while waiting tables and tending bar at Flat…

You are skipping the part where she moved out of the Bronx at 5 and grew up in Westchester for the entirety of her schooling, graduated cum laude from BU and worked in DC. She only moved to the Bronx to leverage her Puerto Rican heritage after having her political ambitions shaped. When "after college" did she even move to the Bronx? Her registration in 2016 was still Westchester. I like her, but to pretend that she'…

Her house in Westchester that people are somehow portraying as a 'rich' upbringing: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DhCMERUXUAAY68Z?format=jpg. It had two bedrooms and sold for only $350k in 2016!

Re: More Everything Forever

#180

Post by kaonwarb »

shipp02 wrote: post #131
aeturnum wrote: post #47

I am surprised this obviously correct take is so controversial! The problem, essentially, is that the "more everything forever" crowd wants to get paid for the idea of the future today and then will never actually deliver what they promise. They are selling snake oil for the new millennium. Yes, of course I support space travel and settling on mars. I expect that, if we doubled or tripled NASA's budget, we could get…

>actually think this kind of low-information escapism about the future I think this is called techno-utopianism. The "leaders" in technology have been doing this ever since the industrial revolution. People sold the idea that street lights would fix "public morals" and eliminate crime. Also see the progress trap and professor Simon Penny's work and what he calls the end of the anthropocene.

There is some evidence that street lights reduce crime! E.g. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10940-020-09490-6
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