Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

100 years of whatever this will be

apenwarr.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 924 posts

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#341

Post by kleer001 »

zackmorris wrote: post #218

I've been thinking a lot lately about first principles. For example, the Golden Rule is great, but the concept of reincarnation transcends it, making it self-evident. The Book of Genesis probably started "in a beginning", not "in the beginning". And so on. When I look around at the state of the world today, it just makes me so tired. Everyone's running around on autopilot and not questioning the basic assumptions. It…

> people are ok with being wealthy.

Yup. 100%. I doubt you'll find an organism on Earth that's not ok with having access to more resources than it needs.

Can you describe an environment where this wouldn't occur? What would happen if an organism in that environment was able to hoard resources?

Sounds like you might want to also consider as well the iterative prisoners dilemma and the tragedy of the commons with respect to the evolution of groups and cultures (meta groups).

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#342

Post by deathcalibur »

syndacks wrote: post #270
zackmorris wrote: post #218

I've been thinking a lot lately about first principles. For example, the Golden Rule is great, but the concept of reincarnation transcends it, making it self-evident. The Book of Genesis probably started "in a beginning", not "in the beginning". And so on. When I look around at the state of the world today, it just makes me so tired. Everyone's running around on autopilot and not questioning the basic assumptions. It…

You had me except for the reincarnation/another life bit. Bedsides scripture, is there any evidence of this in science? I'm asking genuinely here.

There’s not even evidence for reincarnation “on Earth” in the Bible anyways so not sure what the OP is going on about.

I do think it is a useful exercise to imagine yourself in the future though. It’s much easier when you have children to be connected to the future.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#343

Post by ZeroGravitas »

pydry wrote: post #279
robotresearcher wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like anything we could ever hope to try is already accounted for and defeated before the effort even begins. Gay marriage, the fall of communism, civil rights, universal health care (in every rich country but one), women's rights. Don't forget about the very important real progress being made.

Part of the reason you got gay marriage but not universal healthcare is that gay marriage doesn't threaten corporate interests.

Universal Healthcare doesn't particularly threaten corporate interests either. Remember when centrist Obama tried to implement the Heritage foundation approved version and everyone went a little crazy for no obvious reason?

It would be comforting to think that some evil geniuses were holding back universal healthcare for their own benefit, but it's mostly just lingering stupidity and racism that's holding America back on that front. At this point it's clear that the people who stoked that anger and fear over decades no longer have control of how to direct it (if they ever did).

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#344

Post by AnimalMuppet »

Clubber wrote: post #68
cowl wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By every measurable metric, Humanity has gotten better. Longer lifespan, lower child mortality, better education, easier access to basic life neccessities and goods, (ironic to say at this time but yes even) better health, etc etc etc. We live in an age where every problem is weaponised and we are hyperaware of the problems now so that we don't see all the progrees that is done. https://www.openculture.com/2020/05/16…

>By every measurable metric Every measurable metric? How about median wealth? How about levels of debt? How about job satisfaction? How about median income per household? Per person? How about access to healthcare and cost? How about suicide rates? How about drug overdose rates? How about corruption? How about cost of higher education? How about homelessness? I mean cmon, you're looking at thing with rose colored gla…

Median wealth? Better today.

Levels of debt? Probably worse today.

Job satisfaction? Probably worse.

Median income per household? Better.

Per person? Better.

Access to healthcare? Better for the median person, not sure about the poorest.

Healthcare cost? Probably worse.

Suicide rates? Probably worse.

Drug overdose rates? Probably worse.

Corruption? Probably better, though more publicized (maybe better because more publicized).

Cost of higher education? Worse if you go to an expensive school. But there's never been a time when it's easier to educate yourself, for free, if you don't care about the piece of paper.

Homelessness? Not sure; it's more publicized now, but it's been bad off and on for decades. It's probably better now than in the 1930s, but that may not be a fair comparison.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#345

Post by thumbellina »

> All we need is to build distributed systems that work. That means decentralized bulk activity, hierarchical regulation.

XMPP fits this definition.

Bulk activity occurs via decentralized federation.

Regulation occurs via yearly updated XMPP compliance suites. https://xmpp.org/about/compliance-suites/

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#346

Post by sva_ »

pjkundert wrote: post #39

This article is profoundly insightful. I have been searching for patterns and insights in this field for 25 years. What apenwarr concludes is true: All we need is to build distributed systems that work. That means decentralized bulk activity, hierarchical regulation. The problem is, everyone wants distributed systems that require everyone else to agree (global consensus), which is literally impossible (see: CAP theor…

> https://holo.host

> HoloToken (HOT) is an ERC-20 token

I'm not sure a hierarchy in which the Ethereum Foundation, who gave themselves the absolute majority of Ether currency, is at the top, is the answer to the struggles/issues postulated in the essay.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#347

Post by moffkalast »

soco wrote: post #293
whatshisface wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe the broader financial system ever tried out making transactions impossible to reverse. They might not have ever had the power to do it. Another thing to bear in mind is that none of the participants in the financial system have ever been interested in designing a financial system. They have been interested in making money.

When a store charged me twice for the same item last month I was very happy to be able to reverse the transaction.

Maybe it's just me, but we all place an awful lot of trust giving vendors essentially all credit card details possible AND where we live so that they're capable of skimming a self defined sum off by themselves. It's like an inherently insane system. We're supposed to be the one wiring the cash, not the vendor themselves with our data.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#348

Post by AnimalMuppet »

wilkommen wrote: post #65

I agree with everything in the blog post. I just think it's really hard for societies to "unfuck" themselves. I think the reason things are going in this direction is because of an increasing concentration of power among a relatively small number of people. It's hard to walk back that kind of concentration of power without societal upheaval. The only reason the gilded age in the United States ended was because of WW2…

The Gilded Age was generally regarded to have ended about 1900. If you mean the term more broadly and less generally, it still ended in 1929, with the Depression, not with the war.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#349

Post by winternett »

gaze wrote: post #250
notpachet wrote: post #49

All of the current histrionics that we hear from DeFi advocates regarding escaping the evil centralized Banks and Regulators and what not -- you know what they remind me of? They remind me of what I hear from junior developers when they're tasked with fixing an antiquated, broken software system. These developers typically lack the experience and the patience necessary to fix the system incrementally from within, so…

I half agree. Yes I do think you have a bunch of technologists self-indulgently trying to apply the next shiny thing where bettering the world is second priority. However, I think changing the system from inside is largely a fool’s errand. There are indeed proven methods for political change. Unions, protest, organizing, these things. They’re unsexy and boring and tedious, much like you’ve described, but these do wor…

This is why I generally only interview for jobs that are seeking work within my tech stack, or projects which haven't yet formed into a developed solution.

I am beyond tired in working to convince teams about the adoption of simple solutions, everyone has their own opinions and skills, and people are too often difficult to change. I can quickly develop proof of concepts (much faster than my competition) because of the tools and methods I use, and I can run it all locally, or in the cloud. It's reliable and used across many prominent clients as well... If others can beat me to suggesting a solution, that's fine as well, but ultimately, what works efficiently based on the requirements wins, and that's what's fair.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#350

Post by willhinsa »

> IT security has become literally impossible: if you install all the patches, you get SolarWinds-style supply chain malware delivered to you automatically. If you don't install the patches, well, that's worse. Either way, enjoy your ransomware.

Sad but true.

Post reply on HN