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

Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 330 posts

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#71

Post by amanaplanacanal »

mentalgear wrote: post #38
merelydev wrote: post #7

I believe the great problem of our age is deciding who controls technology. The technologists who create it believe they should control it, the people who use it are starting to believe they should control it and the governments who write the laws believe they should control it. And now the priests believe they should also play role. So is the next phase of "Democracy" electing who controls technology?

'who controls technology' should be the result of 'what do [they] want to use it for', e.g the motivation. It should be put in the hands of the most trustworthy, transparent institution that can validate it works for all of us, not just the few. I don't think private companies or specific leaders want the best for the common good, so it would make the most sense to give control to a supra-nation entity like the UN -…

That's not what the UN is for. The whole purpose of the UN was as a place for nations to talk things out so they didn't go to war with each other. Trying to do other things usually either doesn't work very well, or distracts from what it was built for.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#72

Post by steveBK123 »

knollimar wrote: post #39
steveBK123 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The technologists who create it believe they should control it I think it goes deeper than this when you listen to them talk. They truly think society will be re-ordered by this technology... and they should be in control of that re-ordering rather than democratically elected governments.

Democratically elected governments can't reorder a cookie right now. We even had one out tariffs on steel, thinkinf this would be good for jobs here. If there was 0.1 seconds of thought they'd realize any manufacturing job you make from a steel tariff cuts 2 more well paid trade jobs

Democracies don’t necessarily pick the best leaders but they give a veto to the people such that the worst leaders don’t last long.

A technocracy can build high speed rail in a decade but it can also institute multi decade one child policy, multi year zero-covid, barricade people into their own homes and ban entire industries at the whim of a single leader. There is less course correction.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#73

Post by marcosdumay »

matusp wrote: post #24
merelydev wrote: post #7

I believe the great problem of our age is deciding who controls technology. The technologists who create it believe they should control it, the people who use it are starting to believe they should control it and the governments who write the laws believe they should control it. And now the priests believe they should also play role. So is the next phase of "Democracy" electing who controls technology?

This is the question that led to the communist movement in the 19th century.

And "the means of production belong to everyone" was the wrong answer. The problem was only solved by a different form of democratization.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#75

Post by frankest »

It always has to do with leverage. When the seas were much bigger than empires, too big for a country to conquer, but the tech caught up to venture them, Elizabeth I commissioned pirates to go and pillage on behalf of the crown. Labor was needed and pirates had leverage to get an equal share of the pillage. Once the gold and spoils dried out, Pirates became criminals again so they took their spoils and settled in the new world. Democracy is handy when you need people to conquer territory. But once you people saturating the land, the teeth come out and those with any leverage start carving whatever is valuable among themselves (land, real estate, rail lines, energy supply, compute). Even with AI, as the tech came out everyone is allowed to play in the sandbox to surface all the valuable use cases. When cornucopia era starts leveling off, you will see the AI firms with leverage grab the lucrative corners of the industry and shove everyone else off. Thus a government that wants to not be taken over by oligarchs needs to enforce antitrust to keep competition from being artificially reduced. Compute is already trying to play the Energy playbook and look like a utility to get government subsidies and become a monopoly that can then dictate everything.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#76

Post by solenoid0937 »

anjel wrote: post #69
merelydev wrote: post #7

I believe the great problem of our age is deciding who controls technology. The technologists who create it believe they should control it, the people who use it are starting to believe they should control it and the governments who write the laws believe they should control it. And now the priests believe they should also play role. So is the next phase of "Democracy" electing who controls technology?

In England, ca. 1500s common law established the legal precedent that if your cattle broke loose of its pen, wandered into your neighbor's field and trampled their garden, you were liable for the damage your cattle caused. Meanwhile, 500 years later Uber could disrupt the livery industry with VC cash that rendered a NY cab's owner/operator 6-figure financed medalion license worthless, and somehow that wasn't Uber's p…

> 500 years later Uber could disrupt the livery industry with VC cash that rendered a NY cab's owner/operator 6-figure financed medalion license worthless, and somehow that wasn't Uber's problem.

Why is this Uber's problem? Do you realize how ridiculously dumb, inefficient, and corrupt a 6 figure taxi license is? It is not Uber's job to compensate for that ridiculousness.

They provided a better and more cash efficient solution for passengers. That is enough.

If you required every technological venture to cover the cost for every person it "disrupts," you would halt progress entirely.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#77

Post by notahacker »

knollimar wrote: post #39
steveBK123 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The technologists who create it believe they should control it I think it goes deeper than this when you listen to them talk. They truly think society will be re-ordered by this technology... and they should be in control of that re-ordering rather than democratically elected governments.

Democratically elected governments can't reorder a cookie right now. We even had one out tariffs on steel, thinkinf this would be good for jobs here. If there was 0.1 seconds of thought they'd realize any manufacturing job you make from a steel tariff cuts 2 more well paid trade jobs

But would governments defined by a cadre of techno-authoritarians disproportionately close to Mr Tariff do a better job?

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#78

Post by Joker_vD »

anjel wrote: post #69
merelydev wrote: post #7

I believe the great problem of our age is deciding who controls technology. The technologists who create it believe they should control it, the people who use it are starting to believe they should control it and the governments who write the laws believe they should control it. And now the priests believe they should also play role. So is the next phase of "Democracy" electing who controls technology?

In England, ca. 1500s common law established the legal precedent that if your cattle broke loose of its pen, wandered into your neighbor's field and trampled their garden, you were liable for the damage your cattle caused. Meanwhile, 500 years later Uber could disrupt the livery industry with VC cash that rendered a NY cab's owner/operator 6-figure financed medalion license worthless, and somehow that wasn't Uber's p…

Welcome to the New (fifth, I believe) Industrial Revolution! It will not quite as brutal as the first and the second ones were, but it still won't be gentle.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#79

Post by amelius »

miyoji wrote: post #74
amelius wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It basically says "we have no control over it", and "we don't know how it works".

Both of those things happen to be entirely true, though.

Yes, that doesn't make it less embarrassing.

My point remains: they can control it if they can control it. Because right now they can't even take responsibility for it.

Re: Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

#80

Post by idiotsecant »

jfengel wrote: post #66
dgellow wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there was 0.1 seconds of thought they'd realize any manufacturing job you make from a steel tariff cuts 2 more well paid trade jobs They knew that was the case. They don't care. The maga crowd isn't acting in good faith. Nobody other than the cult members and people who aren't paying attention thought that would actually bring manufacturing back to the US. The point of the tariffs is to devalue USD (something Tr…

I do think they believed and believe it, though the reasoning is less economic than that. Manufacturing "belongs" in the US due to our inherent superiority, and has gone elsewhere only because of ill-conceived notions of niceness. By increasing tariffs they will have to pay their proper obeisance for their inferiority, and be inspired to actually work hard like us Americans.

You need to be specific with 'they' in this case. Who are the 'they' that you think believed that steel tarrifs would improve domestic manufacturing?
Post reply on HN