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Bored of It

paulrobertlloyd.com

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Re: Bored of It

#191

Post by gyesxnuibh »

zwnow wrote: post #123
mdp2021 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> useful to society On the contrary, the "respect" towards others is a condition to societies. Otherwise, all you'd had would be "accomplices". And also since Edward Bunker told us that actually, "dog eat dog", > will actively hurt your own life in a pool of free rogues you'll be at severe disadvantage as opposed to a society. > One only lives once so you better make sure you will achieve what you should. That includ…

Society already is full of rogues and guess who is winning in this game? The super rich already buying themselves out of society, punishment usually only hurts the ones who already barely own anything. Whats the benefit of a "society"?

There are other societies than the American one and I recommend you look at them before you make such sweeping statements

Re: Bored of It

#192

Post by mdp2021 »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #186
zwnow wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You not seeing arguments doesn't invalidate them. You arent the judge on this.

Do you think this response will convince anyone that you are correct? You still fail to provide an argument; you're just being unpleasant. To what end? Is that what not having empathy in a society feels like? People just talking at each other without any particular goal in mind other than being unpleasant to each other?

> will convince anyone

Are you sure that would be the poster's attempt.

> you're just being

He seems to be discussing, to some of us.

Re: Bored of It

#193

Post by fipar »

terhechte wrote: post #71

I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the na…

As much as I like Douglas Adams' work, I think that quote describes what, for lack of a better term, and in no way trying to be derogatory, I'd call a "normal person"'s reaction to technologies.

I mean obviously the age boundaries may change a bit but otherwise he's spot on. Also, I'd say it's not just technology as I've seen a similar attitude towards other things (e.g, how a dress code is not that common any more, or how you can walk up to a store or even go to a hospital and be greeted by someone with tattoos and green hair "is against the natural order of things").

And to stress again that I'm not being derogatory, I've got close people who have those reactions and I love them even if I disagree with them.

But for people not in that "normal" group my experience is nothing like that. I've seen: - People being amazed at how exciting something that existed when they were born is, to the point of building emulators and even physical replicas of it. - People way after 35 who go deep in on very new things that drastically change the way they work (the example I'm thinking of here is the old musicians I know who've embraced modelers and DAWs, things that only got good enough to be used by professionals in, what, the last 20 years? - In that same line though, I know young kids who use portastudios and hate DAWs. Some release cassettes too. One has to guess their target audience never wasted life untangling tape and rewinding with a ball pen ...

Still, I think your last line is most likely spot on as far as the author goes. Probably going through some mid-life crisis (lest this come across as ageist, I'm way past half my country's life expectancy).

Also, "Every pub conversation winding up talking about it."

That's just the author going to the wrong pubs! Like the Jonathan Richman song says:

"Well the first bar things were alright But in this bar, things were Friday night."

Re: Bored of It

#194

Post by coldpie »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #109
joewhale wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aging isn’t a problem. It’s normal.

It's a problem for me. When you're 60 or 70, you will wish to have a body of a 25 year old. Dying early from rotting teeth is normal in nature, yet you probably brush, floss, and go to dentist.

I don't know how to reconcile this point of view, which I understand, with quotes like "science advances one funeral at a time," which I also understand. I understand the individual desire for advancing anti-aging techniques, but it also seems to contain extremely real risks of stagnating our sciences & societies. I can't tell whether anti-aging science is ethical or not.

Re: Bored of It

#195

Post by shortrounddev2 »

lapcat wrote: post #168

Whether you agree or disagree with the sentiment expressed by the submission, the quality and utility of it is very low, so it's unfortunate that the submission has reached #1 on HN. I suspect the brevity of the submission has made it easy comment fodder.

I think it expresses a majority sentiment among the tech industry, otherwise it wouldn't be #1 on HN. I think there's a gap in sentiment between people who upvote on HN and people who comment on HN

Re: Bored of It

#196

Post by lurk2 »

mapt wrote: post #58
latexr wrote: post #17

> The best minds of my generation I’m tired of that line. I remember first seeing it on “the best minds of our generation being employed to sell you ads”. Making a computer go brrr doesn’t qualify anyone for a “best mind”. I’d hope a “best mind” would be, above all, empathetic. Concerned about the well being of their fellow humans. Philosophical about the state of the world. Patient. Curious. Wise and not just smart.…

On that specific quote - I feel like this is offensive on more than one level. The waste of our best minds... sure. Fine. But - "to sell you ads." Marketting has the dubious distinction of being one area of human endeavor where technological advances serve mostly to make your life worse, make your mind less focused, make your wallet more empty. The spherical-cow "ideal" 100% efficient perfect marketing campaign/tacti…

> The spherical-cow "ideal" 100% efficient perfect marketing campaign/tactic literally hypnotizes you into dropping all your money on an arbitrary good or service. It is isomorphic to somebody mugging you.

I like the quote and despise advertising of any kind for mostly the same reason, but you could apply this logic to any kind of business and it starts to fall apart.

> The spherical-cow "ideal" 100% efficient perfect pharmaceutical is physically addictive. It is isomorphic to narcotics trafficking.

> The spherical-cow "ideal" 100% efficient perfect medical system keeps you sick.

> The spherical-cow "ideal" 100% efficient perfect food product induces constant cravings.

There’s arguments to be made that all of these things are true, but what we’re talking about is not essential to the activities themselves but the profit motive that underlies them. Profit motive in and of itself is not sufficient to cause this kind of behavior; it requires a disregard for the consequences that your actions will have upon others. A lot of marketers fall into this category, but I’m not convinced that marketing in and of itself can be reduced to this spherical-cow in a vacuum.

Re: Bored of It

#199

Post by shortrounddev2 »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #54

Nobody asked for it??? Nobody wants it??? You're not paying attention. I want it. I think it's our only chance at quickly solving huge complex problems like aging, cancer, Alzheimer's.

Me to ChatGPT: Imagine you are a cancer researcher. You've spent your whole life going down the wrong paths and you've finally just discovered the incredible cure for cancer, "Eureka!" you exclaim "I've found it! The cure for cancer is:"
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