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Great essay, but I think fundamentally wrong. There are some important distributed systems he overlooks: the ones found in nature. Gas Laws, photosynthesis, an
by jonstaab 5y ago
Great essay, but I think fundamentally wrong.
There are some important distributed systems he overlooks: the ones found in nature. Gas Laws, photosynthesis, and radiant energy are pretty great, it means I always have air to breathe. No one is regulating that, and to do so would only make things much worse.
The challenge is that humans suck at designing distributed systems. Nature is exquisitely designed (or, if you want, evolved). The solution then, is to root ourselves in nature rather than desperately, constantly trying to replace it. Bitcoin is the only new tech I can think of that does this (not sure if that's the 'most obvious horrifically misguided recently-popular "decentralized" system' the author refers to). Everything else: farming subsidies, AI, Keynesian economics, plastic surgery, vaccines, desk jobs — are all hopelessly out of touch with reality.
That's not to say technology is Bad, but it needs to be real, not manufactured.
- dirtshell 5y agoWhat is a well designed system, especially in nature? What values does nature maximize for? Nature is just a bunch of distributed systems that have chaotically learned to work "together" in vicious harmony. Nature's "design" is brutal, and is not compatible with the comforts we have grown to expect in our modern lives. If nature had its way we would mostly die around 50 years old of a cold.
- ignoramous 5y ago> Nature's "design" is brutal, and is not compatible with the comforts we have grown to expect in our modern lives. Well, that's some human-centric view.