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The Who Cares Era

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Re: The Who Cares Era

#611

Post by BrenBarn »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #368
gilbetron wrote: post #347

The future is gone. I'm in my 50s, and for nearly all of that time I thought, dreamt, and worked towards a future that I read about, researched, talked to others about, and consumed media about. But over the past several years I realize it is gone. I thought maybe it was just my age, but it seems like the world is doing the same, so maybe not my age. Another thread mentions that no one talks about "life in the 22nd c…

One way to break this illusion is to remember how new things are introduced. Bitcoin didn’t seem more than an intellectual exercise when it was introduced. Facebook seemed like a way to stalk college students. HN seemed like an alternative to Reddit. An iPad seemed like a dumbed-down laptop. Smartphones seemed like a desktop computer in your pocket. The point is, once you wait a decade or so and look back, you find t…

> One way to break this illusion is to remember how new things are introduced. Bitcoin didn’t seem more than an intellectual exercise when it was introduced. Facebook seemed like a way to stalk college students. HN seemed like an alternative to Reddit. An iPad seemed like a dumbed-down laptop. Smartphones seemed like a desktop computer in your pocket.

> The point is, once you wait a decade or so and look back, you find that we did in fact get a lot of newness. It just takes awhile to see what makes them distinct from mere optimizations of previous work. AI is no different, and we’re certainly not approaching some singularity moment. Not anytime soon anyway.

If you think that bitcoin and facebook are examples of "real newness" that we only perceive in retrospect, I think we're not seeing eye to eye. Those to me are exactly the kinds of things that represent a colossal waste of human time, effort, and money.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#612

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

gilbetron wrote: post #347

The future is gone. I'm in my 50s, and for nearly all of that time I thought, dreamt, and worked towards a future that I read about, researched, talked to others about, and consumed media about. But over the past several years I realize it is gone. I thought maybe it was just my age, but it seems like the world is doing the same, so maybe not my age. Another thread mentions that no one talks about "life in the 22nd c…

Thanks so much for this comment. It's something I've generally felt, but it really didn't crystallize in my head until I read your comment.

As a kid I just remember being enthralled by what the future would bring, and you'd see tons of writing prognosticating about things like "cities of the future" and "houses of the future". I think the fundamental change is that all of those were filled with a sort of techno-optimism. Now, though, I think there is a widespread feeling that tech, as a whole, is no longer in service to the improvement of human society. It just feels like it went off the rails in the past 15-20 years or so, where for a lot of us tech feels like it's made our lives worse.

I no longer look forward to the newest tech or gadget. If anything, I look forward to going for a walk in the woods and leaving my phone at home.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#613

Post by BrenBarn »

tolerance wrote: post #123

Where I think that pieces like this fall short at are identifying what they think people should "care" about and why these things matter. For example, * Who cares that those newspapers ran AI-generated reading lists when the actual people who represent the newspapers wouldn't actually be the ones recommending the books anyway ? (People who make things that you read aren't reading themselves.) * Why should people care…

I think that's only part of the story. Another part is what are you caring about or doing instead. People don't have to care about those things, but what are they doing with their time instead? "Funny fails" videos and getting french fries delivered? Part of the point is that you have to do something with your time, it's just that now people spend their time doing stuff they don't care about, which is sad. You don't have to care about those particular things, but if you're not caring about anything I think it indicates something is out joint.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#614

Post by palmotea »

nradov wrote: post #503
palmotea wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being relentlessly focused on the short term will do that, eventually. You seem to think the assumption "all companies die" means you can simplify away their journey, but it matters if they get there faster or slower (at least to society, if not the decision-makers to maximize their personal profit while hoping to not being the ones left holding the bag).

Old companies die and new ones take their place. This is not a problem for society. In most cases creative destruction is a net positive.

> Old companies die and new ones take their place. This is not a problem for society. In most cases creative destruction is a net positive.

That's what they say, but I don't think it's true (at the high end, at least). For instance: if Boeing dies, the market will not replace it. It'll be an Airbus monopoly for large jets, and maybe the the communists will eventually build a competitor (Comac). IIRC, it's too expesnive for Embraer to make the jump into that market.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#615

Post by sandspar »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #231

What the author is describing is an inevitable consequence that happens when the cost of producing something falls dramatically. It long ago happened with manufactured goods. We like to say "they don't make 'em like that used to", and we're right. Quality clothes (think "Sunday best") from, say, the early 1900s were incredibly well made because they were so expensive - they had to last for years, and people cared abo…

This makes sense. Recently I learned that there's a collectors market for marbles. Like, people will pay thousands of dollars for a glass marble. Who knew? An article talked at length about the difficulties involved in making a really good marble. There's all sorts of tricky things to manage and a million ways to mess up. But that's part of the fun, right? A collector wouldn't spend thousands of dollars on a glass marble that's easy to make. And if marbles were easy to make, surely a talented craftsman wouldn't devote their life to making them.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#616

Post by loa_in_ »

WalterBright wrote: post #157
palmotea wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> There's a culture of indifference, an embrace of mediocrity. I don't think it's new, but I do think perhaps AI has given the lazy and prideless an even lower energy route to... I'm not sure. What is the goal? > I think pride in work has declined a lot (at least in the US) because so many large employers have shown that they aren't even willing to pretend to care about their employees. It's difficult to take pride…

> it's all due to the focus on short-term financial results I've heard that my whole life. If that were generally true, company stocks would be going steadily downwards.

Stocks suck up all the value. For example the value of a house is in the living space it provides. If you convert it to money, you end up with... money.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#619

Post by tsoukase »

There is a considerate difference of peoples' general stance and living in relation to pre 2010 era. I refer some non-exhaustive and not-in-order list:

Less and less people: - want kids

- want a hard work, only a few hours sitting in an office with a secure, albeit low income

- want to advance in academics

- read books

The underground reasons are debatable and I leave them for comments. Increased AI usage is both a result and a reason.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#620

Post by erikerikson »

aerostable_slug wrote: post #241
thewebguyd wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of a self-fulfilling cycle in that way. Employers have taken away any and all incentives to do anything but the absolute bare minimum to not get fired, so now that's what they get. Because that's now employees behave, now employers won't offer anything else - but without offering anything else, employee attitudes aren't going to change. I think strong unions are the only way forward

> without offering anything else, employee attitudes aren't going to change. In my lived experience, unions permanently cement the anti-employer (and often anti-customer) attitude present in some employees. Once in place, they don't produce a massive change of heart where employees are willing to rise above and beyond the exact terms of their collective bargaining agreements, but instead result in a rejection of the…

It can go differently. Germany seems like an example.
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