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This talk also ties in very strongly, albeit much more seriously, with the movie Idiocracy. I know, that gets brought up quite often, but the prospect of us 'fo

This talk also ties in very strongly, albeit much more seriously, with the movie Idiocracy. I know, that gets brought up quite often, but the prospect of us 'forgetting' how to build and maintain the foundations of modern artifacts seems not so far-fetched anymore.

keyle 6y ago
Yes and it reminds me of a recurring plot in sci-fi... Visiting a civilization of extremely advanced beings who... 'maintain' a big machine that does everything for them; it solves safety, hunger etc. and let them lead a life mostly hedonistic. Only very few know how to maintain the said machine... They themselves don't even understand how their ancestors built it; and if they were to disappear or the machine to be destroyed, the civilization falls as it has forgotten everything about keeping itself afloat. In the modern world, most 'senior developers' are glorified plumbers. It works, they don't know why. So when it doesn't work, they don't know why. We're becoming more maintainers and plumbers than creators at the cost of not understanding the sand under the castle.
- yetihehe 6y ago
  It's also because our systems are more and more complicated. This is neatly pointed out in "Who knows how to make a computer mouse?" [0] TED Talk. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTLizne1uNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTLizne1uNw
  - keyle 6y ago
    Agreed, and because a lot of the existing tech underneath has simply been agreed upon as "good enough".
  - segfaultbuserr 6y ago
    One Ken Shirriff's comment on reverse engineering CPUs makes a good point on system complexity. > For future reverse-engineering, I think the biggest problem will be imaging. I can study processors up to about 1980 with an inexpensive microscope. But chips with two layers (or more) of metal are much harder to examine, because the metal layers block each other. And once transistors get too small for optical microscopes (1990s), you need an electron microscope, which is a much bigger investment. (Although there are hobbyists who have one.) > The other factor is understanding. A chip like the Z-80 is simple enough that one person can understand it completely. I doubt any single person at Intel understands everything about the Xeon, since it is so complex. And it's much harder to understand the chip from reverse engineering.
- segfaultbuserr 6y ago
  Read this true story, "Institutional Memory and Reverse Smuggling" [0] - once upon a time, a petrochemical factory was built and later essentially forgotten, becoming nothing but a money-making asset on the company's balance sheet. Decades later, the plant is still operating and being maintained. One day, the company suddenly remembered it and wanted to update it to make more money. But at this point, nobody knows how the whole factory worked, why it was built that way, or how it was constructed... > Institutional memory grows hazy at this point. The alien machinery hums along, producing polymers. The company knows how to service it, but isn't quite sure what arcane magic was employed in its construction. In fact nobody is even sure how to start investigating. > It falls to some of the then-younger engineers, now the senior cohort, to dig up documentation. This is less like institutional memory and more like institutional archaeology. Nobody has any idea what documentation exists on this plant, if any, and if it exists, where it is, or what form it might take. It was designed by a group that no longer exists, in a company that has since merged, in an office that has been closed, using non-digital methods that are no longer employed. [0] https://lemming-articlestash.blogspot.com/2011/12/institutional-memory-and-reverse.html https://lemming-articlestash.blogspot.com/2011/12/institutio...
- 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 6y ago
  One aspect I notice in tech and programming circles is that there is often a certain amount of people actively discouraging low level projects, even if they are created out of the desire to learn. I'm sure some will be able to relate to the "Why are you working on that? X already exists, just use X!" comments and sentiments that are easily encountered.
- fogihujy 6y ago
  I'm such a plumber. I occasionally work on maintaining an ancient server environment running some custom code that can't run on modern OS's because <reason>. Over the years, more and more duct tape has been added, and there's little to no documentation of how everything is set up. The only remaining staff is me, who simply worked for a few years alongside the people who took over from the people who originally built everything. Nobody wants to pay to have some really dig into the system, documenting everything, and bringing it up to date, because there's a replacement system on the way (any year now). Instead, they call me every now and then to get everything rebooted. I don't mind the extra business, but if something really bad happens then that client is toast and there's not a soul who can fix it. Worst thing is I hear this kind of thing is frighteningly common.
pygy_ 6y ago
Crucial knowledge is gradually embedded in/embodied by industrial capital. In parallel, we’ve been defunding schools and the healthcare system (in Europe, at least), because people just aren’t worth the expense. Education professionals in their late 30s tell me that the attention span and abstract thinking abilities of children of all ages have drastically declined over the last 10 years. Screen time (including the parents’) is the most likely culprit. We’re not scaremongering, this is really happening...
azeirah 6y ago
It sounds similar in concept to how we have forgotten how to live in native environments. How many people here know how to survive in the tropical jungle without any modern technology for a month? My guess would be less than 1/100000 of hn readers
emsy 6y ago
It also happened several times in history, so it’s not without precedent.
b0rsuk 6y ago
Also check out the book (not the movie) "Non-stop" by Brian Aldiss. The first 2/3 of the book is meh - uninteresting characters, motivations, a bit above average setting. Then it really takes off and you see the writer hasn't been wasting your time. Also The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. It's much slower paced and more about the mood and immersion.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

keyle 6y ago

Yes and it reminds me of a recurring plot in sci-fi... Visiting a civilization of extremely advanced beings who... 'maintain' a big machine that does everything for them; it solves safety, hunger etc. and let them lead a life mostly hedonistic. Only very few know how to maintain the said machine... They themselves don't even understand how their ancestors built it; and if they were to disappear or the machine to be destroyed, the civilization falls as it has forgotten everything about keeping itself afloat. In the modern world, most 'senior developers' are glorified plumbers. It works, they don't know why. So when it doesn't work, they don't know why. We're becoming more maintainers and plumbers than creators at the cost of not understanding the sand under the castle.

yetihehe 6y ago
It's also because our systems are more and more complicated. This is neatly pointed out in "Who knows how to make a computer mouse?" [0] TED Talk. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTLizne1uNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTLizne1uNw
- keyle 6y ago
  Agreed, and because a lot of the existing tech underneath has simply been agreed upon as "good enough".
- segfaultbuserr 6y ago
  One Ken Shirriff's comment on reverse engineering CPUs makes a good point on system complexity. > For future reverse-engineering, I think the biggest problem will be imaging. I can study processors up to about 1980 with an inexpensive microscope. But chips with two layers (or more) of metal are much harder to examine, because the metal layers block each other. And once transistors get too small for optical microscopes (1990s), you need an electron microscope, which is a much bigger investment. (Although there are hobbyists who have one.) > The other factor is understanding. A chip like the Z-80 is simple enough that one person can understand it completely. I doubt any single person at Intel understands everything about the Xeon, since it is so complex. And it's much harder to understand the chip from reverse engineering.
segfaultbuserr 6y ago
Read this true story, "Institutional Memory and Reverse Smuggling" [0] - once upon a time, a petrochemical factory was built and later essentially forgotten, becoming nothing but a money-making asset on the company's balance sheet. Decades later, the plant is still operating and being maintained. One day, the company suddenly remembered it and wanted to update it to make more money. But at this point, nobody knows how the whole factory worked, why it was built that way, or how it was constructed... > Institutional memory grows hazy at this point. The alien machinery hums along, producing polymers. The company knows how to service it, but isn't quite sure what arcane magic was employed in its construction. In fact nobody is even sure how to start investigating. > It falls to some of the then-younger engineers, now the senior cohort, to dig up documentation. This is less like institutional memory and more like institutional archaeology. Nobody has any idea what documentation exists on this plant, if any, and if it exists, where it is, or what form it might take. It was designed by a group that no longer exists, in a company that has since merged, in an office that has been closed, using non-digital methods that are no longer employed. [0] https://lemming-articlestash.blogspot.com/2011/12/institutional-memory-and-reverse.html https://lemming-articlestash.blogspot.com/2011/12/institutio...
2pEXgD0fZ5cF 6y ago
One aspect I notice in tech and programming circles is that there is often a certain amount of people actively discouraging low level projects, even if they are created out of the desire to learn. I'm sure some will be able to relate to the "Why are you working on that? X already exists, just use X!" comments and sentiments that are easily encountered.
fogihujy 6y ago
I'm such a plumber. I occasionally work on maintaining an ancient server environment running some custom code that can't run on modern OS's because <reason>. Over the years, more and more duct tape has been added, and there's little to no documentation of how everything is set up. The only remaining staff is me, who simply worked for a few years alongside the people who took over from the people who originally built everything. Nobody wants to pay to have some really dig into the system, documenting everything, and bringing it up to date, because there's a replacement system on the way (any year now). Instead, they call me every now and then to get everything rebooted. I don't mind the extra business, but if something really bad happens then that client is toast and there's not a soul who can fix it. Worst thing is I hear this kind of thing is frighteningly common.

pygy_ 6y ago

Crucial knowledge is gradually embedded in/embodied by industrial capital. In parallel, we’ve been defunding schools and the healthcare system (in Europe, at least), because people just aren’t worth the expense. Education professionals in their late 30s tell me that the attention span and abstract thinking abilities of children of all ages have drastically declined over the last 10 years. Screen time (including the parents’) is the most likely culprit. We’re not scaremongering, this is really happening...

azeirah 6y ago

It sounds similar in concept to how we have forgotten how to live in native environments. How many people here know how to survive in the tropical jungle without any modern technology for a month? My guess would be less than 1/100000 of hn readers

emsy 6y ago

It also happened several times in history, so it’s not without precedent.

b0rsuk 6y ago

Also check out the book (not the movie) "Non-stop" by Brian Aldiss. The first 2/3 of the book is meh - uninteresting characters, motivations, a bit above average setting. Then it really takes off and you see the writer hasn't been wasting your time. Also The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. It's much slower paced and more about the mood and immersion.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]