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> Something definitely went wrong somewhere Yep. Not old enough to actually verify this, but somehow I have feeling that in the old days the smartest kids of t

> Something definitely went wrong somewhere Yep. Not old enough to actually verify this, but somehow I have feeling that in the old days the smartest kids of the block were lured to figure out how to get to the moon and how to get electricity from splitting atoms. Then somehow, we as a society came up with this novel idea that maybe we should lure the smartest kids to figure out how to circumvent financial regulation. We all know how that went. Then, we decided that maybe it would be good that the smartest kids started to figure out how to make people click more ads. I almost feel like we deserve what is coming.

asdff 5y ago
>lured to figure out how to get to the moon and how to get electricity from splitting atoms To be fair these things were only invested in because we wanted the capability to bomb eurasia to the stone age
RandomLensman 5y ago
We also decided that the future is only full of hardship and misery. Policy goals are now often only about avoiding disaster or forms redistribution, not growing prosperity, health, happiness. Why would then people not just chose short-term gain?
varelse 5y ago
Bread and Circuses are exponentially easier to create than innovation. Most innovation is punished or ignored unless it is timed well until it is "rediscovered" when it is desperately needed. Bread and Circuses pairs with anything anywhere at any time. And when innovation saved the world from a global pandemic you guys are still arguing about the tiny miniscule risk of side effects of a game-changing vaccine rather than getting back on the curve here. So great, enjoy your brave new world of amusing yourselves to death. That seems to be about all we're good at anymore.
- mistermann 5y ago
  Perhaps if we were better at thinking we would be able to realize that the pushback on covid is a signal that something in the lower levels of the operating system may have some bugs in it. Instead, we react with simplistic heuristic narratives and emotion, and criticize others for a lack of intellectual capability. If the situation is not to our liking, perhaps we should consider addressing the root cause(s) so the same thing doesn't happen the next time a crisis pays us a visit.
  - varelse 5y ago
    So this root cause of which you speak? You're not actually going to say what it is you're just going to complain about it and allude to it, am I right? And in doing so how are you anything but more Bread and Circuses? If the West had always been this risk averse with respect to science and technology, we wouldn't have gone to space let alone the Moon. We wouldn't have antibiotics and we probably wouldn't even have flight. So tell me how to restore America's healthy level of risk tolerance? Because taking medical advice from online pundits is incredibly risky and yet it's seen as safer than trusting science by a disturbingly large minority. And that's just one example of how badly we gauge risk. And to be fair, I have the same viewpoint about the irrational fear of nuclear power.
    - mistermann 5y ago
      I believe the root cause is human consciousness, in its current form....the very thing that wrote the message to which I am now replying. I believe absolutely that this is the root of all problems, and also that it can be addressed/upgraded.
    - crypto420 5y ago
      I wonder if its just about having competent adversaries? The West has always consisted of near-powers competing for resources and technology. A notable exception is modern history, where America hasn't had a serious technological adversary since the Space Race in the 1960s, and we've sort of slumped into this malaise. China appears to be a serious adversary now, but I don't think many Americans seriously possess the will or the skills to take on China.
- adwn 5y ago
  > exponentially easier Exponential in regards to which variable? Money? Time? Effort? Or did you simply mean "vastly"? This may be nitpicky, but we should expect people to get basic terminology right – at least on HN.
  - varelse 5y ago
    And so the world ended but at least the pedantics were happy with the semantics of the Apocalypse.
    - dirtball_ 5y ago
      pedants* ;)
      - easywood 5y ago
        * :-)
- 6510 5y ago
  I disagree with everything you said but I use to think along the same lines. Then one day, in a conversation about collective stupidity someone shared this observation: There are countless species in this world and all of them are doing just fine without the giant brain. A large part of humanity really just wants to live their live, reproduce, enjoy a meal, sleep properly, sit in the grass and look at the lake and the forest. We keep arguing that we have to think our way out of whatever the current situation is but you cant find a single problem that was not created by similar "solutions" for the previous "problem". It sort of blew my mind! It took a very large brained human to come up with the bread and circuses. It takes such very large brain to punish innovation or to have people ignore it. It takes an even larger brain to argue "what is desperately needed". You talk of saving the world but the world doesn't need to be saved. People are going to die sooner or later regardless. If you or me get to live a little bit longer that would be fantastic for you or for me.... but for the world? The world needs me for what exactly? We are the parasite devouring the host. I do get it! It seems terrible this "amusing yourselves to death" but why not amuse yourself until you die? Utopia is a world full of 300 year old grumpy old men? I'm sure we will get there eventually if we push hard enough but that will simply become the new problem that those few bright men with their large brains so desperately need to solve for us. I look at my cat sleeping on the sofa, why doesn't she get to have this complicated disposition? Why isn't she worried about the economy and innovation? What a joke, after the great collapse she will just go fishing, catch birds, spiders and mice, fight the neigbours, roll in the grass, look at the lake and the trees. At least, assuming we leave any of that behind. Think about it! The moon? mars? why not go to Antartica if you feel we ran out of self-made problems to solve? Antartica seems just as much umpf as Mars?
  - FractalHQ 5y ago
    One thing my guru always helps remind me is to zoom out, and let go of my egos narrative. It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to attend therapy, and thus reminded to zoom out and take a breather. This comment did the trick, thanks! Mediation is a beautiful thing, and it helps me dig into it when paired with this mindset (or lack thereof).
iratewizard 5y ago
Basil II blinded 99 of every 100 POWs and sent them all back home. If Samuel is Bulgaria cared for these troops, it would cost his empire significantly. If he were to abandon them, it would lead to a collapse in morale. Today, our external and internal enemies blind our people in every way they can. For example, convincing our brightest minds that they will be the most fulfilled if their bank accounts are the most overflowing.
ikurei 5y ago
Not old enough to verify anything either, but I'm really curious about why you think this. My impression is that the smart kids from a few blocks would go to Nasa, and those are the ones we remember. Many smart kids had no access to higher education, or were lawyers and doctors (which is absolutely fantastic). When I recently watched For All Mankind I wasn't thinking "people did cooler shit then". I was thinking "that particular shit was really cool, overall most people then and there were worse off, including most smart people". May be it has to do with me being spanish and our specific culture, but Im pretty sure there were plenty of geniuses doing bullshit or evil back then. Why do you think otherwise?
- beefield 5y ago
  > but I'm really curious about why you think this. I was not discussing whether we as a society are better off now than in the old days. (To me it is obvious that we are better off in most ways) I was discussing why it feels that the technological progress was faster in the old days than nowadays. Why I think this? As said, I have absolutely no data, but only a hunch, that if you compare the incomes of nuclear engineer, aerospace engineer, banker and adtech engineer (whatever that was in the old days...), I would be quite surprised if the relative income has not tilted towards bankers and adtech engineers over time.
echelon 5y ago
It's hill climbing with lots of local minima. Technological reverse salients litter the landscape, making it harder to push forward with what we have and already know. People have to spend time traversing high risk, low-payoff fields to unlock new slopes that will take us higher. It certainly isn't always obvious.
HWR_14 5y ago
It may have had something to do with allowing wealth inequality to soar.
tedajax 5y ago
A lot of the world's best and brightest built nuclear bombs for decades.
Ericson2314 5y ago
Cause and effect is backwards. The kids went to do finance shit, because without spending keeping up productivity, it made no sense to improve productive capacity Why build more stuff if no one is going to buy it (near today's prices) and labor is already cheap?
worrycue 5y ago
> in the old days the smartest kids of the block were lured to figure out how to get to the moon and how to get electricity from splitting atoms Part of it I think was just money. Wasn’t that all funded by the government? If you throw money at it, people will go there. It’s the same now. There was also a naive optimism of what the future could bring with space travel and free energy from nuclear power … then reality hit.

asdff 5y ago

>lured to figure out how to get to the moon and how to get electricity from splitting atoms To be fair these things were only invested in because we wanted the capability to bomb eurasia to the stone age

RandomLensman 5y ago

We also decided that the future is only full of hardship and misery. Policy goals are now often only about avoiding disaster or forms redistribution, not growing prosperity, health, happiness. Why would then people not just chose short-term gain?

varelse 5y ago

Bread and Circuses are exponentially easier to create than innovation. Most innovation is punished or ignored unless it is timed well until it is "rediscovered" when it is desperately needed. Bread and Circuses pairs with anything anywhere at any time. And when innovation saved the world from a global pandemic you guys are still arguing about the tiny miniscule risk of side effects of a game-changing vaccine rather than getting back on the curve here. So great, enjoy your brave new world of amusing yourselves to death. That seems to be about all we're good at anymore.

mistermann 5y ago
Perhaps if we were better at thinking we would be able to realize that the pushback on covid is a signal that something in the lower levels of the operating system may have some bugs in it. Instead, we react with simplistic heuristic narratives and emotion, and criticize others for a lack of intellectual capability. If the situation is not to our liking, perhaps we should consider addressing the root cause(s) so the same thing doesn't happen the next time a crisis pays us a visit.
- varelse 5y ago
  So this root cause of which you speak? You're not actually going to say what it is you're just going to complain about it and allude to it, am I right? And in doing so how are you anything but more Bread and Circuses? If the West had always been this risk averse with respect to science and technology, we wouldn't have gone to space let alone the Moon. We wouldn't have antibiotics and we probably wouldn't even have flight. So tell me how to restore America's healthy level of risk tolerance? Because taking medical advice from online pundits is incredibly risky and yet it's seen as safer than trusting science by a disturbingly large minority. And that's just one example of how badly we gauge risk. And to be fair, I have the same viewpoint about the irrational fear of nuclear power.
  - mistermann 5y ago
    I believe the root cause is human consciousness, in its current form....the very thing that wrote the message to which I am now replying. I believe absolutely that this is the root of all problems, and also that it can be addressed/upgraded.
  - crypto420 5y ago
    I wonder if its just about having competent adversaries? The West has always consisted of near-powers competing for resources and technology. A notable exception is modern history, where America hasn't had a serious technological adversary since the Space Race in the 1960s, and we've sort of slumped into this malaise. China appears to be a serious adversary now, but I don't think many Americans seriously possess the will or the skills to take on China.
adwn 5y ago
> exponentially easier Exponential in regards to which variable? Money? Time? Effort? Or did you simply mean "vastly"? This may be nitpicky, but we should expect people to get basic terminology right – at least on HN.
- varelse 5y ago
  And so the world ended but at least the pedantics were happy with the semantics of the Apocalypse.
  - dirtball_ 5y ago
    pedants* ;)
    - easywood 5y ago
      * :-)
6510 5y ago
I disagree with everything you said but I use to think along the same lines. Then one day, in a conversation about collective stupidity someone shared this observation: There are countless species in this world and all of them are doing just fine without the giant brain. A large part of humanity really just wants to live their live, reproduce, enjoy a meal, sleep properly, sit in the grass and look at the lake and the forest. We keep arguing that we have to think our way out of whatever the current situation is but you cant find a single problem that was not created by similar "solutions" for the previous "problem". It sort of blew my mind! It took a very large brained human to come up with the bread and circuses. It takes such very large brain to punish innovation or to have people ignore it. It takes an even larger brain to argue "what is desperately needed". You talk of saving the world but the world doesn't need to be saved. People are going to die sooner or later regardless. If you or me get to live a little bit longer that would be fantastic for you or for me.... but for the world? The world needs me for what exactly? We are the parasite devouring the host. I do get it! It seems terrible this "amusing yourselves to death" but why not amuse yourself until you die? Utopia is a world full of 300 year old grumpy old men? I'm sure we will get there eventually if we push hard enough but that will simply become the new problem that those few bright men with their large brains so desperately need to solve for us. I look at my cat sleeping on the sofa, why doesn't she get to have this complicated disposition? Why isn't she worried about the economy and innovation? What a joke, after the great collapse she will just go fishing, catch birds, spiders and mice, fight the neigbours, roll in the grass, look at the lake and the trees. At least, assuming we leave any of that behind. Think about it! The moon? mars? why not go to Antartica if you feel we ran out of self-made problems to solve? Antartica seems just as much umpf as Mars?
- FractalHQ 5y ago
  One thing my guru always helps remind me is to zoom out, and let go of my egos narrative. It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to attend therapy, and thus reminded to zoom out and take a breather. This comment did the trick, thanks! Mediation is a beautiful thing, and it helps me dig into it when paired with this mindset (or lack thereof).

iratewizard 5y ago

Basil II blinded 99 of every 100 POWs and sent them all back home. If Samuel is Bulgaria cared for these troops, it would cost his empire significantly. If he were to abandon them, it would lead to a collapse in morale. Today, our external and internal enemies blind our people in every way they can. For example, convincing our brightest minds that they will be the most fulfilled if their bank accounts are the most overflowing.

ikurei 5y ago

Not old enough to verify anything either, but I'm really curious about why you think this. My impression is that the smart kids from a few blocks would go to Nasa, and those are the ones we remember. Many smart kids had no access to higher education, or were lawyers and doctors (which is absolutely fantastic). When I recently watched For All Mankind I wasn't thinking "people did cooler shit then". I was thinking "that particular shit was really cool, overall most people then and there were worse off, including most smart people". May be it has to do with me being spanish and our specific culture, but Im pretty sure there were plenty of geniuses doing bullshit or evil back then. Why do you think otherwise?

beefield 5y ago
> but I'm really curious about why you think this. I was not discussing whether we as a society are better off now than in the old days. (To me it is obvious that we are better off in most ways) I was discussing why it feels that the technological progress was faster in the old days than nowadays. Why I think this? As said, I have absolutely no data, but only a hunch, that if you compare the incomes of nuclear engineer, aerospace engineer, banker and adtech engineer (whatever that was in the old days...), I would be quite surprised if the relative income has not tilted towards bankers and adtech engineers over time.

echelon 5y ago

It's hill climbing with lots of local minima. Technological reverse salients litter the landscape, making it harder to push forward with what we have and already know. People have to spend time traversing high risk, low-payoff fields to unlock new slopes that will take us higher. It certainly isn't always obvious.

HWR_14 5y ago

It may have had something to do with allowing wealth inequality to soar.

tedajax 5y ago

A lot of the world's best and brightest built nuclear bombs for decades.

Ericson2314 5y ago

Cause and effect is backwards. The kids went to do finance shit, because without spending keeping up productivity, it made no sense to improve productive capacity Why build more stuff if no one is going to buy it (near today's prices) and labor is already cheap?

worrycue 5y ago

> in the old days the smartest kids of the block were lured to figure out how to get to the moon and how to get electricity from splitting atoms Part of it I think was just money. Wasn’t that all funded by the government? If you throw money at it, people will go there. It’s the same now. There was also a naive optimism of what the future could bring with space travel and free energy from nuclear power … then reality hit.