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Time is the only real currency we have

blog.theboringtech.io

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Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#241

Post by hyperpallium »

acituan wrote: post #186

I hate this framing. It is pressuring, dehumanizing as it contextualizes human endeavor in transactional terms, usually in a market. I know this goes against the ethos of high-tech, but humans don't have an imperative to be as productive as possible. They don't have to make the most use of their time. They don't have to get as efficient as they could. These are metrics that work fine for our machines, our code. But h…

This is great if you will never have an economic rival or military enemy.

There's a strong argument that not aiming at immediate productivity produces better productivity long-term (e.g. fundamental science, pure mathematics), but that still holds productivity as the primary value.

But what value survival if we lose our humanity?

A resolution is that our intuitions of morality support probabilitistic long-term survival, even if it doesn't seem so in the short-term, shaped as they are by evolution.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#242

Post by darawk »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #223
WalterBright wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hunter-gatherers regularly starve, because food resources are inconsistent. When you get too old to follow the herd with the tribe, you get left behind to die. You get a crippling injury, you get left behind to die. Hunting and killing game is always a high risk activity for injury and death. Starvation greatly limited the number of humans. Me, I like consistent, varied, cheap food. I like living in a heated dwelling…

The way I see it, those are orthogonal concerns. I love the modern world, there isn't a time and place in past history I'd prefer to live in to where and when I'm now. But at the same time, the way how new technology modifies the environment[0] is very interesting and worth a separate consideration. It sometimes does go too far - technology can be dehumanizing, if we're forced to lose some cherished values to accommo…

I think the point is that if the people agitating about productivity being evil had their way we'd all still be hunter gatherers.

Yes, it may well be that pausing development where we are would be more comfortable for those of us currently alive. But some people find meaning in the advancement of the human condition. That takes real effort, and causes a lot of people short term pain. But permanently making the world a better place for all future generations is a goal worth achieving, IMO.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#244

Post by zulln »

mikestew wrote: post #56
IggleSniggle wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has also been a thing at many US grocery stores for many years now, but inexplicably, many people don't use them.

I don’t use them because I just assume it’s going to be a personal information harvest fest, and it won’t work as advertised anyway. Like most other software-driven things these days.

There are versions that even allow paying with cash. It is basically the same experience as usual, you just tag all the stuff yourself.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#245

Post by acituan »

soulofmischief wrote: post #240
acituan wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A popular basketball player is hardly an authority in giving out wisdom on this matter. Not because of their profession, but because whatever wisdom they gathered through their exceptionally unique life situation is not going to be transferable to the life of 99.999..% of the world. This is not sound advice for how most of us should orient ourselves in life. He was the top or close to the top of a zero-sum system. Th…

You're doing essentially the opposite of appeal to authority. Imagine being a bright, capable mind, and a hard worker. You've decided to focus on a particular career which makes use of some of your skills, allows you a platform for recognition, and pays the bills. Say programming, or a dancer, or a top-tier professional athlete. Imagine that you still spend your free time satiating your intellectual curiosity in othe…

My choosing of phrase “A popular basketball player” is not to dismiss him on the basis of his profession but to contextualize his authority; that his authority comes from being good at sports but most importantly being enormously famous. This should not create undue relevance for him in this particular topic. But halo effects and whatnot, our stone age brains have the tendency to attribute importance to what he might say no matter what the subject matter is. If this is anti-appeal to authority, I believe it is appropriate.

Also, it is not the uniqueness of his skills that makes his wisdom questionably applicable on this matter. It is the totality of his life circumstances being radically different. Having enormous financial, social and athletic capital makes his situation very very divergent from practically everyone else’s. And it is not his wisdom about romantic relationships, how to be a father etc we’re questioning, it is about working at the expense of a balanced life, from a person who has a very special kind of work.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#246

Post by mellow2020 »

downshun wrote: post #227
TeMPOraL wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that. I can easily believe a good DNN could today generate better (by any kind of objective standard) music than one created by top composers. But here is where we discover another component of value that exists in arts: the connection to human mind. Given a piece of music you like that you don't know the provenance of, you'll probably value it different after learning it was composed by a human vs. generate…

It's like a defense mechanism. You value the work less because it was computer made rather than to admit to your flawed value assignment and vanity or human supremacism.

It's the difference between a friend giving you a note with words written on it, and finding a bunch of sticks arranged to the words by chance while strolling through the woods. There is nothing "flawed" about that valuing those things differently, how I judge things as valuable is entirely arbitrary, and entirely up to me.

And with AI it's not even by chance, even mediocre results are produced only after processing the input of countless humans. It's infinitely less cool of a coincidence than something that is actually random, like sticks forming a sentence where the wind blew them, and a complete NOP when it comes to human self-expression.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#247

Post by sorjuana »

WalterBright wrote: post #193
Barrin92 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. This attitude of being your own little manager of your own life and treating it like an incremental game is horrible. In James P. Carse's Finite and Infinite Games there one chapter on how the use of machines works both ways. It doesn't only shape the machine but it makes the person more 'machine-like'. In an attempt to operate a machine the person has itself to act mechanical and to comply with the interface of…

> In an attempt to operate a machine the person has itself to act mechanical and to comply with the interface of the machine rather than the other way around. I remember an article a while back where archaeologists examined the bones of pre-Columbian women in America. The bones showed the signs of long term debilitating, repetitive work from kneeling and grinding, by hand, corn into flour. Just last night I watched a…

Well, every situation could be seen as an advance considering the precedent conditions: Tolstoi's wife had to copy in handwriting "War and Peace". Three times. Corollary: It's easy to be a writer when you have a wife.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#248

Post by jodrellblank »

WalterBright wrote: post #218
TeMPOraL wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitpick section: > We went to agriculture because otherwise we'd starve. (...) If you think their lives were better because of no machines, I frankly cannot understand that. It's not like that. We were forced to start doing agriculture by competitive pressure; the people who did could conquer the people who didn't. Agriculture essentially gave us everything we consider achievements and civilization, so I'm glad that…

Hunter-gatherers regularly starve, because food resources are inconsistent. When you get too old to follow the herd with the tribe, you get left behind to die. You get a crippling injury, you get left behind to die. Hunting and killing game is always a high risk activity for injury and death. Starvation greatly limited the number of humans. Me, I like consistent, varied, cheap food. I like living in a heated dwelling…

It's no surprise that you like what you have; people like whatever it is that they have, whether they originally wanted it or not: https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_the_surprising_science...

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#249

Post by ImaCake »

jodrellblank wrote: post #248
WalterBright wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hunter-gatherers regularly starve, because food resources are inconsistent. When you get too old to follow the herd with the tribe, you get left behind to die. You get a crippling injury, you get left behind to die. Hunting and killing game is always a high risk activity for injury and death. Starvation greatly limited the number of humans. Me, I like consistent, varied, cheap food. I like living in a heated dwelling…

It's no surprise that you like what you have; people like whatever it is that they have, whether they originally wanted it or not: https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_the_surprising_science...

Tell that to anyone who is poor in an economic depression. Or anyone who has a serious illness. I once spent three months bedridden from an autoimmune illness. I never once "liked" what I had.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#250

Post by chadcmulligan »

bananamerica wrote: post #151
lawn wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Swede the mere concept of a bagger boggles my mind. Talk about wasteful.

As a Brazilian the idea of not having baggers makes me immediately concerned about unemployment...

Thats one thing the pandemic has made clear - how many jobs are unnecessary.
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