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100 years of whatever this will be

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Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#501

Post by lowbloodsugar »

munificent wrote: post #421
gtsop wrote: post #57

Excuse me for the dismissive tone, but this looks a dog chasing his tail. Does anyone REALLY believe that "things don't work"™ because the systems put in place are flawed? No sir, the systems in place work flawlessly for those who put them there, enjoy the benefits of those systems and make damn sure these systems keep benefiting them no matter what. As long as one doesn't acknowledge this very simple fact, they have…

> Does anyone REALLY believe that "things don't work"™ because the systems put in place are flawed? I do. When society produces large-scale negative outcomes, I believe there are roughly four causes: 1. Because human groups are complex, interactive, iterative dynamical systems, the system as a whole may have emergent properties radically different from the intentions of any of its individual participants. No one in a…

>Some people are selfish and willing to harm others for their benefit. A few are outright sociopaths. Some fraction of these will end up in positions of power.

Some sociopaths become business leaders and politicians. That's not the interesting question. The interesting question is the opposite: what fraction of business leaders and politicians are sociopaths? I'll wager it's nearly 100%.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#502

Post by mrguyorama »

moistrobot wrote: post #436
preseinger wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is I think vastly better for people to make those decisions than for them to be made by smart contract. The institutions we discuss now are at their core social systems.

I think that's a totally valid opinion. The advantage to people is that they can more flexible. The disadvantage to people is that they can be more irrational.

Are you suggesting that code is more rational than the imperfect people who implement it?

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#503

Post by r00fus »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #429
munificent wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 100% sympathize with this feeling too. But the pattern I see over and over again is: 1. Society is getting worse. 2. I'm really good at writing software. 3. Therefore the solution is to write software to fix society. That chain of logic is simply the streetlight effect [1] writ large: A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys…

I like the analogy, but in many cases the societal ills that defi is trying to solve were caused by software in the first place (e.g. internet advertising as a democracy-eroder). Also, the protectors of the status-quo are putting a lot of software people to work in protecting that status quo, so tempting them to the other side means compatibility with their skillset. Lastly, anyone who would overturn the status quo m…

> the societal ills that defi is trying to solve were caused by software in the first place (e.g. internet advertising as a democracy-eroder).

How in the world is DeFi supposed to help this? From my POV DeFi makes it worse (advertising funding can now be untraceable/unauditable).

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#504

Post by handrous »

joenot443 wrote: post #405
kube-system wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marriage is a contract. Governments regulate the enforcement of contracts. That's why they're involved. The religious part of marriage is entirely optional.

I think the difficulty is that for the vast majority of American history, marriages weren't really performed without any religious connotation. Hell, even legally, from what I understand, there was a time where marriages _had_ to be performed by a clergyman of some kind. Now, you're right, the religious association is technically optional, but it's worth remembering that for a very, very long time, marriage was as mu…

Got married in the '00s in the US and IIRC in that state it was still the case that, to be valid, you had to have an ordained minister or certain officials (a judge) sign the paper.

Now, would anyone ever check? Nah. Unless litigation (divorce, inheritance, whatever) came up and someone thought invalidating the original marriage might somehow help their case, though even then, dunno if it'd really matter.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#505

Post by munificent »

shebek wrote: post #469
munificent wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 100% sympathize with this feeling too. But the pattern I see over and over again is: 1. Society is getting worse. 2. I'm really good at writing software. 3. Therefore the solution is to write software to fix society. That chain of logic is simply the streetlight effect [1] writ large: A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys…

What this line of reasoning seems to be missing is that society seems to be getting worse largely because of software.

I don't think you can aggregate all of society's changes into a single "worse" or "better" metric. It's like trying to decide if cheese is a better food than apples.

What I think you can say is that software has had many good effects in various ways for various members of society and many bad effects for various members. Those effects and members are sometimes overlapping, sometimes not.

There is no clear line between baby and bathwater. It's like trying to decide if iron or wheat has made society better or worse. I don't even think it's a particularly interesting question.

A better question to me is, given where we are now, what incremental steps can we make it better, and for whom?

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#506

Post by notpachet »

tcgv wrote: post #393
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…

To be fair, this argument is only valid when targeting people from outside of the areas of expertise / niches involved: > All of the current histrionics that we hear from [[INSERT_ANTI_ESTABLISHMENT_TREND_HERE]]-- 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 The argument will become invalid if, say, a "Senio…

Honestly in fairness to junior developers, I should have left the "junior" label out of my original post. We're all guilty of this by varying degrees.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#507

Post by pjkundert »

beebmam wrote: post #227
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservatives want to change rules to get back to their view of what was good about the past. Liberals want to change the rules according to their view of what should be good about the future.

"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect" https://www.bradford-delong.com/2018/12/frank-wilhoit-the-tr...

This seems like a bizarre definition. As someone who would accept a label of "conservative", and growing up and living in a world of mostly "conservative" people, I struggle to think of a single such person who wouldn't be appalled to find out they they were living under a single such law, let alone many such laws.

Could you be so kind as to identify even a single instance of such a law?

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#509

Post by klabb3 »

jspaetzel wrote: post #306

All of this is just pessimistic complaining. Flip this and be optimistic and you'll find life isn't all that bad. Think about the last hundred years... * Rich people are still rich and poor people have access to more food, medicine, and opportunity then any time in human history. * Families have and always should lookout for themselves first. That's the way things work and should work. * Society is able to support mo…

Before antibiotics, birth control and ICEs there was germ theory, virtuous celibacy and steam engines. Pointing out and analyzing issues in the world is part of innovation.

Re: 100 years of whatever this will be

#510

Post by nradov »

moffkalast wrote: post #347
soco wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Credit card issuers and processors only grant merchant accounts to vendors who have shown themselves trustworthy. While the system isn't perfect it works pretty well. If a vendor has many charge backs then they will be subject to higher fees and then account termination.
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