4 ms·

> 10000, 200, 20 You don't notice the pattern? The first big bump was 10,000 years go. The next one was 200 years ago. The third one was 20 years ago. It does

> 10000, 200, 20 You don't notice the pattern? The first big bump was 10,000 years go. The next one was 200 years ago. The third one was 20 years ago. It does seem like it takes less an less time for the world to work out what's unnecessary about social organizations. If I naively extrapolate, within decades we'll have period where we have profound cultural shifts every year or so, then every week. Frankly, I think we're already in the once-a-year period it's just that profound social shifts aren't quite as newsworthy as they were in the nineties. And the adoption curves are still on the order of decades, so while there's a new game changing structures every year, it still takes 20 years for it to disseminate. But the successor to a structure is getting created almost faster than the original is getting disseminated. This is why people talk about the singularity. If these trends continue, it means we're headed towards a moment of "max everything". Opinions differ on what max everything will look like. I don't think "AI superintelligence" will be a thing, others do. But it doesn't seem crazy to expect things will look very alien. We're headed towards one, globally connected, mind. Some will opt in, and life will look very different for them. Some will opt out and things will more or less freeze in a vaguely 20th century form. So I guess in that sense "everything will be different" and "nothing will change" are both right, depending on what kinds of person you are.

Ductapemaster 10y ago
> If I naively extrapolate, within decades we'll have period where we have profound cultural shifts every year or so, then every week. I think in reality there is some sort of lower bound here in what we consider "reality" today (the physical world, with its governments, etc). We already are seeing the internet as a place where revolutions happen on very short timescales, even overnight. This will only increase as VR takes hold of our minds and existence. To be honest, I'm a little afraid of that. There is something to be said for change in the physical world and how profound big changes are, and I hope one does not transplant the other and that they evolve together. We still need infrastructure, places to live, and government to make the online/VR revolutions a possibility.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  It's funny, when I re-read my comment, I notice the bit about adoption cycles, and I wonder if maybe there isn't a 20 year lower bound on these revolutions, because certain ideas can only be cemented in a person at certain stages of their life. Maybe the skills required to lead a revolution can only be formed while living as a child under the system that the revolution is against. And so any empire you create is at least safe for 20 years, until a new generation of kids come up having never known anything else, and tear it down. I think a lot about that when I look at Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. The blockchain completely changed how I think about computer science, and while I think it's revolutionary, I don't think it can really take off until a whole generation of students can go through their PhDs to solve some of the major problems. We see that happening now in the Ethereum community. I see it in myself too... The web was just emerging as I was coming of age. It promised to revolutionize society, but in the 20 years since, we have seen the ways it failed to do that. Those of us who grew up immersed in the web are currently working feverishly to attack the corruption that has resisted it. I actually have little doubt we'll succeed at democratizing access to things like information, credit, and public safety, but I can also see the ways in which we are creating a new bubble of impossibility. I can see how children growing up in the world I'm creating may have a hard time making mistakes and causing collateral damage, which could stifle exploration. I can see how groupthink can become unmoored from reality in scary ways... And sometimes I wonder if my generation, even with this exponentially accellerating technology and culture, won't really be able to solve those problems because we didn't grow up in them. Not in the same way. In that sense, I think the 20 year clock that advances a little each generation will still be a reasonable characterization of post-singularity life.

Ductapemaster 10y ago

> If I naively extrapolate, within decades we'll have period where we have profound cultural shifts every year or so, then every week. I think in reality there is some sort of lower bound here in what we consider "reality" today (the physical world, with its governments, etc). We already are seeing the internet as a place where revolutions happen on very short timescales, even overnight. This will only increase as VR takes hold of our minds and existence. To be honest, I'm a little afraid of that. There is something to be said for change in the physical world and how profound big changes are, and I hope one does not transplant the other and that they evolve together. We still need infrastructure, places to live, and government to make the online/VR revolutions a possibility.

erikpukinskis 10y ago
It's funny, when I re-read my comment, I notice the bit about adoption cycles, and I wonder if maybe there isn't a 20 year lower bound on these revolutions, because certain ideas can only be cemented in a person at certain stages of their life. Maybe the skills required to lead a revolution can only be formed while living as a child under the system that the revolution is against. And so any empire you create is at least safe for 20 years, until a new generation of kids come up having never known anything else, and tear it down. I think a lot about that when I look at Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. The blockchain completely changed how I think about computer science, and while I think it's revolutionary, I don't think it can really take off until a whole generation of students can go through their PhDs to solve some of the major problems. We see that happening now in the Ethereum community. I see it in myself too... The web was just emerging as I was coming of age. It promised to revolutionize society, but in the 20 years since, we have seen the ways it failed to do that. Those of us who grew up immersed in the web are currently working feverishly to attack the corruption that has resisted it. I actually have little doubt we'll succeed at democratizing access to things like information, credit, and public safety, but I can also see the ways in which we are creating a new bubble of impossibility. I can see how children growing up in the world I'm creating may have a hard time making mistakes and causing collateral damage, which could stifle exploration. I can see how groupthink can become unmoored from reality in scary ways... And sometimes I wonder if my generation, even with this exponentially accellerating technology and culture, won't really be able to solve those problems because we didn't grow up in them. Not in the same way. In that sense, I think the 20 year clock that advances a little each generation will still be a reasonable characterization of post-singularity life.