The third great wave • Hacker News Board

Re: The third great wave

#51

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Oct 21, 2014, 12:38 AM UTC

rjtavares wrote: post #44

dredmorbius wrote: post #42

A better breakdown of economic waves / technological transitions comes from Robert Ayres, see his "Technological Transformations and Long Waves", February 1989: http://webarchive.iiasa.ac.at/Admin/PUB/Documents/RR-89-001.... Ayres defines five technological transformations. The period of most significant change came with the third, spanning roughly 1870-1890 (with further refinement of major inventions since). I'd ar…

> Note that Ayres was writing in 1989, immediately prior to the emergence of the Internet and World Wide Web. Though these have revolutionalized information access and communications, their overall influence on everyday life has been less profound. Couldn't disagree more. The impact of computers was huge but it was mainly in making more efficient the stuff that we were already doing (that's why all the big players be…

Yes, the scale at which _some_ industries are performed is changing, especially those based entirely on information access (e.g., travel agents).

But that's often even larger single-point monopoly point of control: Craigslist, Facebook, Amazon, etc. Banking would be another instance.

What's changed is that while there are still tremendous economies of scale, the holder of that control point has far less security in their tenancy.

Yes, the changes for those directly involved in these firms -- founders, financiers, and the relatively small numbers of employees -- are fairly large.

But at the level of everyday life, the benefits are still pretty slim.

Re: The third great wave

#52

Post by CalRobert » Tue, Oct 21, 2014, 10:03 AM UTC

VLM wrote: post #34

CalRobert wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's to stop them from selling it to each other? Could we see a completely stratified economy, with rich people selling each other the fruits of their automated factories' labour?

You've described feudalism / serfdom with the sole exception that their "factories" were staffed with what boils down to slaves rather than robots. It wasn't a paradise for the psuedo-slaves, doesn't matter if you call them serfs or not. One interesting aspect to think about is if 0.1% of the population owns everything and all they do is trade the output of their factories, they won't have much use for almost all of…

Interesting writeup. I worry that the transition may be more violent. Will those who are driven to have everything be happy if anyone else has anything? I don't know. What makes some people who have tens of millions hunger for billions? I only posed the question because I'm curious what other people's thoughts were; I think we need a fundamental shift in how we allocate resources when the production of resources is relatively decoupled from labour, which in some regards it already is.

Incidentally, if you find subcultures that place a high degree of value on the horse interesting, you might like this:

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/dublins-teenage-horse-thugs

Re: The third great wave

#53

Post by howlin » Tue, Oct 21, 2014, 3:59 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #36

chroma wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's next? Drones. No matter how strong one's industrial base, warfare has always been limited by the number of boots on the ground. Eventually, one side sees enough body bags (or simply runs out of draft-eligible men) and disengages. There will be no flag-draped coffins to discourage a nation with a fully automated army. War will become a purely financial drain. As technology advances and drives drone costs to the…

Drone warfare is terrifying for me. More hypothetically for me now; horribly immediately for some in Pakistan and Palestine. But you know how technology goes, especially this kind of technology, it won't be long until everyone has drones. And I don't think any of us will be immune from being victims either. Even just from a self-interested position, if the U.S. were smart we'd be pushing for international treaties ag…

There's no clear distinction between today's drones and older intelligent munitions such as cruise missiles.

Re: The third great wave

#54

Post by jrochkind1 » Tue, Oct 21, 2014, 4:51 PM UTC

howlin wrote: post #53

jrochkind1 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drone warfare is terrifying for me. More hypothetically for me now; horribly immediately for some in Pakistan and Palestine. But you know how technology goes, especially this kind of technology, it won't be long until everyone has drones. And I don't think any of us will be immune from being victims either. Even just from a self-interested position, if the U.S. were smart we'd be pushing for international treaties ag…

There's no clear distinction between today's drones and older intelligent munitions such as cruise missiles.

Wikipedia says:

> Currently cruise missiles are among the most expensive of single-use weapons, up to several million dollars apiece. One consequence of this is that its users face difficult choices in targeting, to avoid expending the missiles on targets of low value.

That's one distinction. What makes drones scary is how they can be, and are being, used to terrorize entire populations, in ways that cruise missiles have not been and are unlikely to be.

Not that cruise missiles aren't terrifying too, but the affordability and perceived 'precision' of drones is leading to an entirely new scale of un-manned warfare.

Also, drones increasing autonomy, in a way that cruise missiles have not been and are unlikely to ever be, is another distinction.

There are in fact a variety of clear differences.