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All we got was the entirety of human knowledge in our pockets, functionally for free. I don’t like ad tech and I’m not dismissing that modern software has prob

All we got was the entirety of human knowledge in our pockets, functionally for free. I don’t like ad tech and I’m not dismissing that modern software has problems, but I think there’s a lot to be optimistic about. On most metrics (infant mortality, poverty, violence) - things are massively better than they were thirty years ago.

holoduke 5y ago
Metrics metrics. The only metric I care about is happiness. I rather die when I am 50 than living in a cage till I am 80.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  I really don't think happiness is a good single metric to judge your life by. If pure happiness is all that matters, should you just quit everything and do heroin all day? You would feel really happy. Life is about many things, and happiness is only one part.
  - joelbluminator 5y ago
    > should you just quit everything and do heroin all day? You would feel really happy. No he wouldn't. He would become addicted very fast and eventually live on the streets, Heroin addicts are as miserable as can be. If there was an actual happy pill that worked I don't see why we shouldn't take it, there isn't one.
    - TchoBeer 5y ago
      >If there was an actual happy pill that worked I don't see why we shouldn't take it Like the Soma from Brave New World. When I reread that book last year I realized how useful and good that drug would be.
      - goatlover 5y ago
        Soma wasn't meant by Huxley to be a positive thing. It's a way of controlling the population. Brave New World is dystopian.
        TchoBeer 5y ago
        I understand that, but I don't know, maybe I'm just too different from Huxley to feel it? Like, everyone in the Society is happy, and the few people who aren't happy are sent to live somewhere they can be happy.
      - joelbluminator 5y ago
        I really tried reading it few months ago. The English was too much for me, its ancient or something. I had to fight with every sentence. Too bad.
- NotSammyHagar 5y ago
  Wait till you are 50, see if you feel the same - assuming you aren't 50. There are other cages in life, family, job, spouse, expectations, that prevent all of us from being "free". Maybe you have a sick spouse or kid that needs constant care. I'm willing to be there for them even if I can't be free in the last third of my life.
Barrin92 5y ago
>All we got was the entirety of human knowledge in our pockets, functionally for free. No. What you got was a subset of knowledge, that which can be articulated and is transmissible via audio, video or text. The overwhelming amount of human knowledge is tacit, that is to say it is embedded in practices, cultures, crafts, traditions, institutions, and so on. Which is why there are still billions of people living in poverty despite the fact that you have wikipedia on your phone. >On most metrics (infant mortality, poverty, violence) - things are massively better than they were thirty years ago. There are countless of points in time at which things are better than before, this is virtually a truism. Things in the 1920s were perceived to be better than in the 1890s, yet in the 1930s, they were not. This strange belief in some sort of fatalistic progress is just bad Whig history.

holoduke 5y ago

Metrics metrics. The only metric I care about is happiness. I rather die when I am 50 than living in a cage till I am 80.

cortesoft 5y ago
I really don't think happiness is a good single metric to judge your life by. If pure happiness is all that matters, should you just quit everything and do heroin all day? You would feel really happy. Life is about many things, and happiness is only one part.
- joelbluminator 5y ago
  > should you just quit everything and do heroin all day? You would feel really happy. No he wouldn't. He would become addicted very fast and eventually live on the streets, Heroin addicts are as miserable as can be. If there was an actual happy pill that worked I don't see why we shouldn't take it, there isn't one.
  - TchoBeer 5y ago
    >If there was an actual happy pill that worked I don't see why we shouldn't take it Like the Soma from Brave New World. When I reread that book last year I realized how useful and good that drug would be.
    - goatlover 5y ago
      Soma wasn't meant by Huxley to be a positive thing. It's a way of controlling the population. Brave New World is dystopian.
      - TchoBeer 5y ago
        I understand that, but I don't know, maybe I'm just too different from Huxley to feel it? Like, everyone in the Society is happy, and the few people who aren't happy are sent to live somewhere they can be happy.
    - joelbluminator 5y ago
      I really tried reading it few months ago. The English was too much for me, its ancient or something. I had to fight with every sentence. Too bad.
NotSammyHagar 5y ago
Wait till you are 50, see if you feel the same - assuming you aren't 50. There are other cages in life, family, job, spouse, expectations, that prevent all of us from being "free". Maybe you have a sick spouse or kid that needs constant care. I'm willing to be there for them even if I can't be free in the last third of my life.

Barrin92 5y ago

>All we got was the entirety of human knowledge in our pockets, functionally for free. No. What you got was a subset of knowledge, that which can be articulated and is transmissible via audio, video or text. The overwhelming amount of human knowledge is tacit, that is to say it is embedded in practices, cultures, crafts, traditions, institutions, and so on. Which is why there are still billions of people living in poverty despite the fact that you have wikipedia on your phone. >On most metrics (infant mortality, poverty, violence) - things are massively better than they were thirty years ago. There are countless of points in time at which things are better than before, this is virtually a truism. Things in the 1920s were perceived to be better than in the 1890s, yet in the 1930s, they were not. This strange belief in some sort of fatalistic progress is just bad Whig history.