10 ms·

Reasons 2016 was a great year for humanity

161 points by whiddershins 10y ago

vlunkr 10y ago
I'm so sick of the meme that 2016 is a bad year. It's just confirmation bias.
- ythn 10y ago
  Cons of 2016: - Brexit - Trump - some famous people died Pros of 2016: - Brexit - Trump - some famous people died
  - vlunkr 10y ago
    The famous people dying is the stupidest part. Guess what, famous people are going to die every year.
    - ythn 10y ago
      It's a pro and a con. Pro: Fidel Castro died Con: Alan Rickman died
arcanus 10y ago
Missing the biggest triumph of 2016 by far: the victory by DeepMind's machine learning algorith at Go over the greatest living human player. At this time last year it was highly questionable if humans would ever lose to algorithms at games as complex as Go. Now we have reason to be optimistic that an entire class of problems are amenable to solution through computation, and more evidence super-human synthetic intelligence is indeed possible.
- candu 10y ago
  ...and hundreds of millions worldwide who have been saved from malaria or lifted out of extreme poverty would likely disagree with you: what good is super-human synthetic intelligence several decades from now (assuming that's even a tractable generalization of largely task-specific ML models) if you're not sure where your next meal comes from?
  - wagecuck 10y ago
    Even in the best of circumstances, with unlimited food for all, those people will be dust in a century. Even incremental improvements in technology will help hundreds of generations of humans going forward.
    - collyw 10y ago
      Not all uses of technology ore a positive influence. HFT, NSA's surveillance are two that come to mind straight away.
      - draz 10y ago
        I don't want this to come across as if I support these particular programs, but I would imagine some tech comes out through veterans and takes on consumer applications. Does the NSA file patents? If not, usage of tech is probably enforced by the honor code
        nickpsecurity 10y ago
        "Does the NSA file patents?" They do actually. They also get defense contractors like SAIC's holding company to do it for them then sue groups doing things like encrypted messaging. They can also slap secrecy orders on patents & block those from coming to market with that sort of thing going up since Bush-Cheney. "usage of tech is probably enforced by the honor code" See Snowden leaks. Defense contracting debacles. PROMIS scandal. So on and so forth.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - avz 10y ago
    > if you're not sure where your next meal comes from? This is certainly work in progress, but: "31. In 1990, more than 60% of people in East Asia lived in extreme poverty. As of 2016, that proportion has dropped to 3.5%."
- ep103 10y ago
  To me, the biggest events of the year are probably Trump, Brexit, and AlphaGo.
  - lithos 10y ago
    Author seemed to be going to great lengths to get things that were very positive, or at least very difficult to argue as a negative.
    - coherentpony 10y ago
      Depending on one's political leanings, Trump, Brexit and AlphaGo are all positive things.
      - lithos 10y ago
        There's a difference between those, and the eradication of diseases/increased nature preservation/reduced world hunger/increased literacy. Basically the post is going way out of its way to show a selection of the good stuff (based on what the author usually covers) that is difficult for the Media to get lots of angry shares based on a polarizing title.
- sbov 10y ago
  Is it? I mean, a lot of hard work was put into it. And, it's a step that needs to be taken. And people can work on what they want to work on. But how can a machine beating the best human at a game really be the biggest triumph of 2016? Whenever I think about this stuff, I have a similar nagging question. E.g. if there are entire classes of problems that we now "know" are solvable, and have an actual benefit to mankind, why didn't they spend time on that rather than a game?
  - ewzimm 10y ago
    This is like asking, "why didn't they just build a new dam instead of spending so much time drawing up blueprints?" Games can be useful abstractions and guides that advance our understanding of the same decision making processes that allow people to create real, effective changes in the world. The balance is shifting to the point in the near future where most of the best solutions to real world problems won't come directly from unaugmented human minds.
    - sbov 10y ago
      I can see games being an impetus, but are they really the blueprint, as opposed to just another application, but one that the public at large can appreciate?
      - ewzimm 10y ago
        The game itself isn't the blueprint. The source code of the application used to play the game is a blueprint for learning and pattern recognition that can be applied to other things. For example, the DeepMind AI used to play Go has been adapted to diagnose kidney injury by reusing much of the same code which was developed for the game. https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/22/nhs-deepmind-ai-app/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/22/nhs-deepmind-ai-app/
- jimbokun 10y ago
  There is no reason to think this is a positive development for humanity. Could very likely be a step on the road to our extinction.
_ph_ 10y ago
A great list to read through, when one thinks that there is no hope. Not through any miracles, but through dedicated work, a lot of issues have been improved at least. While there are no magical solutions, it shows that a lot is achievable and being achieved, by just working at the problems.
sgift 10y ago
First: Yay. At least something. Nitpick: There are still many parts "announced" and the half-life of announcements is about one election cycle, so ... hoping that at least a few of these announcements will be replaced with actions by Dec. 2017.
bagrow 10y ago
Pessimistically (I know, I know), it seems to me that recent events put many of these advances under threat. Science funding cuts and rollbacks of environmental protections can take out half the list or more. How great can these accomplishments really be if they can be so easily undone?
- Semiapies 10y ago
  You're really asking whether anything can be an accomplishment if it can be later ruined or undone.
  - libeclipse 10y ago
    There's a fine line between it being possibile and probable.
  - jonathansizz 10y ago
    A fundamental problem is that it's much easier to break things than build or maintain them. In many cases, gains accomplished over years or even decades can potentially be erased almost overnight (certainly in the environmental, political and economic spheres).
- nerdwaller 10y ago
  I think the thing to keep in mind here is that tons of this is unrelated to the US and its politics (what I presume you are somewhat getting at). Other countries are realizing the strength they can have and working for improvement. Whether or not the US unravels remains to be seen, but at least many of these great things are becoming a global effort.
fbreduc 10y ago
when can we go there to junk it up
jezfromfuture 10y ago
load of bollox , George Michael died so 2016 has been a disaster :(
CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
So much of this list was about conservation and environmental issues that it was almost frustrating to filter it out. I have nothing against these topics, but when you dominate your list with one theme and don't address that theme in the lede, I reflexively assume the author is attempting to pull the wool over my eyes. There is almost certainly some sampling bias going on, at least.
- lithos 10y ago
  Isn't that the assumption of any medium article? You're getting an editorial piece, based on the author's views (editorial doesn't necessarily mean all opinion and low fact density).
- ciconia 10y ago
  Did you read it from start to end? By order of subjects: nature conservation, global health, political and economic progress, climat change response, less violence, sustainable economy and agriculture, endangered animals, charity. The conservation of our planet is probably the biggest challenge facing humanity, and everything else sort of ties in with it. You cannot really separate economic progress, political stability and public health from the state of the environment.
  - CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
    > Did you read it from start to end? Yes, I did. > The conservation of our planet is probably the biggest challenge facing humanity, and everything else sort of ties in with it. Okay, you just conceded a point that negates any reasonable premise for your question that I can imagine at this time. If everything is sort of tied in with environmental concerns, then why did you think I didn't read the article from start to end? If you didn't think that, then why did you feel the need to ask if I had? I may be missing something obvious. I'd appreciate if someone could fill me in on what I missed.
    - csallen 10y ago
      I didn't downvote you, but I can only assume you're being downvoted because you ignored this: By order of subjects: nature conservation, global health, political and economic progress, climate change response, less violence, sustainable economy and agriculture, endangered animals, charity. It's pretty clear that this was the main point to counter your claim that the list was dominated by a single theme, yet you ignored it and focused on something else.
ekianjo 10y ago
> 32. Homelessness in the United States declined by 35% since 2007, and Los Angeles committed to $1.2 billion to help get more people off the street. You mean the same city which destroyed DIY small houses on wheels made by volunteers for homeless people and left them nothing to endure the cold winter months ? http://reason.com/reasontv/2016/12/09/los-angeles-homeless-tiny-houses http://reason.com/reasontv/2016/12/09/los-angeles-homeless-t... That's not a great policy to highlight in 2016. And that's just one point, I'm sure the whole list is filled with false-positive news.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
powera 10y ago
Everything is awesome!
- trey-jones 10y ago
  Well, some things are awesome, which is a truly a relief from the normal "Everything sucks." that we get on a daily basis. I was glad to read through these.
newswriter99 10y ago
Some of these are objectively good, such as world literacy increasing, less pollution in the atmosphere or survival rates increasing for endangered species. Then it lost me with "Oh and smoking bans are good and global human population increases are good and also drilling=evil corporations so banning it across the board=good" Those are debatable. Not very politically neutral is it.
- omegaworks 10y ago
  > Smoking bans are good. Sorry not sorry. Happy to not be paying for people's lung cancer treatment or dealing with secondhand in bars when I want to listen to live music. The vape bans are pretty preposterous though. > drilling = evil If it's in the ground it's not in the air.
  - newswriter99 10y ago
    Making it to where people don't have the right to put certain things into their body, healthy or unhealthy, is a stepping stone to a more fascist world. And a bit hypocritical if you're pushing for assisted suicide. Second-hand smoke bans, that's great. But I'd tell someone who vapes to quit peacocking in a bar before I'd tell a cigarette smoker that they're destroying their body in the privacy of their own home.
    - hx87 10y ago
      AFAIK, there are no smoking bans on people in their own homes, and even in that case it might be reasonable in apartments without airtight party walls.
  - entropyneur 10y ago
    That's an argument against tax-subsidized healthcare rather than for a smoking ban. Because otherwise you've just nationalized people's bodies. Why stop at smoking after all? Anyone not doing an hour of cardio daily is being irresponsible with the body entrusted to them by society and is in need of a visit to a reformation camp.

161 points by whiddershins 10y ago

vlunkr 10y ago

I'm so sick of the meme that 2016 is a bad year. It's just confirmation bias.

ythn 10y ago
Cons of 2016: - Brexit - Trump - some famous people died Pros of 2016: - Brexit - Trump - some famous people died
- vlunkr 10y ago
  The famous people dying is the stupidest part. Guess what, famous people are going to die every year.
  - ythn 10y ago
    It's a pro and a con. Pro: Fidel Castro died Con: Alan Rickman died

arcanus 10y ago

Missing the biggest triumph of 2016 by far: the victory by DeepMind's machine learning algorith at Go over the greatest living human player. At this time last year it was highly questionable if humans would ever lose to algorithms at games as complex as Go. Now we have reason to be optimistic that an entire class of problems are amenable to solution through computation, and more evidence super-human synthetic intelligence is indeed possible.

candu 10y ago
...and hundreds of millions worldwide who have been saved from malaria or lifted out of extreme poverty would likely disagree with you: what good is super-human synthetic intelligence several decades from now (assuming that's even a tractable generalization of largely task-specific ML models) if you're not sure where your next meal comes from?
- wagecuck 10y ago
  Even in the best of circumstances, with unlimited food for all, those people will be dust in a century. Even incremental improvements in technology will help hundreds of generations of humans going forward.
  - collyw 10y ago
    Not all uses of technology ore a positive influence. HFT, NSA's surveillance are two that come to mind straight away.
    - draz 10y ago
      I don't want this to come across as if I support these particular programs, but I would imagine some tech comes out through veterans and takes on consumer applications. Does the NSA file patents? If not, usage of tech is probably enforced by the honor code
      - nickpsecurity 10y ago
        "Does the NSA file patents?" They do actually. They also get defense contractors like SAIC's holding company to do it for them then sue groups doing things like encrypted messaging. They can also slap secrecy orders on patents & block those from coming to market with that sort of thing going up since Bush-Cheney. "usage of tech is probably enforced by the honor code" See Snowden leaks. Defense contracting debacles. PROMIS scandal. So on and so forth.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- avz 10y ago
  > if you're not sure where your next meal comes from? This is certainly work in progress, but: "31. In 1990, more than 60% of people in East Asia lived in extreme poverty. As of 2016, that proportion has dropped to 3.5%."
ep103 10y ago
To me, the biggest events of the year are probably Trump, Brexit, and AlphaGo.
- lithos 10y ago
  Author seemed to be going to great lengths to get things that were very positive, or at least very difficult to argue as a negative.
  - coherentpony 10y ago
    Depending on one's political leanings, Trump, Brexit and AlphaGo are all positive things.
    - lithos 10y ago
      There's a difference between those, and the eradication of diseases/increased nature preservation/reduced world hunger/increased literacy. Basically the post is going way out of its way to show a selection of the good stuff (based on what the author usually covers) that is difficult for the Media to get lots of angry shares based on a polarizing title.
sbov 10y ago
Is it? I mean, a lot of hard work was put into it. And, it's a step that needs to be taken. And people can work on what they want to work on. But how can a machine beating the best human at a game really be the biggest triumph of 2016? Whenever I think about this stuff, I have a similar nagging question. E.g. if there are entire classes of problems that we now "know" are solvable, and have an actual benefit to mankind, why didn't they spend time on that rather than a game?
- ewzimm 10y ago
  This is like asking, "why didn't they just build a new dam instead of spending so much time drawing up blueprints?" Games can be useful abstractions and guides that advance our understanding of the same decision making processes that allow people to create real, effective changes in the world. The balance is shifting to the point in the near future where most of the best solutions to real world problems won't come directly from unaugmented human minds.
  - sbov 10y ago
    I can see games being an impetus, but are they really the blueprint, as opposed to just another application, but one that the public at large can appreciate?
    - ewzimm 10y ago
      The game itself isn't the blueprint. The source code of the application used to play the game is a blueprint for learning and pattern recognition that can be applied to other things. For example, the DeepMind AI used to play Go has been adapted to diagnose kidney injury by reusing much of the same code which was developed for the game. https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/22/nhs-deepmind-ai-app/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/22/nhs-deepmind-ai-app/
jimbokun 10y ago
There is no reason to think this is a positive development for humanity. Could very likely be a step on the road to our extinction.

_ph_ 10y ago

A great list to read through, when one thinks that there is no hope. Not through any miracles, but through dedicated work, a lot of issues have been improved at least. While there are no magical solutions, it shows that a lot is achievable and being achieved, by just working at the problems.

sgift 10y ago

First: Yay. At least something. Nitpick: There are still many parts "announced" and the half-life of announcements is about one election cycle, so ... hoping that at least a few of these announcements will be replaced with actions by Dec. 2017.

bagrow 10y ago

Pessimistically (I know, I know), it seems to me that recent events put many of these advances under threat. Science funding cuts and rollbacks of environmental protections can take out half the list or more. How great can these accomplishments really be if they can be so easily undone?

Semiapies 10y ago
You're really asking whether anything can be an accomplishment if it can be later ruined or undone.
- libeclipse 10y ago
  There's a fine line between it being possibile and probable.
- jonathansizz 10y ago
  A fundamental problem is that it's much easier to break things than build or maintain them. In many cases, gains accomplished over years or even decades can potentially be erased almost overnight (certainly in the environmental, political and economic spheres).
nerdwaller 10y ago
I think the thing to keep in mind here is that tons of this is unrelated to the US and its politics (what I presume you are somewhat getting at). Other countries are realizing the strength they can have and working for improvement. Whether or not the US unravels remains to be seen, but at least many of these great things are becoming a global effort.

fbreduc 10y ago

when can we go there to junk it up

jezfromfuture 10y ago

load of bollox , George Michael died so 2016 has been a disaster :(

CiPHPerCoder 10y ago

So much of this list was about conservation and environmental issues that it was almost frustrating to filter it out. I have nothing against these topics, but when you dominate your list with one theme and don't address that theme in the lede, I reflexively assume the author is attempting to pull the wool over my eyes. There is almost certainly some sampling bias going on, at least.

lithos 10y ago
Isn't that the assumption of any medium article? You're getting an editorial piece, based on the author's views (editorial doesn't necessarily mean all opinion and low fact density).
ciconia 10y ago
Did you read it from start to end? By order of subjects: nature conservation, global health, political and economic progress, climat change response, less violence, sustainable economy and agriculture, endangered animals, charity. The conservation of our planet is probably the biggest challenge facing humanity, and everything else sort of ties in with it. You cannot really separate economic progress, political stability and public health from the state of the environment.
- CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
  > Did you read it from start to end? Yes, I did. > The conservation of our planet is probably the biggest challenge facing humanity, and everything else sort of ties in with it. Okay, you just conceded a point that negates any reasonable premise for your question that I can imagine at this time. If everything is sort of tied in with environmental concerns, then why did you think I didn't read the article from start to end? If you didn't think that, then why did you feel the need to ask if I had? I may be missing something obvious. I'd appreciate if someone could fill me in on what I missed.
  - csallen 10y ago
    I didn't downvote you, but I can only assume you're being downvoted because you ignored this: By order of subjects: nature conservation, global health, political and economic progress, climate change response, less violence, sustainable economy and agriculture, endangered animals, charity. It's pretty clear that this was the main point to counter your claim that the list was dominated by a single theme, yet you ignored it and focused on something else.

ekianjo 10y ago

> 32. Homelessness in the United States declined by 35% since 2007, and Los Angeles committed to $1.2 billion to help get more people off the street. You mean the same city which destroyed DIY small houses on wheels made by volunteers for homeless people and left them nothing to endure the cold winter months ? http://reason.com/reasontv/2016/12/09/los-angeles-homeless-tiny-houses http://reason.com/reasontv/2016/12/09/los-angeles-homeless-t... That's not a great policy to highlight in 2016. And that's just one point, I'm sure the whole list is filled with false-positive news.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

powera 10y ago

Everything is awesome!

trey-jones 10y ago
Well, some things are awesome, which is a truly a relief from the normal "Everything sucks." that we get on a daily basis. I was glad to read through these.

newswriter99 10y ago

Some of these are objectively good, such as world literacy increasing, less pollution in the atmosphere or survival rates increasing for endangered species. Then it lost me with "Oh and smoking bans are good and global human population increases are good and also drilling=evil corporations so banning it across the board=good" Those are debatable. Not very politically neutral is it.

omegaworks 10y ago
> Smoking bans are good. Sorry not sorry. Happy to not be paying for people's lung cancer treatment or dealing with secondhand in bars when I want to listen to live music. The vape bans are pretty preposterous though. > drilling = evil If it's in the ground it's not in the air.
- newswriter99 10y ago
  Making it to where people don't have the right to put certain things into their body, healthy or unhealthy, is a stepping stone to a more fascist world. And a bit hypocritical if you're pushing for assisted suicide. Second-hand smoke bans, that's great. But I'd tell someone who vapes to quit peacocking in a bar before I'd tell a cigarette smoker that they're destroying their body in the privacy of their own home.
  - hx87 10y ago
    AFAIK, there are no smoking bans on people in their own homes, and even in that case it might be reasonable in apartments without airtight party walls.
- entropyneur 10y ago
  That's an argument against tax-subsidized healthcare rather than for a smoking ban. Because otherwise you've just nationalized people's bodies. Why stop at smoking after all? Anyone not doing an hour of cardio daily is being irresponsible with the body entrusted to them by society and is in need of a visit to a reformation camp.