Know Thy Futurist
bostonreview.net
Know Thy Futurist
1–10 of 11 posts
Re: Know Thy Futurist
#2There's a pretty good response here:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/09/in-favor-of-futurism-be...
Re: Know Thy Futurist
#3There is little difference in most cases between a futurist and a doomsday prophet. It is a thin veneer of science around what is essentially a religious troubodour.
Re: Know Thy Futurist
#4"Futurism is the American dream on overdrive: a disdain for the status quo and a belief that we can solve it all without unions, public education, and social safety nets."
So scratch futurism off the list of usable political terms. It goes to the same dust bin as libertarian, socialist, communitarian, etc.
Seems to me that any term that actually means something and that gains any use in politics will quickly get co-opted and turned into a dog whistle by some political tribe, rendering it useless for the purpose of actual meaningful communication. Futurism seems to have become a dog whistle for a wing of the alt-right or something like that.
Maybe we need some kind of annotation scheme, like libertarian[1.14] where 1.14 refers to some kind of shared objectively published dictionary that defines terms precisely. That might make actual communication about political ideas possible.
Re: Know Thy Futurist
#5"Futurism is the American dream on overdrive: a disdain for the status quo and a belief that we can solve it all without unions, public education, and social safety nets." So scratch futurism off the list of usable political terms. It goes to the same dust bin as libertarian, socialist, communitarian, etc. Seems to me that any term that actually means something and that gains any use in politics will quickly get co-o…
Objectively?
Re: Know Thy Futurist
#6"Futurism is the American dream on overdrive: a disdain for the status quo and a belief that we can solve it all without unions, public education, and social safety nets." So scratch futurism off the list of usable political terms. It goes to the same dust bin as libertarian, socialist, communitarian, etc. Seems to me that any term that actually means something and that gains any use in politics will quickly get co-o…
The body of the article doesn't actually include the line you quoted -- I assume it was a poor paraphrasing by some editor. The author cited those as being characteristics of futurists in the "Q3" quadrant.
Re: Know Thy Futurist
#7I mostly appreciate the points and discussion this article raises. How about, super intelligent but not 'ruling' per say AI. I mean if the super intelligent AI (better they) are really super intelligent, won't they want people to be involved? I'm sure a super intelligence can recognize egomania as not a great thing, even whilst it claims to know all the answers.
Also, please stop using the 'white male not oppressed line' if you have a bio like that. It just detracts from your points. Feel free to call me out for this, I don't care because it's a good point- white male here, with a math ph.d. (same as you) also, 30, have only for 8 months out of 30 years made more than minimum wage. To call out "white males" everywhere is a tiresome oppression itself. Let's let racism and sexism subside please in 2017.
Re: Know Thy Futurist
#8"Futurism is the American dream on overdrive: a disdain for the status quo and a belief that we can solve it all without unions, public education, and social safety nets." So scratch futurism off the list of usable political terms. It goes to the same dust bin as libertarian, socialist, communitarian, etc. Seems to me that any term that actually means something and that gains any use in politics will quickly get co-o…
Objectively?
Perhaps with minimal ambiguity.
I'm interested in possibly basing it on "semantic primes"
Re: Know Thy Futurist
#9There's a pretty good response here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/09/in-favor-of-futurism-be...
Heh. SSC ranges from very thoughtful to cringefully unaware knee jerk reactions, and this response definitely falls in the latter category for me.
Of course, one can argue all one wants with the author’s quadrants, but that’s just goofing around with semantics. The real core of the article is here:
”from personality tests that filter out qualified job applicants to crime risk algorithms that convince judges to issue longer sentences, automated algorithms are already replacing our most important human decision making processes. As I look around, I realize there is no need to imagine some hypothetical future of human suffering. We are already here. Data scientists are creating machines they do not fully understand, machines that separates winners from losers for reasons that are already very familiar to us: class, race, age, disability status, quality of education, and other demographic measures. It is a threat to the very concept of social mobility. [...] For the average person, it doesn’t really matter if the decision to keep them in wage slavery is made by a super-intelligent AI or the not-so-intelligent Starbucks Scheduling System. The algorithms that already charge people with low FICO scores more for insurance, or send black people to prison for longer, or send more police to already over-policed neighborhoods, with facial recognition cameras at every corner—all of these look like old fashioned power to the person who is being judged.”
And Scott Alexander, in his anger that the author sharply criticizes privileged, wealthy white males, fails to address this core issue at all. Technology only amplifies existing human systems and biases.
Re: Know Thy Futurist
#10There's a pretty good response here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/09/in-favor-of-futurism-be...
Heh. SSC ranges from very thoughtful to cringefully unaware knee jerk reactions, and this response definitely falls in the latter category for me. Of course, one can argue all one wants with the author’s quadrants, but that’s just goofing around with semantics. The real core of the article is here: ”from personality tests that filter out qualified job applicants to crime risk algorithms that convince judges to issue…
> there is no need to imagine some hypothetical future of human suffering. We are already here
That's exactly the problem. The whole point of the SSC response was that the Boston Review is focused on current problems (societal, political, etc) instead of doing actual futurism, i.e. looking at how to solve these problems going forward, or at least prevent them from being worse. Futurists in all 4 quadrants are already aware of all these current problems, and as Scott says, they are "going to fight [their] hardest to end poverty, disease, death, and suffering"
Even if it's true that the natural tendency of technology is to "only amplify existing human systems and biases" (which I don't think is true, especially on the timescale of the graph in the SSC response) - but still, even if it's 100% true: Is it any reason to not think seriously about the future? To ignore the real possibility of the singularity? To judge ideas about the future based on superficial characteristics of the people proposing these ideas, rather than on their own merits? I feel like the Boston Review article is not actionable, it is not at all clear what it's actually proposing.