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Magnifica Humanitas

vatican.va

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Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#871

Post by raphman »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #611
gymbeaux wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enlighten us to these drawbacks. On the surface I am inclined to say the pros would outweigh the cons. Compared to other professions, software engineering seems to struggle the most with H-1B/Green Card abuse and interview processes. Job interviews are absurdly different (easier) for doctors, lawyers, et al. than for software engineers, and that I believe is because of the licensure. I do think licensure adds overhea…

> " Job interviews are absurdly different (easier) for doctors, ... " The job interview for doctors is a 5-7 year residency under tight supervision of an attending physician: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residency_(medicine) . People do flunk or drop out as well, meaning they can never become a physician. There's nothing easier about that.

I think the parent commenter agrees with you: because there is tight quality assurance and - in many countries - a license needed to practice medicine, the interviewer can just trust the system instead of having to evaluate the competence of the applicant through questions and coding assignments.

(I'm not sure whether I agree with the commentator that a SE license would be that helpful in practice.)

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#872

Post by kristjank »

andrepd wrote: post #725
cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. This paragraph shows something that most people really don't understand about AI. > 98. It is appropriate to preface this discussion with two considerations. First, any statement regarding AI risks becoming quickly outdated, given the remarkable pace at which these systems are developing. Second, all of us, including those who design them, possess only a limited understanding of their actual functioning. Inde…

> the exercise of moral and spiritual discernment The likes of Sam Altman and Peter Thiel have openly stated they view humans as largely disposable. I don't think we can expect much humanism from them.

The likes of them are Christian in the same way the third reich was. Adopting the dogmatic mechanisms of control while discarding everything standing in their way towards achieving their goals. There is a reason why the NSDAP had much better standing with Protestants than Catholics and this should be reexamined or at least referred to as similar figures reemerge nowadays.

(not to excuse the Catholic church's crimes either, especially the brutal crimes of the NDH in WW2, and the Franco regime)

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#873

Post by Findecanor »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #827
ndrh wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of terrifying that "we may" turn the tide on CO2 is an acceptable level of optimism. If we don't, we all die. it isn't something to leave up to mindless market mechanics.

> If we don't, we all die. No, we don't. Even in the worse case scenarios, a runaway greenhouse effect a la Venus was never remotely part of the scientific consensus. Heck, the IPCC just retired the worst case RCP 8.5 scenario saying it is now scientifically implausible. Now a big reason it was deemed implausible is the transition to renewable energy is happening. But even if RCP 8.5 did happen, it was not a humanity…

I would not take solace in IPCC retiring a scenario. Their predictions are based on conservative aggregates of existing science, and have always been considered by many in the climate science community to be underestimating climate change.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#874

Post by keybored »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #650

I'm curious if there has ever been an instance where people have been able to "tame" a technology to consider a broader, societal good, or if we've always just been at the whims of how any particular tech naturally concentrates or dissipates power. For example, if you look at the boom of the middle classes in the mid 20th century, this appears to me largely a consequence of the fact that industrial technology at the…

What an incredible demonstration of whitewashing history. No, the technology itself does not have a telos, it’s not something external for us to tame, or that naturally falls somewhere. This is demonstrated by the mid century “middle class” boom which happened because labor/left-wing organizing that forced concessions by the capitalist class.

But that gets replaced with Henry Ford wanting a larger consumer base.

> So I guess I'm looking for some specific examples of where we've actually consciously, as a collective society, altered the course of technological progress for the greater good, because I honestly can't think of any.

As a collective society we managed to make industrial society work better for most people. In the First World at least.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#875

Post by winged »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #689
Animats wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electricity. Eventually, it was everywhere, used by everybody, and a background to society. Electric utilities did not end up ruling the world.

Thanks! This answer was actually the one that I found most helpful. I feel like some of the other responses to my comment were talking about how we regulate lots of other tech, but that wasn't really my point - I understand that we regulate tech, but only when it becomes "economically convenient". But your last sentence "Electric utilities did not end up ruling the world" really struck me. It's a great point, and TBH…

> But your last sentence "Electric utilities did not end up ruling the world" really struck me. It's a great point, and TBH I don't really actually know why electric utilities didn't end up becoming more powerful. Time for me to go research the early history of electrification.

I have for a while theorized that transport is what causes an (undue) aggregation of power. Cheap mass shipping was needed for the current industrial globalization to even work. Cheap communication is what gave rise to the internet giants we have today, and the power structures in general.

Transport of energy, especially electricity, is still relatively expensive, and so a distributed structure is naturally preferred. This, along with the ability to produce it in a more-or-less decentral way of course.

If we one day figure out really-cheap transport of electricity, I'm 100% sure it would only take quite a short time for a few global companies to stomp out all the competition.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#876

Post by epsteingpt »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #650

I'm curious if there has ever been an instance where people have been able to "tame" a technology to consider a broader, societal good, or if we've always just been at the whims of how any particular tech naturally concentrates or dissipates power. For example, if you look at the boom of the middle classes in the mid 20th century, this appears to me largely a consequence of the fact that industrial technology at the…

for example - Books. We 'tamed' books early on by gatekeeping reading and writing.

Later even when the printing press was invented, we burned books. Certain book ownership is still illegal.

You must be talking about free societies my friend, because... good luck using the internet in Iran or North Korea.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#877

Post by applicative »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #856
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #650

I'm curious if there has ever been an instance where people have been able to "tame" a technology to consider a broader, societal good, or if we've always just been at the whims of how any particular tech naturally concentrates or dissipates power. For example, if you look at the boom of the middle classes in the mid 20th century, this appears to me largely a consequence of the fact that industrial technology at the…

> but he correctly realized that it would ultimately be the most profitable to him if he could build legions of cars and had a large customer base that could afford them I think that this is a common misconception. I can't find the reference, but I remember reading that this might have been a "marketing" or PR spin, rather than reality - which was, simply, that he needed to pay well to keep talented workers or take t…

He even advised V I Lenin to emulate the same structure.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#878

Post by applicative »

jjmarr wrote: post #797
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #650

I'm curious if there has ever been an instance where people have been able to "tame" a technology to consider a broader, societal good, or if we've always just been at the whims of how any particular tech naturally concentrates or dissipates power. For example, if you look at the boom of the middle classes in the mid 20th century, this appears to me largely a consequence of the fact that industrial technology at the…

Nuclear weapons originally led to a world in which 20-30 countries established atomic bomb programs. Instead, the global powers blocked nuclear technology from disseminating to most countries.

This took quite a while. The idea had kicked around before, but basically, when Israel was thought to have one, the Soviets invented 'nonproliferation'. This was the theme of the hysteria that led to their triggering the 1967 war. God forbid the Jews have the capacity to protect themselves.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#879

Post by ivm »

agnosticmantis wrote: post #848
ivm wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The events you mention still took place within the Abrahamic framework of thought. Ideas like a linear timeline progressing from A to B (rather than a cyclical one) or utopian political projects bringing final justice to society are Abrahamic in nature. So I agree with the grandparent comment: unless one takes the time to study and truly understand other belief systems, it's hard to see how Western "secular" schools…

> Ideas like a linear timeline progressing from A to B (rather than a cyclical one) Seriously? So we’re either linear Christians or circular Hindus, and nothing else ever existed? And nobody else believed in linear time?

HN Guidelines: Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#880

Post by sambuccid »

> Today, among the goods that are universally intended for everyone, we must also include new forms of property, such as patents, algorithms, digital platforms, technological infrastructure and data. In a context where the wealth of nations depends increasingly on knowledge and technology, when these goods remain concentrated in the hands of a few, without adequate forms of sharing and access, a new imbalance is created that contradicts the universal destination of goods

Wow, this feels very Hacker ethic-ky

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