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I worry that this is the next step in the desire to optimise everything. It started with companies, they had to optimise to compete. As we created a data econo

I worry that this is the next step in the desire to optimise everything. It started with companies, they had to optimise to compete. As we created a data economy they had to use it in order to optimise that bit further to remain competitive. Then in continued with our work. Employers optimised employee resource usage, specialising people, monitoring what they do. Then it moved into people optimising their own work – an obsession with productivity, but it eventually became an obsession with optimising our long term lives – homes, investments etc. The crypto bubble is people looking for get-rich-quick schemes because they need them, everyone else has a side-hustle, good investment, home that's skyrocketing in value, so you have to as well in order to "compete". Just extrapolate out 10 years and you could be poor if you don't get this thing right now that is appreciating in value by 20% a year. It's crazy. It worries me.

TechBro8615 5y ago
What’s crazy to me is the argument we should ever stop optimizing anything. Doing things efficiently means we have more resources to do other things, so we can do more things in total. That’s how we got from cavemen to smartphones. It’s the human condition.
- blastro 5y ago
  Resiliency is the cost of efficiency. Latency is the cost of resiliency. - Homer Simpson
  - TechBro8615 5y ago
    See also hard times... strong men... good times... weak men... hard times.
- Gibbon1 5y ago
  The question is what things do we optimize. Because there are winners and losers in all that.
  - TechBro8615 5y ago
    This is the line of thought that best explains why I am in favor of a basic income.
- drewzero1 5y ago
  To a point, yes, but at some level you start spending more time and energy optimizing than you save. And while I'd like to do more and more things, sometimes I just want to enjoy whatever I'm doing for a while (as inefficient as it may be).
  - planet-and-halo 5y ago
    This is also a philosophical problem. What exactly are you optimizing? Which optimizations are most important? I could become the most dedicated worker on earth, but I might destroy my personal life to the point I have a breakdown and can no longer work. The world doesn't work in this clean mathematical way where we can see all of the variables, how they are trending, and any approaching discontinuities or emergent phenomena. What does it even mean to optimize a life? Economic output? Happiness? It's hubris to imagine we have any idea how to optimize these things even in a local way, much less a global one.
  - gtfoutttt 5y ago
    Amen. A great example in my life is sailing. I love it, but it's definitely not the best way to travel around our local islands. It's slow, uncomfortable, and kinda difficult. But, I'd take a sailboat over a motorboat most days. It's enjoyable to "trick" the wind to bring you where you want to go. You're continuing a tradition of boating that goes back around the dawn of civilization. But is it the fastest? Hell no.
- diydsp 5y ago
  > do more things in total > the human condition. Some would argue we don't actually need to do very many more things. There is no simple answer to "What is the human condition?" While we've discovered tendencies in our our natural psyche to design and build, we have many other needs that, I argue, should be balanced. Just because we're plunked into existence on a planet, does that mean we must be compelled to ignore our desires for peaceful, sustainable existence and instead turn our energies toward empowering everyone to get more accomplished? This goes double when the things we do to help our brother or sister help those in charge 10 times as much. This desire for freedom from divine or overwhelming rule is part of how my country (US) was (ostensibly) formed. We didn't leave England/Europe to form a hyperefficient economy. We left it to escape the weight of an out-of-control social system. [0] I would argue that in addition to our proclivity for solving puzzles and building, we're gifted an awareness giving us the ability to pick and negotiate which of our desires we will attend to. This awareness is often blunted by those who have a stake in suppressing it. But I argue that spreading and growing this awareness will result in our choosing the things to do most relevant to ourselves rather than our masters. This would include a curtailing of relentless optimization. Usually at this point, one is challenged with arguments about ceasing tech development leading to an end of healing of suffering through e.g. medical research. However, we can demonstrate that the majority of human medical suffering is actually a result of our misguided abundance. The bulk of our diabetes and heart diseases cases owing to our poor diet, for example. Nor does it mean we must give up medical research entirely. In fact, with our priorities shifted (slowing the throttle on space exploration, for example), we would likely be in a better position to research rare and painful birth defects. There comes a time to put one's foot down and say, "I will not participate in x/y/z because it doesn't benefit individuals sufficiently." [0] Imagine facebook and other corporations taking the place of the medieval church, adjudicating marriages and property rights. Is it really that far-fetched?
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> The crypto bubble is people looking for get-rich-quick schemes because they need them People who desperately need cash aren't speculating huge amounts on crypto. The speculative bubbles are driven by people with extra cash they can gamble on speculative investments. Crypto has been pushed a way for the little guy to fight back against wall street, but in reality it's a big business for traders with high bankrolls. Someone investing $1000 into crypto and making 10X gains is phenomenally lucky, but $10,000 isn't going to buy them a house. Many of the biggest winners in crypto are the very wealthy individuals who could afford to gamble $10K or even $100K on an ultra speculative investment because losing everything wouldn't appreciably impact their wealth. It's also important to ask where the money is coming from when someone claims high crypto gains. If someone bought $1000 of DOGE and sold it for $10,000 later, where did the $9000 profit come from? It comes from new entrants buying DOGE. It's often the casual retail investors who are late to the party, cashing out the early buyers with their purchases.
- workallday21 5y ago
  I think most small crypto investors totally get wiped out. Especially lately there is a flurry of enticing coins that are based on greater fool.
- SamPatt 5y ago
  Lots of people making bank in crypto have just been involved a long time. It's not all wealthy investors gambling, some believed (and still believe) the tech will make a meaningful positive difference in the world.
bob33212 5y ago
In the 80s a 20-32 year old who was "Doing Well" was on the path to being a Doctor or Lawyer, or Executive at a big company. Those things were high social status but also took years if not decades to accomplish. Now people in that age range compare themselves to YouTube millionaires and crypto millionaires. So it seems stupid to spend 10-30 years working towards "success" to these people. I understand why you are worried, because it is hard to see how this plays out.
- the-dude 5y ago
  In the 80s a 20-32 year old blue collar worker could own a house and start a family on his salary alone.
  - paulpauper 5y ago
    hownership rates were not higher in the 80s
    - naturalauction 5y ago
      That doesn’t necessarily conflict with what GP said. There has been a massive change in housing affordability (which also reflects in rent affordability). See https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=EjVw https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=EjVw
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    That's still true today in most of the country. It's completely possible to raise a family in the midwest on 50k a year. You'll live in an older, more modest home, drive used car, make your own meals, and use prepaid cell plans. That might seem awful, but that was standard life in the 80s. My parents' families ate out like once a year growing up, never had cable, drove cars until the wheels fell off. My mom had handmade clothes growing up because clothing was still kind of expensive back then, so her grandma would make them new dresses in the summer for the upcoming schoolyear, then sweaters and such in the winter time. The 60s/70s/80s were not some golden era. People struggled then as now. Economies shifted, jobs migrated from one region to another, cities decayed. They suffered through inflationary periods, deflationary periods, shortages, surpluses, etc.
JohnWhigham 5y ago
This is the new normal for the US. We had our ~30 years of prosperity before companies migrated their facilities offshore in search of greater profits and our federal government did nothing to prevent it. Now the rest of the developing world is having their moment. Wages will continue to stagnate/decline as those in developing countries rise. We could have prevented this, but our leaders did nothing. They should all be summarily executed in my opinion for raping this country.

TechBro8615 5y ago

What’s crazy to me is the argument we should ever stop optimizing anything. Doing things efficiently means we have more resources to do other things, so we can do more things in total. That’s how we got from cavemen to smartphones. It’s the human condition.

blastro 5y ago
Resiliency is the cost of efficiency. Latency is the cost of resiliency. - Homer Simpson
- TechBro8615 5y ago
  See also hard times... strong men... good times... weak men... hard times.
Gibbon1 5y ago
The question is what things do we optimize. Because there are winners and losers in all that.
- TechBro8615 5y ago
  This is the line of thought that best explains why I am in favor of a basic income.
drewzero1 5y ago
To a point, yes, but at some level you start spending more time and energy optimizing than you save. And while I'd like to do more and more things, sometimes I just want to enjoy whatever I'm doing for a while (as inefficient as it may be).
- planet-and-halo 5y ago
  This is also a philosophical problem. What exactly are you optimizing? Which optimizations are most important? I could become the most dedicated worker on earth, but I might destroy my personal life to the point I have a breakdown and can no longer work. The world doesn't work in this clean mathematical way where we can see all of the variables, how they are trending, and any approaching discontinuities or emergent phenomena. What does it even mean to optimize a life? Economic output? Happiness? It's hubris to imagine we have any idea how to optimize these things even in a local way, much less a global one.
- gtfoutttt 5y ago
  Amen. A great example in my life is sailing. I love it, but it's definitely not the best way to travel around our local islands. It's slow, uncomfortable, and kinda difficult. But, I'd take a sailboat over a motorboat most days. It's enjoyable to "trick" the wind to bring you where you want to go. You're continuing a tradition of boating that goes back around the dawn of civilization. But is it the fastest? Hell no.
diydsp 5y ago
> do more things in total > the human condition. Some would argue we don't actually need to do very many more things. There is no simple answer to "What is the human condition?" While we've discovered tendencies in our our natural psyche to design and build, we have many other needs that, I argue, should be balanced. Just because we're plunked into existence on a planet, does that mean we must be compelled to ignore our desires for peaceful, sustainable existence and instead turn our energies toward empowering everyone to get more accomplished? This goes double when the things we do to help our brother or sister help those in charge 10 times as much. This desire for freedom from divine or overwhelming rule is part of how my country (US) was (ostensibly) formed. We didn't leave England/Europe to form a hyperefficient economy. We left it to escape the weight of an out-of-control social system. [0] I would argue that in addition to our proclivity for solving puzzles and building, we're gifted an awareness giving us the ability to pick and negotiate which of our desires we will attend to. This awareness is often blunted by those who have a stake in suppressing it. But I argue that spreading and growing this awareness will result in our choosing the things to do most relevant to ourselves rather than our masters. This would include a curtailing of relentless optimization. Usually at this point, one is challenged with arguments about ceasing tech development leading to an end of healing of suffering through e.g. medical research. However, we can demonstrate that the majority of human medical suffering is actually a result of our misguided abundance. The bulk of our diabetes and heart diseases cases owing to our poor diet, for example. Nor does it mean we must give up medical research entirely. In fact, with our priorities shifted (slowing the throttle on space exploration, for example), we would likely be in a better position to research rare and painful birth defects. There comes a time to put one's foot down and say, "I will not participate in x/y/z because it doesn't benefit individuals sufficiently." [0] Imagine facebook and other corporations taking the place of the medieval church, adjudicating marriages and property rights. Is it really that far-fetched?

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> The crypto bubble is people looking for get-rich-quick schemes because they need them People who desperately need cash aren't speculating huge amounts on crypto. The speculative bubbles are driven by people with extra cash they can gamble on speculative investments. Crypto has been pushed a way for the little guy to fight back against wall street, but in reality it's a big business for traders with high bankrolls. Someone investing $1000 into crypto and making 10X gains is phenomenally lucky, but $10,000 isn't going to buy them a house. Many of the biggest winners in crypto are the very wealthy individuals who could afford to gamble $10K or even $100K on an ultra speculative investment because losing everything wouldn't appreciably impact their wealth. It's also important to ask where the money is coming from when someone claims high crypto gains. If someone bought $1000 of DOGE and sold it for $10,000 later, where did the $9000 profit come from? It comes from new entrants buying DOGE. It's often the casual retail investors who are late to the party, cashing out the early buyers with their purchases.

workallday21 5y ago
I think most small crypto investors totally get wiped out. Especially lately there is a flurry of enticing coins that are based on greater fool.
SamPatt 5y ago
Lots of people making bank in crypto have just been involved a long time. It's not all wealthy investors gambling, some believed (and still believe) the tech will make a meaningful positive difference in the world.

bob33212 5y ago

In the 80s a 20-32 year old who was "Doing Well" was on the path to being a Doctor or Lawyer, or Executive at a big company. Those things were high social status but also took years if not decades to accomplish. Now people in that age range compare themselves to YouTube millionaires and crypto millionaires. So it seems stupid to spend 10-30 years working towards "success" to these people. I understand why you are worried, because it is hard to see how this plays out.

the-dude 5y ago
In the 80s a 20-32 year old blue collar worker could own a house and start a family on his salary alone.
- paulpauper 5y ago
  hownership rates were not higher in the 80s
  - naturalauction 5y ago
    That doesn’t necessarily conflict with what GP said. There has been a massive change in housing affordability (which also reflects in rent affordability). See https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=EjVw https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=EjVw
- mywittyname 5y ago
  That's still true today in most of the country. It's completely possible to raise a family in the midwest on 50k a year. You'll live in an older, more modest home, drive used car, make your own meals, and use prepaid cell plans. That might seem awful, but that was standard life in the 80s. My parents' families ate out like once a year growing up, never had cable, drove cars until the wheels fell off. My mom had handmade clothes growing up because clothing was still kind of expensive back then, so her grandma would make them new dresses in the summer for the upcoming schoolyear, then sweaters and such in the winter time. The 60s/70s/80s were not some golden era. People struggled then as now. Economies shifted, jobs migrated from one region to another, cities decayed. They suffered through inflationary periods, deflationary periods, shortages, surpluses, etc.

JohnWhigham 5y ago

This is the new normal for the US. We had our ~30 years of prosperity before companies migrated their facilities offshore in search of greater profits and our federal government did nothing to prevent it. Now the rest of the developing world is having their moment. Wages will continue to stagnate/decline as those in developing countries rise. We could have prevented this, but our leaders did nothing. They should all be summarily executed in my opinion for raping this country.