Low-hanging fruit
artagnon.com
Low-hanging fruit
1–10 of 23 posts
Re: Low-hanging fruit
#2To be a bit more optimistic: (in conjunction, see https://jcmit.net/mem2015.htm)
In the 1960s and 1970s, machines cost millions or hundreds of thousands of dollars-of-the-time, and the marginal new user was highly educated, so in order to make use of the hardware and wetware, the dreams had to be big to match.
In the 2010s and 2020s, devices cost hundreds or tens of current dollars, and the marginal new user is a teenager or preteen, so in order to monetise the hardware and wetware, the modal dreams are correspondingly least-common-denominator.
So — I think we may still dream big, but we do have to accept that computing "crossed the chasm" a while ago: Eloi-style small dreams are now the dominant culture, while countercultural Morlock-style big dreams have been driven underground...
Re: Low-hanging fruit
#3This seems more or less right to me, but it sort of peters out at the end. Like hmm, we're stuck, wonder why that could be? The end.
Let's make some proposals about what we need to do to get unstuck.
Re: Low-hanging fruit
#4This seems more or less right to me, but it sort of peters out at the end. Like hmm, we're stuck, wonder why that could be? The end. Let's make some proposals about what we need to do to get unstuck.
[deleted]
Re: Low-hanging fruit
#5> A topic often discussed in Star Trek is how human society transcended its societal problems to finally have the leisure to innovate and conquer space. It's 2024, and no major societal changes seem to be on the horizon.
People who quote Star Trek's utopian view of technology should refer to the Star Trek universe timeline. The 21st century was very, very bad for Earthlings in that chronology. Some highlights include: eugenic wars, nuclear apocalypse, massive earthquakes.
Re: Low-hanging fruit
#6The urge to do more and explore exists, but it is not the centralized monolith it once was, nor does it occupy the mainstream imagination like it once did. In fact, I believe that the internet has destroyed the very notion of "mainstream". Culture is reduced to is lowest common denominator: money-mediated commerce. Capital does battle with itself in the infospace to manufacture consent, and capital's tools are so efficient now that nothing can battle capital itself. The talented individual dreamer can sometimes find refuge in the whim of philanthropy, or occasionally a YouTube channel. But big, world-changing projects funded by government require a cultural coherence that is incompatible with capital's demonstrated effect. The culture has lost a coherent notion of virtue, and that means the virtuous are at risk if they do not do what is expected of them, which is to plug in to the machine and stay plugged in or die.
The Great Change we need is to revitalize free speech. Speech should indeed be free, and paid-for speech should be made illegal. Or, if that is too radical, paid-for speech should require specific consent. No more lawyers and pundits paid to install their jaundiced opinions into weak-minds. No more advertisers paid to inflame greed and envy. It would be a world where, if you hear speech, you can be assured someone said it of their own accord, without a profit motive. In that world, speech would be truly free.
Re: Low-hanging fruit
#7In my mind, the lowest-hanging fruit is: "tech is now abundant, and great machine farms feed us all." Surprising thing is, most of us are already there - except the media (hand-in-hand with legacy corporations that need scared, docile employees) is incentivized to keep us thinking otherwise by focusing on homelessness and immigration.
They're afraid of the general populace reaching the consensus that "tech is now abundant, and great machine farms feed us all," because that would mean that most of us are free to explore and experiment without being subject to pointless human pyramids (i.e. corps), which represents unknown innovations and disruptions that might threaten said pyramids.
And a LOT of that mass-gaslighting relies on what the internet has become - a Judge Dredd-style Sprawl of a few monolithic power centers, with nothing but millions of noodle shops and nail salons (whose online equivalents would be e-commerce websites and commodity SaaS startups) in between.
Some time ago, the internet had a sensible structural ambition that a child could understand: a singular global network where nobody can stop the individual from adding a new node. That freedom is technically still there, but it's been neutered in every way imaginable. And most who would support that freedom lost heart, like the author here.
What now? I think it's simple - we try again. Go back to the original promise, and see how we can implement it better this time. An accessible, transparent, free network of simple documents and people. The tech is there, and the appetite is there, if you look at the success of products like LinkTree.
In fact, I'm working on building that right now, and I have high confidence in our go-to-market strategy. Email me (check my bio) if this interests you. I'd love to chat.
Re: Low-hanging fruit
#8> A topic often discussed in Star Trek is how human society transcended its societal problems to finally have the leisure to innovate and conquer space. It's 2024, and no major societal changes seem to be on the horizon. People who quote Star Trek's utopian view of technology should refer to the Star Trek universe timeline. The 21st century was very, very bad for Earthlings in that chronology. Some highlights include…
Indeed, in Star Trek humans “grew out of our infancy” by having WW3 and the eugenics wars, then by one genius creating a propulsion technology just to get rich, which luckily drew the attention of coincidentally passing benevolent space aliens.
It was all carnage + greed + razor-thin luck. None of it was intentional growth.
Re: Low-hanging fruit
#9> we're consuming tons of compute power to build bullshit-spewing chatbots
ChatGPT has become really valuable for me during novel programming... so this sentiment annoyed me a bit.
Re: Low-hanging fruit
#10> A topic often discussed in Star Trek is how human society transcended its societal problems to finally have the leisure to innovate and conquer space. It's 2024, and no major societal changes seem to be on the horizon. People who quote Star Trek's utopian view of technology should refer to the Star Trek universe timeline. The 21st century was very, very bad for Earthlings in that chronology. Some highlights include…
Indeed, in Star Trek humans “grew out of our infancy” by having WW3 and the eugenics wars, then by one genius creating a propulsion technology just to get rich, which luckily drew the attention of coincidentally passing benevolent space aliens. It was all carnage + greed + razor-thin luck. None of it was intentional growth.
Not to mention that we seem to be in the Mirror Universe (including the popularity of goatees)...