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Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

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Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#91

Post by inawarminister »

phkahler wrote: post #89
dustingetz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

innovation can?

Nope. One of the fudges is saying that a computer based on today's technology is more valuable than on from a couple years ago. I forget what this is called. But it's stupid and could be really abused to say a cellphone is a trillion dollar device, since that's what the processing power would have cost in 1980. Maybe we should measure GDP via wages. Since all spending has to come from that anyway... not sure how to c…

There were proposals for labor-backed currency, where the basic unit is one hourly work of the worker. So B2B transactions will be valued from the man-hours that went to it.

Of course this approach breaks when the gigantic corpocracies are able to bloat into larger and larger sizes. But it might be an interesting research topic.

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#93

Post by varjag »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #90
blfr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't miss the massive progress in IT. I mean, obviously I didn't, we're having this conversation on HN. However, progress in IT, in bits, while fine and useful, is simply not as powerful as progress in more basic industries, in atoms. Having the means to (over)feed seven billion people (1940s tech spread around the world) is more important than having the means to (mis)inform seven billion people (1980s tech spre…

I can order a widget from literally the other side of the world or plan a party while taking a dump. Access to communications technology makes me a lot "richer" in a practical sense. Heads of state in the 1990s with tons of administrative labor at their disposal didn't have access to the same level of information and communication that normal people do today. The amount of man hours spent on "paper pushing and record…

The standard of living of heads of state in 1990s was pretty solid from modern perspective. Even if they couldn't get an earwax picker off AliExpress while taking a dump.

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#94

Post by blfr »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #84
blfr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't miss the massive progress in IT. I mean, obviously I didn't, we're having this conversation on HN. However, progress in IT, in bits, while fine and useful, is simply not as powerful as progress in more basic industries, in atoms. Having the means to (over)feed seven billion people (1940s tech spread around the world) is more important than having the means to (mis)inform seven billion people (1980s tech spre…

It is not just about informing people, but also automation of many things. It is certainly more powerful transformation than invention of steam engine. It has transformed industry and agriculture on a similar scale, enabling many things that were not possible before, but it also transformed our society, changing the ways we communicate, learn, entertain and find partners.

The difference between having a tractor and not having a tractor is much larger than between having a computer/gps-guided tractor and having an old school tractor. While it's certainly an improvement, it's a smaller improvement.

The difference between hailing a taxi via app and hailing a taxi by waving at it is much smaller than the difference between automobiles being available and not being available. Again, it's a great improvement but a smaller step than the original one.

Marriage rates are down so that abundance may be overrated.

EDIT: I don't know about steam engine but all these are certainly far behind an internal combustion engine.

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#95

Post by jmyeet »

Another perspective: humanity's biggest problem is our inability to understand the exponential function [1].

As for climate change, the only way that ends is after massive death and destruction or due to economics (specifically: carbon emission sources get replaced because they're cheaper). It's too large, expensive and long-term for people to care otherwise. The pandemic should've dispelled any notions you may have had about humanity not being staggeringly selfish.

The social and political disasters are more solvable. The world powers (and the US in particular) need to stop screwing with the rest of the world purely for their material gain.

The US loves to sanction, incite a revolution or just outright invade any country that even talks about (let alone actually) nationalizes natural resources [2]. Cuba and Venezuela spring to mind. In Ecuador after Chevron caused massive environmental damage and the government secured a $9.5 billion judgement, the US reacted by empowering an oil law firm to criminally prosecute the US lawyer (Steven Donziger) for fraud in the US [3].

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6E156F1A50BB7B72

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

[3]: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/05/04/science/mcgovern-call...

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#96

Post by roenxi »

mort96 wrote: post #66
throwawaymaths wrote: post #22

> broken perception of risk based on “optimism, underestimation and invincibility" How about artificially low interest rates? An interest rate is exactly the coordination between risk and time, with a low interest rate you're subsidizing stupidity and wastefulness, and with its concommittant inflation you're forcing people into making those investments to stay afloat. Maybe if we weren't goosing the interest rate low…

Your last sentence seems to suggest that if we just let the free market do what it does, everything would be fixed and we wouldn't have any environmental problems. Are you not aware of the concept of externalities? How do you, for example, explain the fact that leaded gasoline was only replaced with non-leaded gasoline when "meddling" made it illegal?

Are you of the opinion that letting the free market set interest rates is going to cause measurable levels of brain damage?

The official policy position is that the free market won't gamble enough if left alone and that it needs to be forced away from conservative plays. We must admit that this is, potentially, a contributing factor to the lack of responsible long term thinking in markets that are influenced by money (hedging in case there are aspects of life that aren't influenced by low interest rates, if someone spots any let me know).

Plus printing money and handing it out to rich people is outrageous. I'm confused at how anyone is can pretend that is a good idea. You didn't say that, I'm just throwing it out there Carthago delenda est style)

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#97

Post by throwaway0a5e »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #56
lm28469 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When automobiles first appeared, gasoline was not as common as now and internal combustion technology was primitive, requiring almost constant maintenance, handling flammable liquids etc. Yeah and one ended up easier to develop than the other. Even when we started producing proper batteries they were not good enough for cars (80s, 90s, 2000s), it took a few decade to get good engines, it took a century for proper b…

> one ended up easier to develop than the other. Because many hundreds of millions in research money went into doing so. Science and technology are not blind pursuits whereby we stumble across answers handed down by the gods. We progress according to our motivations. This is the difference between so-called "technological determinism" which is an ignorant quasi-religious shrugging abdication of reason, and "science a…

>Because many hundreds of millions in research money went into doing so.

Because that's where the progress was. They simply couldn't make progress on batteries at the time.

Making better engines is a question of manufacturing and metallurgy, stuff that is well within scope for the world as it existed 100yr ago. Making better batteries requires a much higher state of technological progress because you first need to understand chemistry at a much greater level and the fairly finicky chemistry involved has a lot of manufacturing progress as a prerequisite.

There's a reason we didn't get economically viable and high enough performance batteries for consumer electronics (say nothing of power tools and cars) until after we developed computer controlled industrial manufacturing processes.

Basically all the stuff you need to build good ICE cars you will need to develop on your way to developing good batteries. They built engines instead of batteries for the same reason the Romans built with stone instead of steel.

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#98

Post by uxp100 »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #64
I_DRINK_KOOLAID wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

In Europe we do not have "safe places in colleges". It is an US phenomenon, that has nothing to do with risk aversion - on the contrary, it is based on the optimistic assumption that society is generally mature enough to own firearms and you only need to mitigate some "edge cases". True risk aversion would be to regulate the gun ownership, education and welfare the same way as it is done in Europe, where mass shootin…

So safe spaces have nothing to do with firearms. It’s sort of a concept about the norms of conversation. So if a support group was a safe space it essentially means you’re not supposed to contradict people even if they’re wrong. Circa 2014 this was a big boogeyman, I think triggered by protests at a college in Mississippi (?) where the library was called a safe space for POCs, and white people where not allowed in, and some teacher fought a student to keep them out. That’s not what a safe space is, and uh, you’re entitled to use your schools resources, but anyway, I guess I think the above poster is driving at some symmetry there, but it’s pretty much unrelated to the conversation and only will derail it.

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#99

Post by luciusdomitius »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #22

> broken perception of risk based on “optimism, underestimation and invincibility" How about artificially low interest rates? An interest rate is exactly the coordination between risk and time, with a low interest rate you're subsidizing stupidity and wastefulness, and with its concommittant inflation you're forcing people into making those investments to stay afloat. Maybe if we weren't goosing the interest rate low…

This is one of the best comments on HN ever. Another problem of the current (non-commodity based) system is that monetary base doesn't map to the resources of the planet which have not increased almost 5-fold as did M2[0].

0. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WM2NS

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#100

Post by mort96 »

roenxi wrote: post #96
mort96 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your last sentence seems to suggest that if we just let the free market do what it does, everything would be fixed and we wouldn't have any environmental problems. Are you not aware of the concept of externalities? How do you, for example, explain the fact that leaded gasoline was only replaced with non-leaded gasoline when "meddling" made it illegal?

Are you of the opinion that letting the free market set interest rates is going to cause measurable levels of brain damage? The official policy position is that the free market won't gamble enough if left alone and that it needs to be forced away from conservative plays. We must admit that this is, potentially, a contributing factor to the lack of responsible long term thinking in markets that are influenced by money…

I was specifically talking about the last paragraph, that the solution is to not "meddle" in general. It's quite possible that the way interest rates are set is problematic, I'm not qualified to have an opinion on that. But clearly there are problems where meddling is necessary.
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