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Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

nytimes.com

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Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#221

Post by antgiant »

darawk wrote: post #164
Forbo wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...thus far i've never seen anyone give good reason in the case of these drone strikes. Because the very action they are using to eliminate enemy combatants may in fact be creating more of them?

> Because the very action they are using to eliminate enemy combatants may in fact be creating more of them? That's an interesting statement. Do you have evidence for it?

Yep.

“over the past 15 years. Increased US efforts are correlated with a worsening of the overall terror situation. Statistical modeling indicates for every additional billion dollars spent and 1,000 American troops sent to fight the war on terror, the number of terror attacks worldwide increased by 19 (data available from the author). Furthermore, the model finds up to 80 percent of the variation in the number of worldwide terror attacks since 9/11 can be explained by just those two variables—US money spent and military members sent to fight the war on terror. The data for both money spent and troops deployed come from the Congressional Research Service publication, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11 by Amy Belasco. The number of terror attacks is from the Global Terrorism Database, hosted by the University of Maryland.”

“The data show countries the US invaded had 143 more terror attacks per year than countries the US did not invade. Similarly, countries in which the US conducted drone strikes were home to 395 more terror attacks per year than those where the US did not.”

https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/issues/Spring...

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#222

Post by darawk »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #215
darawk wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't matter. It absolutely matters. Intending to kill civilians and killing them accidentally are very, very different things. > Adults are expected to understand the potential consequences of their actions. If you knowingly fire missiles into a populated area, you don't get to say "oops, I didn't mean to" when you accidentally kill a few dozen innocent civilians. Are you alleging that they didn't understand…

If you blow up a terrorist training camp out in the desert, and it turns out afterwards that there were a few civilian hostages or dependents on-site, that's unfortunate but arguably unavoidable. If you bomb an outdoor wedding party with dozens of visible women and children, and then return to fire again when ambulances are on the scene, that's not an "unfortunate accident". That's deadly negligence at the very best.…

> If you bomb an outdoor wedding party with dozens of visible women and children, and then return to fire again when ambulances are on the scene, that's not an "unfortunate accident". That's deadly negligence at the very best. You're trying to twist the second example into the framework of the first.

Is it? Do you have a sense of what went into that particular decision? Was the wedding party the target, or were they hit accidentally? Did they know it was a wedding party? Did they actually do a double tap strike in this instance?

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#223

Post by hindsightbias »

freeflight wrote: post #202
cm2187 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of 9/11 hijackers were victimized by the US. Islamist militants don’t need drone strikes to hate the US.

So this has now become a "We've always been at war with Islam!"? Is that kind of 1984esque discourse really helpful? For some proper context, I really suggest reading this CS Monitor piece from back in 2001 [0]. Keen observers will quickly realize that pretty much everything written there has become reality over these past 17 years. It should also be noted that there's a certain irony to it when the "Christian Scienc…

The Christian Science Monitor, while founded by the founder of the Church of Christ does not really represent the Church or push its doctrines. It has historically been one of the least ideological and most objective news outlets for a couple of generations.

So there may be irony in the name, but not in their practices.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#224

Post by darawk »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #218
darawk wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In any built-up area Was it being done in built-up areas? I see the word 'rescuer' being used in these articles. But I notably do not see the word 'civilian'. A terrorist who tries to save the lives of his terrorist buddies is still a 'rescuer', and that's exactly who these drone strikes ought to be targeting.

The term "village" is used repeatedly. If you think that--when there's an explosion in a village--it's reasonable to assume that the only people who rush to assist are terrorists, then you need to provide proof of that, not ask me to prove the opposite. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.

> The term "village" is used repeatedly. If you think that--when there's an explosion in a village--it's reasonable to assume that the only people who rush to assist are terrorists, then you need to provide proof of that, not ask me to prove the opposite. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.

Do you believe that the CIA is purposefully targeting random villagers for drone strikes?

If yes...why?

If no...then you must believe that the CIA is intelligent enough to have asked the very same question that you have, and concluded that the likely respondents would in fact be enemy combatants.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#225

Post by virmundi »

mLuby wrote: post #172
virmundi wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know that the entity isn't better than its people? The long term stability of governments correlates with general wellness. Technology helps make the government more stable. If 90% of the population's standard of living improves at the expense of the 10%, is that wrong? Where is the line? Even when a rising tide raises all boats, there are many who will still get swamped. Should we stop forward progression…

Are you describing a situation where government A is objectively better for its citizens but they want government B (which wants to supplant A and is objectively worse) more than A for some reason? I'm not following how your second paragraph is connected to the question of governments protecting themselves at the expense of their citizens' well-being. It sounds like you're talking about the trolley problem, and tying…

I’m saying it is not obvious that an authoritarian government that suppresses a minority for the betterment of the majority is bad.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#226

Post by darawk »

antgiant wrote: post #221
darawk wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the very action they are using to eliminate enemy combatants may in fact be creating more of them? That's an interesting statement. Do you have evidence for it?

Yep. “over the past 15 years. Increased US efforts are correlated with a worsening of the overall terror situation. Statistical modeling indicates for every additional billion dollars spent and 1,000 American troops sent to fight the war on terror, the number of terror attacks worldwide increased by 19 (data available from the author). Furthermore, the model finds up to 80 percent of the variation in the number of wo…

Of course the countries we invade will have more terror attacks. We've put targets there for them to hit. This does not prove that US intervention causes terrorism. What it proves is that when you move their targets thousands of miles closer to them, terrorists will attack them more frequently.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#227

Post by cm2187 »

freeflight wrote: post #202
cm2187 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of 9/11 hijackers were victimized by the US. Islamist militants don’t need drone strikes to hate the US.

So this has now become a "We've always been at war with Islam!"? Is that kind of 1984esque discourse really helpful? For some proper context, I really suggest reading this CS Monitor piece from back in 2001 [0]. Keen observers will quickly realize that pretty much everything written there has become reality over these past 17 years. It should also be noted that there's a certain irony to it when the "Christian Scienc…

What you are measuring is merely the state of chaos of the middle east post iraq war and arab spring.

If you look at the history of terrorism in Europe for instance, before the 70s it was mostly independentist mvts / de-colonisation related. 70s to early 80s was mostly far left terror attacks. Mid 80s state sponsored terrorism (Libya, Iran). 90s to now, islamist terrorism.

Islamists were blowing bombs in the metro in Paris in the 90s, and tried a 9/11 style plane attack on Paris in 1994 [1].

Islamism is a worldwide phenomenon, like communism in its time. If you go through every single muslim country from Marocco to Indonesia, the largest or second largest political party is an islamist party, or the islamists are in power, or they have been outlawed after taking too much power, or they are one of the major party to a civil war. Terrorism is a side effect of this rise in islamism, like the red brigades, RAF, etc were to communism.

So no, it’s not just a reaction to the war in Iraq.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_8969

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#228

Post by jancsika »

golemotron wrote: post #61
jonnykim98 wrote: post #48

Is code truly amoral? Technology is not morally neutral. It embodies a set of values, a framework and an ideology. For instance, Google search engines have intrinsic properties that make them inherently and irredeemably flawed, because they attempt to infer intellectual properties, such as the meaningful content of a web site, from physical properties. Search engines rely primarily on query term location and query te…

Is a hammer amoral? You can bonk someone on the head with it or build a house. So the answer is yes.

You can't convincingly ransom a hospital on the other side of the Earth by swinging a hammer in your basement.

You can't remotely exploit life-critical systems by studying which hammers were used to assemble them.

You can't send streams of hammers through web browsers and persuade the user to mint coins in their spare time.

You can't hammer a nail in a copper wire outside your beach house and catch a printer on fire in the midwest.

I have no opinion on the question about the morality of code. But no answer to that question has anything to do with a hammer.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#229

Post by WalterBright »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #101
patrickaljord wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our society has been set up so that orders of magnitude of more money is spent on advertising technology than clean energy, sanitation, sustainability, and ethical food production. Technology is not the problem. The problem is that in order to invest in "clean energy, sanitation, sustainability, and ethical food production" you need a huge amount of capital. A good way to build capital is to invest into technologie…

That's not true at all. Your thinking is dangerously wrong. If you feel that these companies like Google are in it to make humanity better, you really need a better understanding of people. Google, Exon Mobile, Phillip Morris, and every other public company work in virtually the same way. They maximize profit. If you work at one of these companies and you don't help the company make more money, see how long you keep…

> The military has been behind virtually every significant technology at least in the United States.

Not jet engines, rocket engines, transistors, ethernet, search, cloud computing, encryption, agricultural revolution, airplanes, steelmaking, telephones, electric power grids, movies, electric light, LEDs, microprocessors, Linux, vaccines, railroads, automobiles, television, radio, food preservation, tractors, printing, vacuum tubes, microcomputers, on and on.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#230

Post by lgleason »

The last thing I want is a un-elected, for profit technology company that is more powerful than many small countries moralizing to the world....especially by banning/silencing those it deems to not be "pure enough" for it's platform. On the plus side success tends to breed failure and I think it is beginning to head in that direction.
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