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Magnifica Humanitas

vatican.va

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Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#311

Post by Levitz »

jamesinmn wrote: post #180
GoToRO wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hard disagree. No matter what gets built, it will be used for bad things if the society is not properly constructed. We need to fix our government and then you can build anything you want. I don't like putting the blame on the builders, building is already difficult as it is. Also you can't built something in isolation, word will get out anyway. That's why this speech is either naive or he just wanted to tick a todo…

> I don’t like putting blame on the builders Why does it have to be either/or? From a high-level view, there are powerful cultural/political forces that nudge us towards building harmful, wasteful things without us being aware of said forces. The government, corporate greed, and billion-dollar marketing budgets are to blame. But on the ground, from an in-the-trenches perspective, I think an engineer at Meta, for exam…

It is simply not feasible.

It's not either/or in strict terms, it absolutely is either/or in practical terms. When the conscientious engineer chooses not to take the 300k job, the next one in line does. If enough choose not to, it just became a 400k job.

Can you change society in such a way that nobody would take such jobs? In strict terms, sure, in practical terms it probably entails enormous costs, both economical and societal. And then you still have other countries.

There's an entire legal code filled with things on which we can't rely on the morals of the people. We can't stop theft, rape and murder, what makes you think that stopping engineers is any more feasible?

The best thing builders can do is use their knowledge and authority to pressure the other side.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#312

Post by Swizec »

daheza wrote: post #304
stavros wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone actually has an issue with AI. I think people are finally fed up with late-stage capitalism and lashing out.

I think if there were any solution to the lack of jobs due to AI implementation then people would be fine. There isn’t any solution from either party in the US so people are naturally attacking the thing that is causing the problem.

It’s really hard to get people excited about not having jobs when you design a whole society around the idea of having a job and make life exceedingly miserable for anyone who doesn’t

You can’t push both “If you dont work, you dont eat” and “Nobody needs to work anymore” propaganda at the same time. Gotta choose

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#313

Post by ttfkam »

ipython wrote: post #274
mentalgear wrote: post #231

The Pope has a better understanding of what's at stake that many of 'our' (lobbied) politicians.

If you haven't read the earlier treatise from January 2025 from the Vatican on Artificial Intelligence, it's well worth the read. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/docu... Amazing insight from an organization not traditionally known for a deep understanding of high technology.

Not known for deep understanding of high technology? The Catholic Church was behind the scientific discovery of The Big Bang through the Catholic priest (and astrophysicist) Lamaître. Mendel, the father of modern genetics, was an Augustinian friar. Steno, a Catholic bishop, formulated the foundational principles of stratigraphy, establishing geology as a formal science. Secchi, a Jesuit priest, was a pioneer in spectroscopy and the first to establish that the Sun is a star, creating the first stellar classification system.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#314

Post by swat535 »

mentalgear wrote: post #231

The Pope has a better understanding of what's at stake that many of 'our' (lobbied) politicians.

Vatican's statements are often grounded in humanity.

They sue for peace in Ukraine / Middle East, humane treatments of immigrants, warn against nuclear weapons, AI, etc..

I go to Church often, there's always a prayer for peace during Mass.

What I like about Pope Leo is that he's talking about current issues that affect people.

I think the Church spent way too much time focusing on matters of sexuality and causing problems. While those are still important, it appears that it's no longer the sole focus of the Church, which is a good thing.

Another thing that I really like is the unification efforts with other religions _and_ Protestants.. recently we had a female Protestant Bishop meeting with the Pope, that was wonderful to watch.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#315

Post by jdjdjxixismns »

pj_mukh wrote: post #293
nemomarx wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the technology is used to serve humanity by providing food or housing, it seems like his stance would be approving. But if it was used to increase profits and people still starved that would be bad, right? "AI must be used for the good of humanity" isn't even an anti ai position really.

"by providing food or housing" vs "if it was used to increase profits" Why..not both? I know this question is naive, but there is nothing that "hard-codes" AI to only increase profits at the cost of providing food or housing for much cheaper prices. Yes a Private equity firm could later insert itself and jack up prices and play such games, but that isn't baked into the technology itself. And as such, the technology s…

[dead]

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#316

Post by fooker »

This is a surprisingly nuanced and technically literate take on this topic. Kudos.

I wonder if this sort of thing got this dude elected, to navigate the changing times.

(duplicating my comment from the other thread as this seems to have more traction)

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#317

Post by komali2 »

achierius wrote: post #290
komali2 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been plenty of examples of workers seizing the means of production and establishing sustained non-capitalist organization (State or otherwise). We have any number of strategies to choose from: The PRC, Soviet Union, Syndicalized Spain (my favorite, seems the least likely to lead to police state), Vietnam, Cuba. The question thus isn't "how," but more specifically a couple other questions: "How do we prevent c…

While this is certainly the more interesting question, the unfortunate reality is that the ideological complex of capital (even if weakening, and no longer effectively reproducing itself) is still strong enough that most in the West can't even imagine a better world (other than "less bad capitalism"), much less think about how to get there. Consequently messages like the above are of great value in moving more people…

Well, in that case, my "how" has always been along anarchistic lines: establishing parallel forms of resource distribution, establishing habits and communities of mutual aid, and in doing so, delegitimizing and rendering obsolete the State, capitalism, and systems of hierarchy.

Fun techcentric utopian speculation about this: Cory Doctorow's "Walkaway" and Ruthanna Emry's "A Half-Built Garden."

Essentially, can we leverage our current post-scarcity society to expropriate everything people need in a sustainable way that cuts capitalism and the State out of the loop? For example, why would people buy food if they can get it for free from farming syndicates or similar? (see: Global Village Construction Kit, Food Not Bombs, Food Not Lawns) Why would people buy medicine if they can print it for free from pirated recipes? (see: Four Thieves Vinegar Collective)

I see the Right to Repair and FOSS movements as a foundation to build upon for this. Anarchism (or at least, anti-capitalism) exists right under everyone's noses, in all the FOSS software installed on their computers. Existent example of people laboring without profit motive and contributing to the commons.

My personal life goal is to figure out how to capture that same energy to tackle the bottom layers of Maslow's hierarchy.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#318

Post by hootz »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #301
gchamonlive wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although your comment is acid, I think this bears truth > Maybe Leo should focus on finding a way to disconnect western society from their current cult-of-progress delusions? It's too weak of a rhetoric from the highest representative of the Catholic church to call for regulations, but the alternative is to call for a transition from capitalism itself. Nothing that grows inside economic doctrines that only value cons…

Capitalism is clearning having a moment atm but as far as I know nothing about capitalism demands permanent growth. Capitalism is about private ownership of the means of production (and a complicated system of laws that allow ownership of abstract concepts, like futures contracts). Its the people who always want more - usually the ones who already have the most, and this has been the case since the first kings.

If the way capitalism works is by responding to the excesses of a few with unbounded growth and destruction to meet that demand, isn't that also an issue with capitalism itself? Capitalism does not demand permanent growth if you only define it by private ownership of the means of production, but in reality, it seems like the supply and demand dynamics result in some extremely inefficient allocation in relation to the masses just so a few can have their riches and, apparently, their massive water-hogging datacenters for SOTA LLMs.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#319

Post by stavros »

daheza wrote: post #304
stavros wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone actually has an issue with AI. I think people are finally fed up with late-stage capitalism and lashing out.

I think if there were any solution to the lack of jobs due to AI implementation then people would be fine. There isn’t any solution from either party in the US so people are naturally attacking the thing that is causing the problem.

The solution to the lack of jobs should be a strong social safety net, but Americans don't want this because socialism, so what can you do? You can't really halt progress, and taxing the rich (or corporations) is very unpalatable there, so everyone is kind of stuck.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#320

Post by komali2 »

Pay08 wrote: post #297
komali2 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What specific horrible evils do you mean? And how do you attribute them to, specifically, organizing an economy along communistic lines? I ask because if we can take a country with a communist economy, or striving for one, and blame all its evils on communism itself, I have a few things I'd like to point out as being the horrors of capitalism: 1. Atlantic slave trade - millions dead (many on the ships), millions ensl…

> What specific horrible evils do you mean? The 1956 student massacres in Hungary, where my grandma was almost killed. The Holodomor, the various "Russianization" campaigns, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, The Great Leap Forward, etc.

It sounds like Communism, Capitalism, and Fascism are all very bad, then. Maybe we can try something else? Do you have any ideas?
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