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Technology Saves the World

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Re: Technology Saves the World

#81

Post by wizzwizz4 »

mavhc wrote: post #51
bttrfl wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if all this is because we took a giant environmental credit that we won't be able to pay back? It's hard to argue that child mortality dropped, literacy increased and so on, but at the same time we are facing existential threats due to warming, lack of water, loss of biodiversity and so on. We are also enjoying a relatively peaceful period (despite what's happening in Syria and tens of other places) on a global…

We have been stealing from the future to pay for the present, as long as we keep stealing more and more from the future it'll be fine! Or be forced to not cheat and invent ways to live within our means

Unfortunately, the future is now.

Re: Technology Saves the World

#82

Post by arrosenberg »

larsiusprime wrote: post #24

I love me some technology, don't get me wrong. But if the lab-leak hypothesis turns out to be correct than technology is undoubtedly the very thing that put the world in peril in the first place, as far as COVID-19 is concerned, before you even consider increased air travel and globalization encouraging/increasing the instant spread of modern pathogens.

Eh, not really more so than usual. We've probably had fewer the last 100 years due to better tech and science. Pandemics have always been a civilizational challenge, often caused by technology, greed and hubris. Making it in a lab (unlikely, but theoretically possible) and transporting it by air instead of doing both in the hull of a galley is just a new twist that enabled greater scale.

Re: Technology Saves the World

#83

Post by aborsy »

Not yet.

Much of the world doesn’t yet have access to vaccine.

Let’s remind ourselves that, these technologies are products of decades of scientific effort funded by public. Many of these projects never pan out (public pays for risk). VC and private sector join only when technology is sufficiently mature, and will pocket the lion share of the profit. Even within the private sector, gains and risks of technology are not widely shared. This is how it works, but let’s get the credit assignment right.

Of course, technology also creates problems that are often passed to public (socialized risk, private profits), until the next iteration of the above process. Environmental damage is a case in point.

So, yes, science and technology are wonderful, but let’s share the productivity gains widely, and let us all contribute to the effort (directly, and through fair taxation and policies).

Re: Technology Saves the World

#84

Post by 3pt14159 »

handrous wrote: post #65
carapace wrote: post #61

(With apologies to those that have heard it before) Bucky Fuller (an engineer) calculated that we would have by sometime in the 1970's all the technology necessary to create a kind of secular utopia if we applied our knowledge to solving our problems efficiently . We could each work for two years and then retire having paid for the rest of our lives during that two-year career. This happened more or less right on sch…

Aside from the usual hedonic treadmill explanation, a lot of our problems with ever-inflating costs are due to competition for limited goods— especially those conferring advantage to our kids. Houses in good school districts, private school slots, various expensive activities that make getting into top-tier colleges more likely, et c. Two-income households? Now you're richer? LOL no, just more money lost to zero-sum…

Arms races, the growing search space for attack asymmetries, and the ever increasing mobility of capital paired with the inherent centralization of returns due to computing.

Housing price inflation and advantages to children are examples of figurative arms races. And you're right, it's destroying our societies.

Cyberwarfare and military buildups are actual arms races. Defence is getting more and more expensive. Globally, cybersecurity spending is going north of $1T, and I doubt it will ever decrease.

What we have is a coordination or alignment problem. If we could get values aligned enough to coordinate more effectively we wouldn't have such an insane world.

And as an aside, I highly doubt we'll be able to solve the alignment problem with AI. Either the AGI is going to want to coordinate due to its own character, or it won't, and short of putting it in some unobservable virtual machine and testing it to, say, see if it would give up its life for its friend; I don't know what else you could do to really know how deeply embedded its values are.

Re: Technology Saves the World

#85

Post by only_as_i_fall »

phtrivier wrote: post #75

Half joking take : what "saved the world" (the deal is hardly done, unfortunately) was a mix of technology, incredible dedication, and vast amount of printed money. Would medtechs have succeed if they were not sure governments would pay "whatever it costs" for vaccines ? Not sure. Would people have paid Disney+ without government help funds? Maybe less. 2020 was probably better handled than 2008 here. However, I'm co…

3-6 months after it begins to affect the ultra wealthy would be my guess.

Re: Technology Saves the World

#86

Post by bob33212 »

carapace wrote: post #61

(With apologies to those that have heard it before) Bucky Fuller (an engineer) calculated that we would have by sometime in the 1970's all the technology necessary to create a kind of secular utopia if we applied our knowledge to solving our problems efficiently . We could each work for two years and then retire having paid for the rest of our lives during that two-year career. This happened more or less right on sch…

The ultimate question for humanity is what happens when we can fix this. It will first start with extreme mental issues ( addiction, the suicidal, the pedophiles). But eventually it gets to "Should children born with a desire to be the best at any cost be 'fixed' to remove that desire?" Are we still human when we remove the tribal and lizard brain desires that dominate human activity today?

Re: Technology Saves the World

#88

Post by WalterBright »

_Microft wrote: post #72
WalterBright wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I opt for technology rather than leading a nasty, brutish and short life.

I do not read something like that out of that quote. Vaccines, emergency medicine, construction or farming equipment, all these things that make life easier, healthier and longer are not what GPs comment was about. It talked about technology that was needed to fix problems created by earlier technology (think: someone has to write an ad-blocker because someone else optimized distributing advertisements).

Um, these technologies enable a larger human population, which then causes problems. Tractors enable ever larger tracts of the best land to be devoted to farming, to enable a larger population, to need more land to cultivate, etc.

Re: Technology Saves the World

#89

Post by WalterBright »

handrous wrote: post #74
WalterBright wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want a nasty, brutish, and short life living in cave instead? Because everything better than that came from technology. And even stone age man had sufficient technology to extinctify other species.

You've at least twice on this story borrowed from Hobbes to dismiss posts expressing what amounts to, "maybe our relationship with technology is a bit complex, and a mixed bag, and worth some examination and consideration", as if you were responding to posts advocating full-on anarcho-primitivism. Why?

Technology enabling unsustainable practices goes all the way back to the bow and arrow. Not just the last couple centuries.

Re: Technology Saves the World

#90

Post by greedo »

carapace wrote: post #77
bttrfl wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's your right to be pissy. Let's drop the "global" then. I counted 18 wars with upper deaths range above 1M between 500BC and 1800AC. There were 29 of them after 1800. I didn't bother to sum the casualties. Full list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll

Fair enough. It also adds to your point that the earlier wars tended to be a lot longer than the later ones, meaning the intensity of the killing has been increasing, eh? FWIW I'm usually on the doom-and-gloom side of the argument (benefit vs. hazard of tech).

I think it's the opposite. Though the casualties in earlier large conflicts are numerically smaller than compared to WW1/WW2 etc, as a percentage of the population involved, they're higher, no?
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