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I don't think the argument is that transferrable. As a developer you don't really live within the legacy systems. At most you're a politician negotiating betwee

I don't think the argument is that transferrable. As a developer you don't really live within the legacy systems. At most you're a politician negotiating between the different component parts. Society is different. I don't like DeFi, but I get what they're feeling. It feels like society has left us behind. Like anything we could ever hope to try is already accounted for and defeated before the effort even begins. You can get into politics, but the forces that broke the current set of politicians will break you as well. You can try and win from within the system, but that entails doing exactly what you're against. I want to write software, man. I like making the computer do stuff, and I also like it when that stuff is socially meaningful, but it's impossible. The set of incentives and rules we have set up means that I don't get to do that. I don't enjoy knowing that the people i rely on are treated like fungible garbage. In that light I understand how it can seem appealing to change the world by writing software. I just don't think it's going to happen.

robotresearcher 5y ago
> Like anything we could ever hope to try is already accounted for and defeated before the effort even begins. Gay marriage, the fall of communism, civil rights, universal health care (in every rich country but one), women's rights. Don't forget about the very important real progress being made.
- noahth 5y ago
  A very large fraction of DeFi supporters do not regard all of those as desirable progress.
  - thebean11 5y ago
    What is "very large"? What fraction of legacy bankers regard all of those as desirable progress? That's a pretty silly ad-hominem.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    Are you talking about the same Decentralized Finance?
- pydry 5y ago
  Part of the reason you got gay marriage but not universal healthcare is that gay marriage doesn't threaten corporate interests.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    Universal Healthcare doesn't particularly threaten corporate interests either. Remember when centrist Obama tried to implement the Heritage foundation approved version and everyone went a little crazy for no obvious reason? It would be comforting to think that some evil geniuses were holding back universal healthcare for their own benefit, but it's mostly just lingering stupidity and racism that's holding America back on that front. At this point it's clear that the people who stoked that anger and fear over decades no longer have control of how to direct it (if they ever did).
    - swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
      Health insurance is what holds back universal health care, along with hospitals themselves. Both of them are incentivized to raise costs for consumers.
      - kelseyfrog 5y ago
        Is it possible to de-capitalize heathcare? Not in this economy.
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      Almost afraid to ask, but how is racism holding back health care?
      - oivey 5y ago
        You lost the word “universal” in “universal healthcare” in the comment you’re replying to. There are many ways racism impedes the push for universal healthcare. One is the classic fact that it is a welfare program, and that spurs the comments and thoughts about welfare queens and “young bucks.”
- maerF0x0 5y ago
  I've never understood the reason we even have marriage defined in government at all, and thusly would include "gay" marriage (all marriage is marriage if it's undefined)... We don't have a government definition of prayer or baptism, but for some reason we have have codified that one religious practice into our government? Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Also why do they get varyingly get tax incentives or disincentives? Maybe its the armchair libertarian in me, but it seems like we should just remove any formal definition of marriage from the government and instead normalize more power of attorney style actions.
  - amelius 5y ago
    I think governments generally want to impress their own values onto the people. Marriage is often part of that.
  - JasonFruit 5y ago
    How would that increase government power? It's like you aren't even trying to grow government.
  - burntoutfire 5y ago
    Marriage is not a religious practice. Proof: non-religious people get married all the time.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - nostrebored 5y ago
      Yeah and neither are Christmas or Easter!
      - handrous 5y ago
        Kinda true. Especially Christmas.
        deleted 5y ago
teucris 5y ago
I think there’s a nuance here in the sense that progress happens both inside the established system and outside it - grassroots campaigns, protests, local initiatives, etc. I think the key issue is that it seems like so many smart people are looking to solve things from the outside rather than involve themselves with the current system, and we need to move that pendulum back quite a bit.
- delusional 5y ago
  I'd argue that all the things you are listing are also on the inside of the system. There's certainly an element of rebellion to protests for example, but it's also a consolation price. Elon Musk doesn't have to protest, neither does Jeff Bozos. They just call up their preferred politician and the system dances for them. Protests are an opium fed to the disenfranchised masses to keep them from fundamentally changing the system. It's the last pressure valve. Kept just out of reach so that people won't use it, but highlighted to make sure that you aren't allowed to change the system without first doing it. I think the system is whack, and that's the reason people don't want to fight it. They've given up.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    But grassroots campaigns and protests do result in change. Not quickly enough for many people, but if your alternative is burning everything down....
    - delusional 5y ago
      Grassroots campaigns and protests let you change the small stuff around the edges. The system provides you with just enough knobs to play with to keep you oblivious to all the ones you can't.
      - kelseyfrog 5y ago
        Construct an self-reinforcing reality aimed at dismantling the current enabling structures. That's exactly as hard or as easy as it sounds.
munificent 5y ago
I 100% sympathize with this feeling too. But the pattern I see over and over again is: 1. Society is getting worse. 2. I'm really good at writing software. 3. Therefore the solution is to write software to fix society. That chain of logic is simply the streetlight effect [1] writ large: A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, no, and that he lost them in the park. The policeman asks why he is searching here, and the drunk replies, "this is where the light is". It doesn't matter how good you are at software if you don't have a software problem. Many problems cannot effectively be transformed into software problems. Instead of continuing to search for our keys where the light is, we should be bringing the light to where we lost our keys. That means accepting that we have to get outside of our comfort zone and improve our non-software skills. (This does not mean immediately thinking "I'll write software to bring the light to where I lost my keys!") [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect
- hotpotamus 5y ago
  I've heard the streetlight one before but I also like "when you're a hammer, then every problem is a nail". I hadn't thought of it this way though perhaps I had felt it. It feels like this is the dream for AR/VR - to create a software defined reality that you can escape to.
  - akolbe 5y ago
    Here is another version of that story, as told by Idries Shah. He attributes it to the Middle Eastern Mulla Nasrudin figure, and gives it a metaphysical interpretation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasreddin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasreddin A neighbor found Nasrudin down on his knees looking for something. "What have you lost, Mulla?" "My key," said Nasrudin. After a few minutes of searching, the other man said, "Where did you drop it?" "At home." "Then why, for heaven's sake, are you looking here?" "There is more light here." According to Shah, the German clown Karl Valentin (1882–1948) used to act the story out on stage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Valentin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Valentin
Nevermark 5y ago
Well everything ALREADY IS software. :) Loosely speaking. Software in a computer, or in our brains. With the "software in a computer" camp ascending rapidly, at the expense of the only alternative "software in a brain". So we already need to solve all these problems with software soon. Or with a large amount of software as a required ingredient, anyway. (I realize some people don't think machines will ever outthink biology (for ... hands and head waving around ... "Reasons! Man. Reasons!"). But, most of us probably agree that this is a loose goose first approximation of the long term trend we are in since the transistor, with no end in sight.)

robotresearcher 5y ago

> Like anything we could ever hope to try is already accounted for and defeated before the effort even begins. Gay marriage, the fall of communism, civil rights, universal health care (in every rich country but one), women's rights. Don't forget about the very important real progress being made.

noahth 5y ago
A very large fraction of DeFi supporters do not regard all of those as desirable progress.
- thebean11 5y ago
  What is "very large"? What fraction of legacy bankers regard all of those as desirable progress? That's a pretty silly ad-hominem.
- mcguire 5y ago
  Are you talking about the same Decentralized Finance?
pydry 5y ago
Part of the reason you got gay marriage but not universal healthcare is that gay marriage doesn't threaten corporate interests.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  Universal Healthcare doesn't particularly threaten corporate interests either. Remember when centrist Obama tried to implement the Heritage foundation approved version and everyone went a little crazy for no obvious reason? It would be comforting to think that some evil geniuses were holding back universal healthcare for their own benefit, but it's mostly just lingering stupidity and racism that's holding America back on that front. At this point it's clear that the people who stoked that anger and fear over decades no longer have control of how to direct it (if they ever did).
  - swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
    Health insurance is what holds back universal health care, along with hospitals themselves. Both of them are incentivized to raise costs for consumers.
    - kelseyfrog 5y ago
      Is it possible to de-capitalize heathcare? Not in this economy.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    Almost afraid to ask, but how is racism holding back health care?
    - oivey 5y ago
      You lost the word “universal” in “universal healthcare” in the comment you’re replying to. There are many ways racism impedes the push for universal healthcare. One is the classic fact that it is a welfare program, and that spurs the comments and thoughts about welfare queens and “young bucks.”
maerF0x0 5y ago
I've never understood the reason we even have marriage defined in government at all, and thusly would include "gay" marriage (all marriage is marriage if it's undefined)... We don't have a government definition of prayer or baptism, but for some reason we have have codified that one religious practice into our government? Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Also why do they get varyingly get tax incentives or disincentives? Maybe its the armchair libertarian in me, but it seems like we should just remove any formal definition of marriage from the government and instead normalize more power of attorney style actions.
- amelius 5y ago
  I think governments generally want to impress their own values onto the people. Marriage is often part of that.
- JasonFruit 5y ago
  How would that increase government power? It's like you aren't even trying to grow government.
- burntoutfire 5y ago
  Marriage is not a religious practice. Proof: non-religious people get married all the time.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - nostrebored 5y ago
    Yeah and neither are Christmas or Easter!
    - handrous 5y ago
      Kinda true. Especially Christmas.
      - deleted 5y ago

teucris 5y ago

I think there’s a nuance here in the sense that progress happens both inside the established system and outside it - grassroots campaigns, protests, local initiatives, etc. I think the key issue is that it seems like so many smart people are looking to solve things from the outside rather than involve themselves with the current system, and we need to move that pendulum back quite a bit.

delusional 5y ago
I'd argue that all the things you are listing are also on the inside of the system. There's certainly an element of rebellion to protests for example, but it's also a consolation price. Elon Musk doesn't have to protest, neither does Jeff Bozos. They just call up their preferred politician and the system dances for them. Protests are an opium fed to the disenfranchised masses to keep them from fundamentally changing the system. It's the last pressure valve. Kept just out of reach so that people won't use it, but highlighted to make sure that you aren't allowed to change the system without first doing it. I think the system is whack, and that's the reason people don't want to fight it. They've given up.
- mcguire 5y ago
  But grassroots campaigns and protests do result in change. Not quickly enough for many people, but if your alternative is burning everything down....
  - delusional 5y ago
    Grassroots campaigns and protests let you change the small stuff around the edges. The system provides you with just enough knobs to play with to keep you oblivious to all the ones you can't.
    - kelseyfrog 5y ago
      Construct an self-reinforcing reality aimed at dismantling the current enabling structures. That's exactly as hard or as easy as it sounds.

munificent 5y ago

I 100% sympathize with this feeling too. But the pattern I see over and over again is: 1. Society is getting worse. 2. I'm really good at writing software. 3. Therefore the solution is to write software to fix society. That chain of logic is simply the streetlight effect [1] writ large: A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, no, and that he lost them in the park. The policeman asks why he is searching here, and the drunk replies, "this is where the light is". It doesn't matter how good you are at software if you don't have a software problem. Many problems cannot effectively be transformed into software problems. Instead of continuing to search for our keys where the light is, we should be bringing the light to where we lost our keys. That means accepting that we have to get outside of our comfort zone and improve our non-software skills. (This does not mean immediately thinking "I'll write software to bring the light to where I lost my keys!") [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect

hotpotamus 5y ago
I've heard the streetlight one before but I also like "when you're a hammer, then every problem is a nail". I hadn't thought of it this way though perhaps I had felt it. It feels like this is the dream for AR/VR - to create a software defined reality that you can escape to.
- akolbe 5y ago
  Here is another version of that story, as told by Idries Shah. He attributes it to the Middle Eastern Mulla Nasrudin figure, and gives it a metaphysical interpretation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasreddin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasreddin A neighbor found Nasrudin down on his knees looking for something. "What have you lost, Mulla?" "My key," said Nasrudin. After a few minutes of searching, the other man said, "Where did you drop it?" "At home." "Then why, for heaven's sake, are you looking here?" "There is more light here." According to Shah, the German clown Karl Valentin (1882–1948) used to act the story out on stage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Valentin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Valentin

Nevermark 5y ago

Well everything ALREADY IS software. :) Loosely speaking. Software in a computer, or in our brains. With the "software in a computer" camp ascending rapidly, at the expense of the only alternative "software in a brain". So we already need to solve all these problems with software soon. Or with a large amount of software as a required ingredient, anyway. (I realize some people don't think machines will ever outthink biology (for ... hands and head waving around ... "Reasons! Man. Reasons!"). But, most of us probably agree that this is a loose goose first approximation of the long term trend we are in since the transistor, with no end in sight.)