211–220 of 480 posts
>Imagine dealing with the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in 1989 instead. I've wondered about this. No vaccines presumably. But, also, the sort of work from home, online shopping, remote school, etc. that many people/companies were able to more or less adapt to basically wouldn't have been possible in 1990--and, arguably, much before 2000 if that. It's true that there was less air travel, including international travel…
But are people happier and more fulfilled? Are they more able to have a meaning-filled life surrounded by people with whom they have close and lasting relationships? What should we be measuring when we measure improvement?
Should we be measuring at all? Claiming that people have to be more happy over time is a weird proposition for a biologist like me. Not only happiness does not exist (see reification), the idea that it can be 'measured and improved' is silly. Should the next generation of birds be more happy and fulfilled than the previous one? Should the next generation of chimps have stronger lasting relationships? Does it even mak…
I don't mean to suggest that miserable circumstances don't make you miserable; just that circumstances that are twice as awful don't seem to make people twice as miserable. I suspect that most mediaeval peasants were about as cheerful as most ordinary people today.
I think he kind of missed the elephant that is modern communication technology has reduced the marginal cost of skilled services enabling pretty much every object designed in an office and manufactured in a factory to benefit from a broader array of engineering and design professionals and methodologies. The average product and service that the average actor in the economy interacts with is designed and optimized to…
I had a moment like this recently with, of all things, a snorkeling mask. It was one of those full face masks with a big snorkel sticking out the top like a unicorn's horn that popped on the market a few years ago. It is a marvel. It took all the downsides of the old masks and ingeniously fixed them. Full mouth and nose breathing so you can breathe naturally and comfortably, an airflow pattern that pulls dry air over…
There are tons of live improvements from my point of view, but the few downsides that exist today make it worse in overall. The main downside I see is: - big tech companies are becoming so powerful that they will interfere in our daily lives through tech (because tech is everywhere) and there is little we can do about it we want it or not. You cannot escape Google/Microsoft/Facebook/whatever. You just can't (unless y…
This is such nonsense.
There are more alternatives now than ever. Name any service provided by FANAMNGS (or whatever acronym we're using today) and there are many alternatives. Shit we even have viable alternatives to iPhones and Androids.
Now if you need AWS level quality of service, you're gonna have to use a service provided by a company that has the means to provide that level of service. The difference is, 20 years ago, that level of service was just not available to your average person/company.
If you're talking about social media, then yeah, social media NETWORKS rely on having everyone on the same platform. It's easier than ever to host your own Geocities equivalent, if that's what you wanna do for some reason.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a moment like this recently with, of all things, a snorkeling mask. It was one of those full face masks with a big snorkel sticking out the top like a unicorn's horn that popped on the market a few years ago. It is a marvel. It took all the downsides of the old masks and ingeniously fixed them. Full mouth and nose breathing so you can breathe naturally and comfortably, an airflow pattern that pulls dry air over…
These are somewhat dangerous as the additional airspace allows CO2 to build up. I haven't seen good studies either way, but there's lots of anecdata out there of people reporting symptoms.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The downside to broadening the talent pool for design/manufacturing is that it means workers now have to be among the best in the world to get business and thus earn a good living. It no longer suffices to be the best in a local region. If each local region needs its own widget factory, then to become a top widgetsmith you only have to compete with the local widgetsmith talent pool. Just as there can be many high sch…
The upside I think of is that this enables more specialization and "division of labor", which is one of the basic drivers of prosperity.
I don't have any data handy, but I think we often feel greater satisfaction working through all of the aspects to creating something versus being a "cog in the machine" and specializing in one role. E.g. I'd rather build a boat - have a hand in the design, source the materials, and actually physically build it rather than work in a factory and operate a machine that spits out rudders all day, every day.
Of course, the boats created via mass production are probably going to be cheaper and in many ways better than what a novice manages to put together.
This reminds me of a golden age blog post, when lists turned out to be an understudied literary device. I'm a fan of "dumps." Some interestingly debatable ones here: " Intellectual Property Maximalism rollback: copyright terms have not and probably will not be indefinitely extended again to eternity to protect Mickey Mouse, and in 2019, for the first time since 1998, works entered the public domain " I think the easy…
This reminds me of a golden age blog post, when lists turned out to be an understudied literary device. I'm a fan of "dumps." Some interestingly debatable ones here: " Intellectual Property Maximalism rollback: copyright terms have not and probably will not be indefinitely extended again to eternity to protect Mickey Mouse, and in 2019, for the first time since 1998, works entered the public domain " I think the easy…
You're only arguing against the claim about copyright terms by equating two separate definitions of "public domain." public domain is being enriched by that stuff from the early 20th century. The "public feeling" stuff of the 1999 internet wasn't actually in the public domain then either. The public domain has gotten larger as has the private domain . But all that private stuff is now on track to expire one day, whil…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Sure, it's possible that THIS is the high point and it'll all go down-hill from here, but that's like being a broken clock - if you think every thing will kill you, you will eventually be right. It's not about present society being a global maximum, it's about present society being a local maximum. The lessons from history are often that things can and do get worse, sometimes for generations, before improving again…
> (and I would argue probable) that life will get worse for a long while before improving. Sure. Like I said, you can do this at any point in time and if enough people do that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy so it's better not. Out of curiosity, I took a look at your submission history (which is vast!) and it's 90% doom and gloom across a vast array of topics. I do think living with such a negativity bias is ve…
I think it only seems overly negative -because- so many people are blindly optimistic and assume things just get better naturally with no action required on our part. That's why I have such a negative outlook, I can envision the immense work we need to do to address climate change (and many other issues) and I'm seeing such a small amount of work being done that it's basically a rounding error. Watching people reject even the small amount of work required to personally address COVID (a free shot) does not fill me with hope that we can make big changes.
>But the world is inherited by those who DO do those things - everything we have, everything we are, everything we're investing in - is there because someone in the past believed that the future is worth the work
I think this is the disconnect between us. The future is worth the work, but we refuse to work on the future. We instead work harder to prop up the unsustainable present.