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The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

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Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#331

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

stevenhuang wrote: post #297
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you intended to reply to me (GP), not the parent. You're ignoring my objection to this stuff, which has nothing to do with immorality and everything to do with with the waste and misdirection of resources. Why do people participate in this stuff? Because someone might get rich. From my POV, that's a waste and misdirection of resources. People getting rich is not the right motivation for pareto or utilitarian…

Capitalism and people getting rich is for better or worse exactly the stabilizing factor that has lead to the success of the modern world we take for granted. Capitalism is the worst except for all the others. I empathize that it appears the case it's not an optimal allocation, but to say you know it's a misallocation leans overly simplistic. What you see as misdirection of resources is the product of competitive mar…

> I empathize that it appears the case it's not an optimal allocation, but to say you know it's a misallocation leans overly simplistic.

I empathize that it appears the case that the market has some emergent properties that allow it to optimize allocation, but to say you know its an optimal allocation leans overly simplistic.

"I think investing in a venture that will do seems like a good idea" may, indeed, have some connection to an at least pareto optimal resource allocation.

"I will offer your $X in N months for " might also play a useful role in resource allocation.

"I will buy this 3rd derivative instrument that reflects guesswork about guesswork about preferences and hold it for 3 hours" is just the financial service industry fucking us over.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#332

Post by stevenhuang »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #331
stevenhuang wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism and people getting rich is for better or worse exactly the stabilizing factor that has lead to the success of the modern world we take for granted. Capitalism is the worst except for all the others. I empathize that it appears the case it's not an optimal allocation, but to say you know it's a misallocation leans overly simplistic. What you see as misdirection of resources is the product of competitive mar…

> I empathize that it appears the case it's not an optimal allocation, but to say you know it's a misallocation leans overly simplistic. I empathize that it appears the case that the market has some emergent properties that allow it to optimize allocation, but to say you know its an optimal allocation leans overly simplistic. "I think investing in a venture that will do seems like a good idea" may, indeed, have some…

I did not suggest knowing it's optimal either.

I'm pointing out The Economy/Market and its mechanisms is a complex system. I urged caution making conclusions from facile knee jerk first order observables when it's the unknown nth order effects we should probably try to identify and characterize first.

> just the financial service industry fucking us over.

Maybe. But why think you know this? I haven't even tried to quantify the pros/cons, and I'm unwilling to stake a position until I do.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#334

Post by helboi4 »

beloch wrote: post #146

I used to have a similar worldview. I read about the consequences of technological advance in the past always with the present firmly in mind. Who cares if there were initially some unintended consequences and collateral damage? Things got better. Advances in technology have usually increased the size of the pie. It's easy to ignore the bumps in a trendline that's steadly headed skyward. However, when you look more c…

Absolutely. People act like we can't or shouldn't seek both technological and social advancement. Social advancement is the key difference between a dystopian and a utopian technologically advanced future.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#335

Post by jeffreyrogers »

throwaway38475 wrote: post #95
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, the first person on their "Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism" is Jeff Bezos No, it's an anonymous Twitter account, you read the name wrong, "Beff Jezos" (sic), not "Jeff Bezos". Also if you look at the purest form of markets, which is probably high frequency trading, there are no monopolies and no cartels. It's an intensely competitive industry with relatively small profits given their transaction volume.

I don't think that's correct. Access to the fiber links or colocation in a facility is not only ridiculously expensive you have to know the right people (the cartel) to get it done. I can't just offer a crazy amount of money and get access, the other major players have to let me play.

You actually can just offer a (not very large) amount of money and get access. The fees aren't even that large and they are public see [1] for example. The startup costs for an HFT would be comparable to a restaurant buildout, it's really not a capital intensive business.

[1]: https://www.nyse.com/publicdocs/Wireless_Connectivity_Fees_a...

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#336

Post by helboi4 »

survirtual wrote: post #169

In a world where abundance reigns, the old structures and the leaders who champion them fade into obsolescence. The energy that once went into seeking more begins to flow into sharing, nurturing, and sustaining. In this transformed landscape, resource hoarding and centralized control are not just out of place; they become barriers to the collective human journey toward wisdom and spiritual fulfillment. When everyone'…

We are already at a point where no human needs to be starving on this earth. Most jobs are useless and unemployment is a constant necessity of the system we live under that benefits elites yet we have all been brainwashed to view unemployed people as the scourge of society rather than the necessary victims of an unequal system. Social change is what creates better living standards, not technological change. Both help, but you can have technological advancement without significant social advancement and that's bad.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#337

Post by helboi4 »

KaiserPro wrote: post #296
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rather, they were against an unequal distribution of that technology because it was destroying their community and livelihood, precisely because that technology concentrated power in the hands of the capital class [1] I find discussions about the Luddites online to be deeply illustrative not of the Luddites themselves but of a person's political beliefs. The Luddites did indeed fight for their community and livelih…

> dismantled the subcontinent's dominant position in the market That doesn't happen until after the luddite's first appearance in ~1816 [1] > This created the skilled textile jobs that were eventually mechanized and displaced. No, The displacement is what the Luddites were railing against. Weavers had been highly paid, profitable and skilled occupation from the "dark ages" onwards. Technological advances meant that t…

Thank you for debunking this. Even with my basic knowledge of history I was pretty sure this guy was far off mark.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#338

Post by helboi4 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #116
onion2k wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We live like Gods compared to people of the 1800s. Some of us do. If you're at the poorer end of society things are still pretty damn bleak. People live with long term treatable illness. People don't have basic necessities like shelter or food or water. People live with very little prospect of escaping a life of drudgery. Sure, those of us who can afford them have lots of shiny gadgets that save us from a bit of manu…

> People live with long term treatable illness. None of what were treatable at the 1800. > People don't have basic necessities like shelter or food or water. In relative terms, almost none. I'm not sure how they compare in absolute terms, but just the answer not being obvious while the population increased by an order of magnitude already makes your claim quite bad. > People live with very little prospect of escaping…

As many have pointed out, technological advancement is pointless without social advancement. We have learnt how to treat diseases 10 times over at this point, and yet people still live with them. That is a failure at engineering our social system. Social change is the decisive factor. Technological change without social change is just giving the rich new ways to subjugate or ignore the poor.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#339

Post by 62951413 »

LindeBuzoGray wrote: post #53

> Markets > We believe central economic planning elevates the worst of us and drags everyone down; markets exploit the best of us to benefit all of us > We believe central planning is a doom loop; markets are an upward spiral There's many things off with this. The USSR from the 1920s to early 1950s had enormous economic growth - particularly in the 1930s when so-called free markets in the West had collapsed, by the 1…

Workers on collective farms up until the early 70s were not allowed to have passports issued to them. Without a passport one couldn't move to a city.

Also, those millions of the most productive of them murdered in the Gulag "from the 1920s to mid-1960s" surely "made their own decisions" poorly.

Where your position touches upon reality is that the US economy has been getting increasingly centrally planned since 2008. It's a major problem.

Re: The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#340

Post by NoGravitas »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #27

Honestly, I felt this post just shows how delusional the people are who made out with billions during the tech boom of the past 25 years. I was a huge techno-optimist in the late 90s and early 00s. If anything, my opinion has totally switched over the past 10-15 years as I increasingly see technology ripping societies apart, and benefits only accruing to those at the very top. So excuse me if I gag a bit from a post…

Right — the technology we need is not the technology that is incentivized and produced by the market. Indeed, the market is tending to block the development we need.
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