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Serious question: what is there to gain from being a hater / being negative / being relentlessly pessimistic? Seriously? How can we work towards a better world

Serious question: what is there to gain from being a hater / being negative / being relentlessly pessimistic? Seriously? How can we work towards a better world when people just shoot down any idea that they don't agree with instead of trying to expand their perspective?

megous 5y ago
Well, things can turn really bad if this catches on, and it means that you lose control over your UA. Sending keystrokes to other people's computers and getting back compressed images is a terrible interface for anything but dumb consumption of content. Forget scraping, forget automated controls, forget installing extensions/plugins/userscripts if not allowed by the cloud overlord. I can certainly understand the negativity. As a niche service, why not?
stephc_int13 5y ago
This idea is not future-neutral. It is VC backed and not by a nobody. I don't want it to succeed because it is dangerous.
- transhumanism34 5y ago
  Okay I can understand you not liking the idea but the sentence "I don't want it to succeed because it is dangerous" is a crazy statement. I'm sure there were tons of people who thought the same way you did when the Wright brothers were trying to achieve human flight, "I don't want it to succeed because it is dangerous". (Obviously not the same scale of idea, but point applies
  - stephc_int13 5y ago
    I am very rarely anti-innovation. But when I think something is wrong I can't help but not being indifferent. In this case I don't think this tech really qualifies as an innovation, it is mostly the wrong patch to fix a real problem, bloatware.
  - ben509 5y ago
    There were reports of the dangers of asbestos back in the 1900s, and the first medical report was in 1924. It took until the '60s before people took it seriously. Many cases of mesothelioma could have been prevented if we had listened to people who thought it was dangerous. You can't conclude from asbestos that we should shut down new ideas on the first warnings, nor can you conclude from the history of aviation that we should disregard those warnings. You asked: > How can we work towards a better world when people just shoot down any idea that they don't agree with instead of trying to expand their perspective? Going back to the original comment: > Perhaps we need a new "test", like the "Turing Test", but this time for when humans can no longer tell the difference between new technology and old technology. "Mighty", for example, is just a "dumb terminal" - technology we had in the 1970s. You want progress. We gain technological progress through a ratcheting action. A ratchet must close over the progress it has already made in order to ensure the mechanism only moves forward. Likewise, we only progress if the new thing is genuinely better than the old. That requires that you understand the old thing. Do you think the metric system is better than US standard measurements? Riddle me this: why is a mile 5280 feet? What's special about that number? There is a reason for that number. There's also a reason it probably doesn't matter in modern usage, but unless we understand why we don't need that special property, we can't be sure that the metric system is actually progressing over the older systems and not regressing. That's why you get this comment and others pointing out that this is simply tech from the '70s. If it's 50 years old tech, there's no progress going on. They are not failing to expand their perspectives, they are recognizing that this stuff is something they're already familiar with.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
zemo 5y ago
accepting everything uncritically and not recognizing when things are actually exploitative and harmful to the people that use them is not wisdom, it's naivety. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
fragmede 5y ago
All of the "nerds" as someone else called them up thread, would have to develop EQ, and stop holding onto their intelligence as their self-worth. The huge cultural shift that would take is not impossible, but often feels insurmountable. We're in the year 2021 and still using the term "nerd", for instance.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Igelau 5y ago
This is special. It's bad enough that too much of the internet is in walled gardens. It's bad enough that one company makes most of the browser and search decisions. It's bad enough that phones have controlled app ecosystems. And just when you thought they were running out of controls to take, here's an idea where the browser won't even be on your computer. This is how you get a web that is optimized for a $50/month browser service where you can't even pick your extensions. > How can we work towards a better world when people just shoot down any idea that they don't agree with instead of trying to expand their perspective? For you to consider: Don't be so open-minded that your brain falls out.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

megous 5y ago

Well, things can turn really bad if this catches on, and it means that you lose control over your UA. Sending keystrokes to other people's computers and getting back compressed images is a terrible interface for anything but dumb consumption of content. Forget scraping, forget automated controls, forget installing extensions/plugins/userscripts if not allowed by the cloud overlord. I can certainly understand the negativity. As a niche service, why not?

stephc_int13 5y ago

This idea is not future-neutral. It is VC backed and not by a nobody. I don't want it to succeed because it is dangerous.

transhumanism34 5y ago
Okay I can understand you not liking the idea but the sentence "I don't want it to succeed because it is dangerous" is a crazy statement. I'm sure there were tons of people who thought the same way you did when the Wright brothers were trying to achieve human flight, "I don't want it to succeed because it is dangerous". (Obviously not the same scale of idea, but point applies
- stephc_int13 5y ago
  I am very rarely anti-innovation. But when I think something is wrong I can't help but not being indifferent. In this case I don't think this tech really qualifies as an innovation, it is mostly the wrong patch to fix a real problem, bloatware.
- ben509 5y ago
  There were reports of the dangers of asbestos back in the 1900s, and the first medical report was in 1924. It took until the '60s before people took it seriously. Many cases of mesothelioma could have been prevented if we had listened to people who thought it was dangerous. You can't conclude from asbestos that we should shut down new ideas on the first warnings, nor can you conclude from the history of aviation that we should disregard those warnings. You asked: > How can we work towards a better world when people just shoot down any idea that they don't agree with instead of trying to expand their perspective? Going back to the original comment: > Perhaps we need a new "test", like the "Turing Test", but this time for when humans can no longer tell the difference between new technology and old technology. "Mighty", for example, is just a "dumb terminal" - technology we had in the 1970s. You want progress. We gain technological progress through a ratcheting action. A ratchet must close over the progress it has already made in order to ensure the mechanism only moves forward. Likewise, we only progress if the new thing is genuinely better than the old. That requires that you understand the old thing. Do you think the metric system is better than US standard measurements? Riddle me this: why is a mile 5280 feet? What's special about that number? There is a reason for that number. There's also a reason it probably doesn't matter in modern usage, but unless we understand why we don't need that special property, we can't be sure that the metric system is actually progressing over the older systems and not regressing. That's why you get this comment and others pointing out that this is simply tech from the '70s. If it's 50 years old tech, there's no progress going on. They are not failing to expand their perspectives, they are recognizing that this stuff is something they're already familiar with.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

zemo 5y ago

accepting everything uncritically and not recognizing when things are actually exploitative and harmful to the people that use them is not wisdom, it's naivety. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

fragmede 5y ago

All of the "nerds" as someone else called them up thread, would have to develop EQ, and stop holding onto their intelligence as their self-worth. The huge cultural shift that would take is not impossible, but often feels insurmountable. We're in the year 2021 and still using the term "nerd", for instance.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Igelau 5y ago

This is special. It's bad enough that too much of the internet is in walled gardens. It's bad enough that one company makes most of the browser and search decisions. It's bad enough that phones have controlled app ecosystems. And just when you thought they were running out of controls to take, here's an idea where the browser won't even be on your computer. This is how you get a web that is optimized for a $50/month browser service where you can't even pick your extensions. > How can we work towards a better world when people just shoot down any idea that they don't agree with instead of trying to expand their perspective? For you to consider: Don't be so open-minded that your brain falls out.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]