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What this line of reasoning seems to be missing is that society seems to be getting worse largely because of software.

by shebek 5y ago

munificent 5y ago
I don't think you can aggregate all of society's changes into a single "worse" or "better" metric. It's like trying to decide if cheese is a better food than apples. What I think you can say is that software has had many good effects in various ways for various members of society and many bad effects for various members. Those effects and members are sometimes overlapping, sometimes not. There is no clear line between baby and bathwater. It's like trying to decide if iron or wheat has made society better or worse. I don't even think it's a particularly interesting question. A better question to me is, given where we are now, what incremental steps can we make it better, and for whom?
- jacobr1 5y ago
  And even more confusing, the positive and negative impacts are quite likely to be second or third order phenomena. Managing unintended consequences of complex systems is no easy task, even in hindsight. > A better question to me is, given where we are now, what incremental steps can we make it better, and for whom? This is indeed a better question, and perhaps the best we can do in many situations. But we have plenty of systems where small changes have large secondary consequences or conversely small changes are just drowned out by the fact that the system is in some like of local minima
ipaddr 5y ago
Seems to and getting worse are two different islands. Things are better than ever for all progressive issues. More people are living healthier and wealthier than ever. Crime, wars are all down. How is software making society worse?
- shebek 5y ago
  By concentrating power in the hands of unelected, unaccountable institutions. By fragmenting the cognitive capacities of regular human beings. By letting hatred and insanity reach a global audience. By diverting countless person-hours of intelligent labor towards largely useless endeavours. By becoming an opaque intermediary to an increasing fraction of all social interactions.
- munificent 5y ago
  > Things are better than ever for all progressive issues. Except for economic inequality and the climate. More poor have been lifted out of poverty, but even so the gap between the richest and poorest is growing. That's a problem not just because it means the poorest could be doing even better than they are, but because inequality is itself a massively destabilizing force that undermines trust and weakens the social fabric. Our air and water is OK to consume, and the amount of forest cover in Western countries is currently alright. But the diversity and density of natural life, especially animal life, is plummeting. We are living in a Silent Spring right now but it snuck up so fast most of us didn't notice. I remember how loud the outdoors were when I saw a children. Insects buzzing, frogs croaking, fish splashing, rodents rustling. When I go into the woods these days, it looks mostly the same, but it's so much quieter.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    Our forests are growing, wetlands protected and lakes cleaned up. We've done a great job cleaning up some of the heavy industry and part of that is exporting those jobs to clean. China has a massive pollution issue but things in the western world have been getting cleaner. More new species are being found than we lose. Our ability to save a population has increased not to mention the possible of bringing back species might exist. Everything seems worse because the media is shouting everything negative to get your attention. I just saw a bird eat some seed outside. I never see or hear anything like that on the news ever.
halostatue 5y ago
Or is it getting worse because of how the software is used? I will grant that some software seems to only be usable in weaponized ways (e.g., biometric identification at scale), but something like Facebook could be used for _good_ purposes (connecting people) if it weren’t driven by the wrong metrics (e.g., advertising, surveillance, etc.).
- shebek 5y ago
  Here's the thing. If we're talking about a material object, there would be a more or less clear distinction between "what it is", "how it's made", "how it's used", etc. If we're talking about software, I don't think that's the case any more.

What this line of reasoning seems to be missing is that society seems to be getting worse largely because of software.

by shebek 5y ago

What this line of reasoning seems to be missing is that society seems to be getting worse largely because of software.

I don't think you can aggregate all of society's changes into a single "worse" or "better" metric. It's like trying to decide if cheese is a better food than apples. What I think you can say is that software has had many good effects in various ways for various members of society and many bad effects for various members. Those effects and members are sometimes overlapping, sometimes not. There is no clear line between baby and bathwater. It's like trying to decide if iron or wheat has made society better or worse. I don't even think it's a particularly interesting question. A better question to me is, given where we are now, what incremental steps can we make it better, and for whom?

jacobr1 5y ago
And even more confusing, the positive and negative impacts are quite likely to be second or third order phenomena. Managing unintended consequences of complex systems is no easy task, even in hindsight. > A better question to me is, given where we are now, what incremental steps can we make it better, and for whom? This is indeed a better question, and perhaps the best we can do in many situations. But we have plenty of systems where small changes have large secondary consequences or conversely small changes are just drowned out by the fact that the system is in some like of local minima

ipaddr 5y ago

Seems to and getting worse are two different islands. Things are better than ever for all progressive issues. More people are living healthier and wealthier than ever. Crime, wars are all down. How is software making society worse?

shebek 5y ago
By concentrating power in the hands of unelected, unaccountable institutions. By fragmenting the cognitive capacities of regular human beings. By letting hatred and insanity reach a global audience. By diverting countless person-hours of intelligent labor towards largely useless endeavours. By becoming an opaque intermediary to an increasing fraction of all social interactions.
munificent 5y ago
> Things are better than ever for all progressive issues. Except for economic inequality and the climate. More poor have been lifted out of poverty, but even so the gap between the richest and poorest is growing. That's a problem not just because it means the poorest could be doing even better than they are, but because inequality is itself a massively destabilizing force that undermines trust and weakens the social fabric. Our air and water is OK to consume, and the amount of forest cover in Western countries is currently alright. But the diversity and density of natural life, especially animal life, is plummeting. We are living in a Silent Spring right now but it snuck up so fast most of us didn't notice. I remember how loud the outdoors were when I saw a children. Insects buzzing, frogs croaking, fish splashing, rodents rustling. When I go into the woods these days, it looks mostly the same, but it's so much quieter.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Our forests are growing, wetlands protected and lakes cleaned up. We've done a great job cleaning up some of the heavy industry and part of that is exporting those jobs to clean. China has a massive pollution issue but things in the western world have been getting cleaner. More new species are being found than we lose. Our ability to save a population has increased not to mention the possible of bringing back species might exist. Everything seems worse because the media is shouting everything negative to get your attention. I just saw a bird eat some seed outside. I never see or hear anything like that on the news ever.

halostatue 5y ago

Or is it getting worse because of how the software is used? I will grant that some software seems to only be usable in weaponized ways (e.g., biometric identification at scale), but something like Facebook could be used for _good_ purposes (connecting people) if it weren’t driven by the wrong metrics (e.g., advertising, surveillance, etc.).

shebek 5y ago
Here's the thing. If we're talking about a material object, there would be a more or less clear distinction between "what it is", "how it's made", "how it's used", etc. If we're talking about software, I don't think that's the case any more.