4 ms·

What you say is all true, but its also a local maxima that we're all caught in. I think there's a critical threshold at which we could achieve accelerating good

What you say is all true, but its also a local maxima that we're all caught in. I think there's a critical threshold at which we could achieve accelerating good with computing instead of today's computing doing a lot of harm. What the path to that threshold is, is an interesting conversation to have.

knieveltech 9y ago
A few decades of observed reality suggest the path involves reversing the arrow of time. Software fucks up everything it touches in one way or another, with few meaningful gains outside of simple convenience.
- mwcampbell 9y ago
  At the risk of going off on a tangent, your pessimism is unwarranted. Consider, first of all, that we're having this discussion on a message board with participants from all over the world. That's a meaningful benefit of software. I read both the original article and this discussion with a screen reader, because I'm visually impaired. I can also use a screen reader to read ebooks. Sure, I have enough sight that I could read regular print with a simple magnifier. But without software, my totally blind friends would have to wait for the things they want to read to be transcribed into braille, recorded, or read to them in person. This, to me, is a benefit of software that goes way beyond convenience. I could go on, but this blog post by Bertrand Meyer responds to general pessimism about software better than I could: https://bertrandmeyer.com/2013/03/12/apocalypse-no-part-1/ https://bertrandmeyer.com/2013/03/12/apocalypse-no-part-1/
  - knieveltech 9y ago
    Spend some time contemplating all of the ways that the modern surveillance state oppresses minorities, all of the drivers of income inequality (both domestically and globally), how few people actually benefit meaningfully from automation, and get back to me about how my "pessimism" is unwarranted. FFS, software has lowered the barrier to warfare so far we're bombing somewhere between five and ten (I can't even keep up) countries currently, and it isn't even generating column inches in the local paper.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      Modern states deliver drastically higher standard of living, less oppression, and minuscule existential risk (i.e. total war, wholesale slaughter) compared to historical norms. Read some history and get back to us on how the modern world is oppressive, violent, or impoverished compared to some bygone golden age. It’s true that if you go back far enough we were all equal... because we were all peasant farmers.
      - knieveltech 9y ago
        I've listed observable deterioration in societal conditions attributable directly to software, and thus changes that have taken place over roughly the last 50 years. Are you asserting mass surveillance (for example) hasn't become a largely inescapable societal norm or that software doesn't provide the methods? In what way is "historical norms" before the advent of software in any way relevant to the discussion? To humor your strawman, please reconcile the phrase "miniscule existential risk" with the myriad existential threats to species survival the modern age presents that did not exist before the advent of computers.
    - WillReplyfFood 9y ago
      The surveilance works also in reverse. Black Lives Matter wouldnt be there if there wasnt the masses surveil the supressors. Alot of technology benefits are non visible today- but imagine any nasty event- and notice how a lot of the implicit knowledge of a society would survive today- encoded in videos, automated tutorials and wikipedia articles. And it even makes kind of sence. Investing into "Leaps" forward can fail in a thousand ways, investing into measure that prevent society from falling down completely and allow fast recoverys, well that is something that can become usefull a hundred times over. Its like a dice where one in nth sides gives you a chance to leap forward - and 0.5*n of all sides have a chance you must step permanently back. Removing those sites of the dice from the scenario tree, is statistically OP though not really cool to watch. The only thing currently not OP is how companys research is directed towards local optima. There are no big attempts to lift whole areas of endavours in feasability. Actually, if i had the whole picture- i would guess that humanity is currently on some sort of golden path.
- dustingetz 9y ago
  the web didn't. But your point about arrows is well taken. Today, the gravity arrow points toward the money. But I don't think that's some immutable law of nature, i think it's a local maxima (a very deep maxima)
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    > the web didn't Oh, the web is likely the single biggest fuckup (maybe second only to C) of the software world. We've gained a lot, true, but we've also broke things a lot too.
    - racer-v 9y ago
      Goes to show that "worse is better", given that these two perhaps badly-designed systems are the software world's biggest successes.
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        Yeah. "Worse is better" is just philosophy built around understanding of feedback loops (indirectly, through evolutionary processes). It's pretty much fact of the system that is human society. It's true, and it's the default way things work. It should be used, however, as a reminder that we have brains capable of overriding that default, if we can be bothered to use them.

knieveltech 9y ago

A few decades of observed reality suggest the path involves reversing the arrow of time. Software fucks up everything it touches in one way or another, with few meaningful gains outside of simple convenience.

mwcampbell 9y ago
At the risk of going off on a tangent, your pessimism is unwarranted. Consider, first of all, that we're having this discussion on a message board with participants from all over the world. That's a meaningful benefit of software. I read both the original article and this discussion with a screen reader, because I'm visually impaired. I can also use a screen reader to read ebooks. Sure, I have enough sight that I could read regular print with a simple magnifier. But without software, my totally blind friends would have to wait for the things they want to read to be transcribed into braille, recorded, or read to them in person. This, to me, is a benefit of software that goes way beyond convenience. I could go on, but this blog post by Bertrand Meyer responds to general pessimism about software better than I could: https://bertrandmeyer.com/2013/03/12/apocalypse-no-part-1/ https://bertrandmeyer.com/2013/03/12/apocalypse-no-part-1/
- knieveltech 9y ago
  Spend some time contemplating all of the ways that the modern surveillance state oppresses minorities, all of the drivers of income inequality (both domestically and globally), how few people actually benefit meaningfully from automation, and get back to me about how my "pessimism" is unwarranted. FFS, software has lowered the barrier to warfare so far we're bombing somewhere between five and ten (I can't even keep up) countries currently, and it isn't even generating column inches in the local paper.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    Modern states deliver drastically higher standard of living, less oppression, and minuscule existential risk (i.e. total war, wholesale slaughter) compared to historical norms. Read some history and get back to us on how the modern world is oppressive, violent, or impoverished compared to some bygone golden age. It’s true that if you go back far enough we were all equal... because we were all peasant farmers.
    - knieveltech 9y ago
      I've listed observable deterioration in societal conditions attributable directly to software, and thus changes that have taken place over roughly the last 50 years. Are you asserting mass surveillance (for example) hasn't become a largely inescapable societal norm or that software doesn't provide the methods? In what way is "historical norms" before the advent of software in any way relevant to the discussion? To humor your strawman, please reconcile the phrase "miniscule existential risk" with the myriad existential threats to species survival the modern age presents that did not exist before the advent of computers.
  - WillReplyfFood 9y ago
    The surveilance works also in reverse. Black Lives Matter wouldnt be there if there wasnt the masses surveil the supressors. Alot of technology benefits are non visible today- but imagine any nasty event- and notice how a lot of the implicit knowledge of a society would survive today- encoded in videos, automated tutorials and wikipedia articles. And it even makes kind of sence. Investing into "Leaps" forward can fail in a thousand ways, investing into measure that prevent society from falling down completely and allow fast recoverys, well that is something that can become usefull a hundred times over. Its like a dice where one in nth sides gives you a chance to leap forward - and 0.5*n of all sides have a chance you must step permanently back. Removing those sites of the dice from the scenario tree, is statistically OP though not really cool to watch. The only thing currently not OP is how companys research is directed towards local optima. There are no big attempts to lift whole areas of endavours in feasability. Actually, if i had the whole picture- i would guess that humanity is currently on some sort of golden path.
dustingetz 9y ago
the web didn't. But your point about arrows is well taken. Today, the gravity arrow points toward the money. But I don't think that's some immutable law of nature, i think it's a local maxima (a very deep maxima)
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > the web didn't Oh, the web is likely the single biggest fuckup (maybe second only to C) of the software world. We've gained a lot, true, but we've also broke things a lot too.
  - racer-v 9y ago
    Goes to show that "worse is better", given that these two perhaps badly-designed systems are the software world's biggest successes.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      Yeah. "Worse is better" is just philosophy built around understanding of feedback loops (indirectly, through evolutionary processes). It's pretty much fact of the system that is human society. It's true, and it's the default way things work. It should be used, however, as a reminder that we have brains capable of overriding that default, if we can be bothered to use them.