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

We've made the world too complicated

user8.bearblog.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 496 posts

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#471

Post by InfiniteAscent »

specproc wrote: post #63
InfiniteAscent wrote: post #58

> I used to want to do many things. Make great art, build great machines, solve important issues. Another pretentious man who thinks he could be a great artist. Great artists are born artists, and they devote 100% of the time and cognitive resources that society allows them to their art. They have no choice, it’s vital for them. Jack of all trades, master of none. If you are an engineer and you truly love art, do art…

> Jack of all trades, master of none.. "..But sometimes better than a master of one", is the oft-forgotten coda. I'm mediocre at _a lot_ of stuff, and love it. Wouldn't run my life any other way, and it's far too late to change. I'm, of course, in awe of folks who dedicate their lives to a single craft, but there's a rich, interesting, and productive life out there for us dabblers. Different strokes for different fol…

I actually agree. But art (as in "great art") and craft are two different things.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#472

Post by InfiniteAscent »

Paradigm2020 wrote: post #86
InfiniteAscent wrote: post #58

> I used to want to do many things. Make great art, build great machines, solve important issues. Another pretentious man who thinks he could be a great artist. Great artists are born artists, and they devote 100% of the time and cognitive resources that society allows them to their art. They have no choice, it’s vital for them. Jack of all trades, master of none. If you are an engineer and you truly love art, do art…

Such a nature thing to say. So what about Leonardo da Vinci and countless other "uomo universalis"... He was not an artist? And an engineer and... I'm firmly in team nurture / choice and would only say that in our time it's harder to be an artist because to be an artist is to sacrifice a lot of other "great options"...

I believe you are in team 'haven't found my true talent/calling yet' and it won't necessarily be artistic. You can have talent for many things and you don't have to call anything art.

Regarding Leonardo, and big brains won't like this: a great artist such as Leonardo can become an imaginative engineer as a hobby. The inverse is not true.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#473

Post by timacles »

freeopinion wrote: post #467
timacles wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry to get incensed but I’m shocked in 2026 there are people who think tax is charity. The decades of corporate propaganda and brainwashing and corruption have really played a number on society’s understanding of basic concepts. Tax is a mechanism for the distribution of wealth in a society. USA GDP is 38 trillion dollars and yet 85% of citizens own a tiny fraction of it. Where is all that money going? The gove…

If it soothes you at all, you can think of it the other way around. All members of a society have a duty to pull their own weight. But everybody stumbles. So sometimes we have to pull more than our "fair share" and sometimes somebody else pulls part of our "fair share". But we all agree to it. Anyone who doesn't agree or who is deemed by the community to be dishonest in their contributions is exiled from the society.…

> If it soothes you at all, you can think of it the other way around.

I appreciate your condescending attempt to explain your garbled Reaganomics logic.

Just by your tone, I can tell your mental framework hasnt changed in the last 30 years, despite copious evidence to the contrary of everything you say. You probably think Climate Change is a scam ... or something. By your tone, I can also tell youre a pretentious person who thinks they "just know better".

When Microsoft and Amazon use public resources and infrastructure to grow their business and maximize their profits, buy out politicians and push policies to destroy competitors margins while improving their own. Monopolize markets, expand into every vertical and then jack up costs to increase their margins. What is going on exactly? Why are trillions able to be allocated for AI R&D, but the education, and sciences and pretty much everything that might benefit the general public receives a tiny fraction? Oh right, because thats charity. Education and science and the post office need to turn a profit! Why did the banks receive a bailout on the taxpayers dollar, is that not charity... I forget did they return all of the billions on profits they made along the way?

Just ask yourself, what is a government and what is its purpose?

Whatever you're going to reply, just dont bother, because its the same arguments that have been used since the 80s to scam the public.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#474

Post by komali2 »

samantp wrote: post #468
komali2 wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the failure you note in 4 always inevitable in a system where Capital translates to power?

Yup. Just that, capital translating to power is not a universal truth. Historically too, various recipes have tasted success to move up power ladders. Be it high moral values, smart statecraft, peaceful bottom-up people movements-art-science, or worse like violence, anarchy, barbarism; or a hotch-potch of all those! Will be fun to watch how things pan out today!

Could be worth giving anarchy another look - try Kropotkin's "Anarchist Communism" for a brief overview, or the conquest of bread. It's not an inherently violent ideology at all :) you could also look into Keith McHenry and his rewrite of the anarchist cookbook.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#475

Post by IAmBroom »

rixed wrote: post #247
cdrini wrote: post #140

Thought-provoking write-up. One part of this is the "meaning of human life". Part of that for me is: humans are the only known lifeform that can look at the stars and try to understand. And, to the best of our understanding, this ability arose from winning a billion biological lotteries, from the blind system of nature and natural selection which by complete coincidence, stumbled on intelligence as a beneficial trait…

humans are the only known lifeform that can look at the stars ... sentience and free will. Ants look at the canopy and try to understand. Feeling good about themselves while farming a herd of aphids, they marvel: "evolution optimized for intelligence to the point of creating fangs and antennas." ;)

"And on the sixth day, the All-Queen made Adam the ant from clay, and antennae-sensed that it was good."

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#476

Post by ericmcer »

wolttam wrote: post #470
ericmcer wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree, have you ever seen a group of 5 year olds interacting? We are little monsters without our parents literally berating us until we develop shame. Small kids left to their own devices will gang up on anyone different or weak and antagonize them to raise their own social standing. They respect strength/power and have little empathy. The "intuition" the author refers to only exists because the scoldings he…

I have actually, as a parent to a young child My kid was about 3 when he figured out what it means to be a good person, and that's all he seems to want to be now. Maybe it's just where I am, but the majority of parents around me also want to raise children who care, and a lot of them seem to be quite successful at it. It was never scoldings, it was "hey, let's think about how it might feel if that happened to you." P…

Yeah that was my point, it needs to be taught.

The article seemed to indicate that humans have some innate goodness: "Our internal intuition about right and wrong seems to leave us at an early age". If you agree with that then why do the parents around you need to teach your kids to be good/care.

>> "Again, it doesn't feel that hard to me, but I'll respect that it feels alien to other's nature."

Thank you for "respecting" that being a good person is "alien" to me and my kids.

If you want to insult me just do it. I guess a snark filled "clever" backhanded insult does track with your self-important view of your child-rearing abilities. Are you teaching your little angel those skills as well?

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#477

Post by tomhow »

frogcommander wrote: post #197
Aurornis wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many parts of the world that are less civilized: Where children do not get 10-15 years of schooling and life is reduced to more simple survival. Not many people try to move toward those civilizations. The people in those civilizations usually try hard to leave them. Underneath the elegant writing style in that quote is just another variation of nostalgia for a past that didn’t exist. We like to romanticize…

[flagged]

We've banned this account.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#478

Post by user3939382 »

_nxwj wrote: post #76
user3939382 wrote: post #55

There’s a movie about this called The Gods Must Be Crazy. Highly recommended. We’ve optimized some problems at the expense of others. It is not necessarily obvious that the trade offs are a net positive. I’m not sure a net positive strategy even if these society level dynamics were amenable to central planning or management which they pretty clearly are not, would be possible. Ultimately we’re bound by thermodynamics…

Sounds like you may also have read https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/ .

I hadn’t but brilliant minds think alike :) I’ll check it out thanks!

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#479

Post by samantp »

komali2 wrote: post #474
samantp wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Just that, capital translating to power is not a universal truth. Historically too, various recipes have tasted success to move up power ladders. Be it high moral values, smart statecraft, peaceful bottom-up people movements-art-science, or worse like violence, anarchy, barbarism; or a hotch-potch of all those! Will be fun to watch how things pan out today!

Could be worth giving anarchy another look - try Kropotkin's "Anarchist Communism" for a brief overview, or the conquest of bread. It's not an inherently violent ideology at all :) you could also look into Keith McHenry and his rewrite of the anarchist cookbook.

Thanks. Had read some Kropotkin, will check out McHenry.

For a while, have been finding an affinity with MN Roy with his “cultural prerequisites of freedom” and “radical humanism”. But yes, completely agree that modeling all the world’s complexity into a any grand ism is being foolishly ambitious.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#480

Post by bit-anarchist »

timacles wrote: post #462
freeopinion wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charity is the only thing that can save us. Tax is just a different take on charity. We all agree to pay into the community chest to provide for a pubic commons. Resistance to progressive tax is resistance to a type of charity. One important difference between charity and tax is who gets to decide on how it is spent. If charity won't save us taxes never will.

I’m sorry to get incensed but I’m shocked in 2026 there are people who think tax is charity. The decades of corporate propaganda and brainwashing and corruption have really played a number on society’s understanding of basic concepts. Tax is a mechanism for the distribution of wealth in a society. USA GDP is 38 trillion dollars and yet 85% of citizens own a tiny fraction of it. Where is all that money going? The gove…

The amount of misconceptions in the comment is what is truly shocking.

Tax is not a "mechanism for distribution of wealth" anymore than it is "charity". That's its own form of corporate propaganda/brainwashing only governments and their cronies can provide. It's, in the best terms, a fee you are forced to pay to whoever owns the monopoly over force. In other terms, legalized stealing. This stolen wealth may be redistributed to the poor, but it would be no different than doing charity through stolen money.

GDP is not a measurement of wealth, thus can't be owned.

The government (presumably USA's) chose to be in debt. It didn't have to. It also won't be bled dry either, unless by complete incompetence, as it has plenty of ways of paying it back.

I suppose you are correct in that large corporations are sucking society dry, but that includes the government as well.

Post reply on HN