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Child's Play: Tech's new generation and the end of thinking

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Re: Child's Play: Tech's new generation and the end of thinking

#201

Post by FloorEgg »

dyauspitr wrote: post #185
mayhemducks wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the most valuable and important thing you can learn will be to think critically and communicate well." I have heard some form this advice for over 30 years. Not one single penny I have earned in my career came from my critical thinking. It came from someone taking a big financial risk with the hope that they will come out ahead. In fact, I've had jobs that actively discouraged critical thinking. I have also been tol…

Critical, individualistic thinking is what the west does best. The east seems to be better at implementation and improvement once provided with a new idea. That’s where we currently stand atleast, who knows how China will do in the future. Maybe they’re the total package but that remains to be seen.

Why conflate critical thinking with individualistic values?

It seems you are unnecessarily muddying the water.

Re: Child's Play: Tech's new generation and the end of thinking

#203

Post by culebron21 »

It was weirdly fascinating to read. And also now I get why tech journalism contemplates the idea of 20/40/60% people being useless -- they don't invent it, nor made scientific prediction -- they just saw those junkies in the streets of SF. The only mistake they make is that the whole world can't be SF, where many streams of money make this great flood.

Re: Child's Play: Tech's new generation and the end of thinking

#204

Post by Buttons840 »

dyauspitr wrote: post #182
Buttons840 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An example of this I've personally seen is a friend who works on COBOL mainframes at a bank. He writes COBOL and maintains a banking system that keeps the world running. Literally like a billion people die if the system he maintains fails. I maintain a VC funded webpage that only works half the time. I make more than him, a lot more.

> Literally like a billion people die if the system he maintains fails. This has to be an exaggeration.

If the banking system failed? Would be pretty bad...

Re: Child's Play: Tech's new generation and the end of thinking

#205

Post by krackers »

Fricken wrote: post #186
jamesjolliffe wrote: post #135

Wow this guy can write. I don’t even agree with his point or pessimism. I just enjoy reading this.

He's using common language to say common things on common subjects, but he does it well, and in a way I can't quite put my finger on.

More than the prose itself, I think it's that what he's writing about isn't exactly "common knowledge" but rather shrewd, piercing observation.

The way he understands and captures the dynamics makes you think he's a native to the "bay area" tech scene or immersed in TPOT. Yet here's a complete outsider, pinpointing the unstated core premises and paradoxes of these communities.

Re: Child's Play: Tech's new generation and the end of thinking

#206

Post by popalchemist »

PaulHoule wrote: post #172
popalchemist wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and broadly speaking those concrete concerns can be considered in aggregate as "upward mobility."

Not necessarily. Workers don't want to move into the overclass, they just want to live with dignity. One major theme is that things that seemed very ordinary and attainable a generation ago for ordinary people, like owning a house, now seem out of reach. Circa 1970 Issac Asimov wrote an essay that started with a personal anecdote about how amazed he was that he could get a thyroidectomy for his Graves Disease for abo…

You clearly don't know what the term upward mobility means. It doesn't necessarily mean moving from one class to another - though that WOULD be included within its scope, however extraordinary an example it may be.

It can mean moving within a class.

Surely most people want to better their station. To argue against that is insane and counter to every observable fact about human nature.

Re: Child's Play: Tech's new generation and the end of thinking

#207

Post by FloorEgg »

drivebyhooting wrote: post #112
FloorEgg wrote: post #53

I was enjoying the article until I got to this paragraph: > Individual intelligence will mean nothing once we have superhuman AI, at which point the difference between an obscenely talented giga-nerd and an ordinary six-pack-drinking bozo will be about as meaningful as the difference between any two ants. If what you do involves anything related to the human capacity for reason, reflection, insight, creativity, or th…

This part was a long description of the zeitgeist in SF; it was not meant to be the author’s own opinion.

I realize that now, and feel a bit foolish for being triggered by it. It's too late for me to edit my comment now though.

Re: Child's Play: Tech's new generation and the end of thinking

#208

Post by dyauspitr »

FloorEgg wrote: post #201
dyauspitr wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Critical, individualistic thinking is what the west does best. The east seems to be better at implementation and improvement once provided with a new idea. That’s where we currently stand atleast, who knows how China will do in the future. Maybe they’re the total package but that remains to be seen.

Why conflate critical thinking with individualistic values? It seems you are unnecessarily muddying the water.

In my opinion there is a correlation there. I think individualistic societies are better at thinking of new paradigm shifting ideas.

Re: Child's Play: Tech's new generation and the end of thinking

#209

Post by botusaurus »

jimmaswell wrote: post #198
iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #22

I genuinely like the author's style ( not in the quote above; its here for a different reason ). It paints a picture in a way that I still am unable to. I suck at stories. Anyway, back to the quote. If that is true, then we are in pickle. Claw and its security issues is just a symptom of that 'break things' spirit. And yes, this has been true for a while, but we keep increasing both in terms of speed and scale. I am…

I think there has always been some truth to that, long before AI. Being driven to get up and just do the thing is the most important factor in getting things done. Expertise and competency are force multipliers, but you can pick those up along the way - I think people who prefer to front-load a lot of theory find this distasteful, sometimes even ego-threatening, but it's held true in my observations across my career.…

be honest, how much of this big comment was "expanded" with AI?

Re: Child's Play: Tech's new generation and the end of thinking

#210

Post by bitwize »

holoduke wrote: post #158
MagicMoonlight wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just look at current software. Windows is maintained by morons, and gets shitter every year. Linux is still written by a couple of people. Once people like that die, nobody will know how to write operating systems. I certainly couldn’t remake Linux. There’s no way anyone born after 2000 could, their brains are mush. All software is just shit piled on top of shit. Backends in JavaScript, interfaces which use an entire…

You should go outside of the "web" world. Automotive, medical or heavy industries. You will see that their are plenty of low level developers/engineers our there. Yes even ones born after 2000.

And they get paid squat compared to their brainrotted silly-valley webshit-slinger counterparts. Can we pay these fine folks, as well as people in professions like teaching, more?
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