3 ms·

A lot of useful technologies started out as something only for the rich and powerful, and as more people started using them it created economies of scale, and e

A lot of useful technologies started out as something only for the rich and powerful, and as more people started using them it created economies of scale, and eventually brought down the cost, making it affordable to the masses. I'm not even making this up. This is a widely accepted phenomenon and there are even many books on this. Uber was a limo service for rich people in the beginning, but now it's grown into a whole industry which is beneficial to people who previously couldn't easily move around, such as the disabled and the elders. If everyone acted like smug pseudo intellects and tried to ostracize Uber saying "it's for some rich bros", the world wouldn't be where it is. It is arrogant to believe that one can predict what will exactly happen because of just one piece of technology. Most of the human history is full of things that nobody saw coming.

hnaccy 9y ago
>It is arrogant to believe that one can predict what will exactly happen because of just one piece of technology. I agree which is why I wouldn't count on immortality being shared with the unwashed masses just because a ride sharing app was. I don't see how questioning the benefit of having enormously powerful people of dubious morals become immortal makes one a pseudo-intellectual or smug. I suppose I forgot to adhere to the Valley orthodoxy that technological advancement will always improve the lives of all.
- brucephillips 9y ago
  Can you name any consumer technology in history that wasn't ultimately available to the masses?
- cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
  I'm calling it smug because all this argument is doing is making hypothetical dystopian sci-fi statements with no base in reality. If you actually take a look at the reality, you quickly realize it's nearly impossible to find these cases unless you're watching a sci-fi movie. Any technology that has potential to do good for the humanity will eventually be shared with the masses if it exists. For example, RSA and Diffie-Hellman algorithm--arguably two of the most important technological inventions of the 20th century--were originally invented by government secret agencies but kept from the public for many years before being "rediscovered" by some other people later and made available to the public. And this was even before the wide-spread of the Internet. It's becoming increasingly difficult to keep things from the public. Unix was kept away from the public by being super expensive, and Linux came along to made it completely free. Wikileaks came along and made classified information no longer classified, giving more power to the public. Drug companies which charge tons of money to people (see martin shkreli) get slammed and hated in public, giving incentive to upstarts that try to be more transparent and ethical as a marketing strategy. The only place where information is kept from the public is dystopian sci-fi films. Unless you truly think this hypothetical immortality technology can be kept completely private from the public FOREVER, what you're basically saying is "Only the rich will have access to the technology initially, and that's not fair, so we should ban the technology."

hnaccy 9y ago

>It is arrogant to believe that one can predict what will exactly happen because of just one piece of technology. I agree which is why I wouldn't count on immortality being shared with the unwashed masses just because a ride sharing app was. I don't see how questioning the benefit of having enormously powerful people of dubious morals become immortal makes one a pseudo-intellectual or smug. I suppose I forgot to adhere to the Valley orthodoxy that technological advancement will always improve the lives of all.

brucephillips 9y ago
Can you name any consumer technology in history that wasn't ultimately available to the masses?
cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
I'm calling it smug because all this argument is doing is making hypothetical dystopian sci-fi statements with no base in reality. If you actually take a look at the reality, you quickly realize it's nearly impossible to find these cases unless you're watching a sci-fi movie. Any technology that has potential to do good for the humanity will eventually be shared with the masses if it exists. For example, RSA and Diffie-Hellman algorithm--arguably two of the most important technological inventions of the 20th century--were originally invented by government secret agencies but kept from the public for many years before being "rediscovered" by some other people later and made available to the public. And this was even before the wide-spread of the Internet. It's becoming increasingly difficult to keep things from the public. Unix was kept away from the public by being super expensive, and Linux came along to made it completely free. Wikileaks came along and made classified information no longer classified, giving more power to the public. Drug companies which charge tons of money to people (see martin shkreli) get slammed and hated in public, giving incentive to upstarts that try to be more transparent and ethical as a marketing strategy. The only place where information is kept from the public is dystopian sci-fi films. Unless you truly think this hypothetical immortality technology can be kept completely private from the public FOREVER, what you're basically saying is "Only the rich will have access to the technology initially, and that's not fair, so we should ban the technology."