5 ms·

I do wonder about the "not everyone can contribute" perhaps they can't contribute in building cars, but with a cultural shift and education, well there are a lo

I do wonder about the "not everyone can contribute" perhaps they can't contribute in building cars, but with a cultural shift and education, well there are a lot of avenues of research and mathematics that only require thought and basic tools like chalk. I tend to view an unemployed human as an awful waste of computational resources. This ofcourse assumes we haven't figured out strong AÍ or we don't want to, cause that's an entirely different chat.

manmal 10y ago
Yes. We are made to be active (non-passive), so most people will choose to do _anything_ anyway. Might as well something that furthers our objectives.
jsemrau 10y ago
I have been building houses in Indonesia and other parts of South East Asia and there is ample need for people who can build stuff and teach things.
adrianN 10y ago
are you honestly suggesting that a large part of the population can be trained to become research mathematicians?
- cannonpr 10y ago
  Are you honestly suggesting there is anything other than education preventing them from it ? That asides, research mathematics is only a small subset of mental tasks available to humans. There are a lot of areas that could benefit from "computation" Laws, philosophy, literature, sociology, psychology. We seem to have forgotten how much of our society is based on how our thought is applied to knowledge. Thought rather than Praxis has been relatively neglected in our age.
  - adrianN 10y ago
    intelligence and mathematial ability can't be taught very well
  - powertower 10y ago
    > Are you honestly suggesting there is anything other than education preventing them from it? Yes. The aptitude of higher abstract thinking varies greatly among different people and groups. If you are really curious, check out the IQ test about pulling info from a sports column. After that, your question becomes similar to asking why every short person can't be taught/trained to do well on a professional basketball team.
    - flocial 10y ago
      Elevating educational standards of society as a whole, especially the poor, has nothing to do with whether all disenfranchised groups have the native intelligence to become academics or well paid knowledge workers. The number of active NBA players is in the hundreds and their careers are short. Education is a very effective weapon against multi generational poverty and the focus of international aid organizations for a reason. Someone from an impoverished background is much more likely to live a better life with more education than someone without.
    - cannonpr 10y ago
      I don't really want to divert this thread into a full discussion on the validity and value of IQ tests, but I do find the view you are espousing to be very depressing and I had hoped that they had died along with Ellis island and phrenology.
- AsyncAwait 10y ago
  I took the point as in "everyone can still do something", be it mathematics, art, politics etc.
  - cannonpr 10y ago
    That was mostly the point, though there are dozens of offshoots I'd love to argue to death on. I feel quite strongly that the path we take on labour and automation will strongly pivot us towards very different futures. Do we want to live in a future filled with thinkers, or with consumers ?
sewercake 10y ago
> I tend to view an unemployed human as an awful waste of computational resources This feels like a pretty strong over-application of the computational metaphor, my friend.
- cannonpr 10y ago
  Guilty.
douche 10y ago
> I tend to view an unemployed human as an awful waste of computational resources. If we extend the metaphor, there are 4004s and there are i7s. You need a lot of 4004s to equal the output of one i7. That many 4004s use a lot more watts than the one i7, and at some point the value isn't there.
- cannonpr 10y ago
  I see your point, however these humans are alive, thinking, using power you might say anyway. There is a nearly infinite task in improving our society and science, and we have strong evidence that humans become self destructive or just destructive when not actively engaged in something they enjoy doing.
- kwhitefoot 10y ago
  What do you propose that we do with the 4004s?
ue_ 10y ago
>I tend to view an unemployed human as an awful waste of computational resources. Is this a joke? It sounds like something so detached from the reality of humanity that it's something only an engineer or computer scientist would say. An unemployed human isn't a 'waste' of anything; the fact that the human does not need to be employed but is still suffering at the hands of capitalism is horrible.
ezy 10y ago
If you have an IQ of 89 or below in a first world country, you might be able to barely complete high school, but are not going to become a math professor. IQ (g) is normally distributed. The only hope here is that there is some extrinsic element, similar to nutrition, but as yet undiscovered, that will improve human IQ for those on the left-hand side of the curve in a real way. Otherwise, no, not everyone can contribute in the same way.

manmal 10y ago

Yes. We are made to be active (non-passive), so most people will choose to do _anything_ anyway. Might as well something that furthers our objectives.

jsemrau 10y ago

I have been building houses in Indonesia and other parts of South East Asia and there is ample need for people who can build stuff and teach things.

adrianN 10y ago

are you honestly suggesting that a large part of the population can be trained to become research mathematicians?

cannonpr 10y ago
Are you honestly suggesting there is anything other than education preventing them from it ? That asides, research mathematics is only a small subset of mental tasks available to humans. There are a lot of areas that could benefit from "computation" Laws, philosophy, literature, sociology, psychology. We seem to have forgotten how much of our society is based on how our thought is applied to knowledge. Thought rather than Praxis has been relatively neglected in our age.
- adrianN 10y ago
  intelligence and mathematial ability can't be taught very well
- powertower 10y ago
  > Are you honestly suggesting there is anything other than education preventing them from it? Yes. The aptitude of higher abstract thinking varies greatly among different people and groups. If you are really curious, check out the IQ test about pulling info from a sports column. After that, your question becomes similar to asking why every short person can't be taught/trained to do well on a professional basketball team.
  - flocial 10y ago
    Elevating educational standards of society as a whole, especially the poor, has nothing to do with whether all disenfranchised groups have the native intelligence to become academics or well paid knowledge workers. The number of active NBA players is in the hundreds and their careers are short. Education is a very effective weapon against multi generational poverty and the focus of international aid organizations for a reason. Someone from an impoverished background is much more likely to live a better life with more education than someone without.
  - cannonpr 10y ago
    I don't really want to divert this thread into a full discussion on the validity and value of IQ tests, but I do find the view you are espousing to be very depressing and I had hoped that they had died along with Ellis island and phrenology.
AsyncAwait 10y ago
I took the point as in "everyone can still do something", be it mathematics, art, politics etc.
- cannonpr 10y ago
  That was mostly the point, though there are dozens of offshoots I'd love to argue to death on. I feel quite strongly that the path we take on labour and automation will strongly pivot us towards very different futures. Do we want to live in a future filled with thinkers, or with consumers ?

sewercake 10y ago

> I tend to view an unemployed human as an awful waste of computational resources This feels like a pretty strong over-application of the computational metaphor, my friend.

cannonpr 10y ago
Guilty.

douche 10y ago

> I tend to view an unemployed human as an awful waste of computational resources. If we extend the metaphor, there are 4004s and there are i7s. You need a lot of 4004s to equal the output of one i7. That many 4004s use a lot more watts than the one i7, and at some point the value isn't there.

cannonpr 10y ago
I see your point, however these humans are alive, thinking, using power you might say anyway. There is a nearly infinite task in improving our society and science, and we have strong evidence that humans become self destructive or just destructive when not actively engaged in something they enjoy doing.
kwhitefoot 10y ago
What do you propose that we do with the 4004s?

ue_ 10y ago

>I tend to view an unemployed human as an awful waste of computational resources. Is this a joke? It sounds like something so detached from the reality of humanity that it's something only an engineer or computer scientist would say. An unemployed human isn't a 'waste' of anything; the fact that the human does not need to be employed but is still suffering at the hands of capitalism is horrible.

ezy 10y ago

If you have an IQ of 89 or below in a first world country, you might be able to barely complete high school, but are not going to become a math professor. IQ (g) is normally distributed. The only hope here is that there is some extrinsic element, similar to nutrition, but as yet undiscovered, that will improve human IQ for those on the left-hand side of the curve in a real way. Otherwise, no, not everyone can contribute in the same way.