6 ms·

Technical Debt of the West

34 points by mparramon 5y ago

hyperman1 5y ago
I find this an interesting article,it makes me see a few things in a new light. One thing that stood out was: is there any difference between natural wasp nest and a human house. For me, the answer is yes. Humans learn from previous humans. There must exist something like a genius wasp, building better nests than any wasp before it. When it dies, wasp nest quality will revert to what it was before. Not with humans, where other humans learn from the genius. You get a kind of compound interest effect, providing humans with a shortcut to evolution for learning, based on our ability to communicate. This means the defining characteristic of humans, the part that moves us away from our natural state, is not our intelligence but our ability to communicate and store knowledge. Intelligence is a means for this, not an end. As a corolary, the genius hiding in a back room designing genius contraptions is worth less for humanity than the less smart person sitting in the center of our relationship graph, sharing knowledge.
- Wildgoose 5y ago
  I think the word you are searching for is “Culture”. The compound interest of successful decisions applied over a wide area.
  - hyperman1 5y ago
    Now that's a really interesting way to look at culture. You just made me a bit smarter. Thanks.
    - aradox66 5y ago
      Don't overlook that this mechanism of intergenerational knowledge transfer (culture) exists in many species, not just humans
  - shakezula 5y ago
    This is the best definition I’ve ever come across for culture. Going to be stealing this.
- zabzonk 5y ago
  Of course, wasps with their short reproductive cycle have already produced genius nests, via Darwinian evolution. I think what you may be talking about is Lamarkism.
  - netmonk 5y ago
    wasp are able collectively to solve mathematical problem like arithmetical and geometrical series.
nonrandomstring 5y ago
> Remember this is a legacy worldview. We'd been building all sorts of dependencies on the idea of God. You can't just s/God/evolution/ and expect a 3000-year-old codebase to compile. Nietzsche's parable of the Death of God is absolutely essential reading for all hackers. Pay very close attention to the exact words of the madman in the marketplace. Technology is very evidently bound up with the "new rites and rituals". Much of what we do in digital technology is no more than a new cult, more or less arbitrary in its form but still fulfilling the old religious negative functions - distraction, domination, fealty, creating new sins and pleasures, new rituals, new denominations and partitions on humanity. Of course Jung and Freud said the same and went further. It doesn't merely fail to be a rational and benevolent replacement for superstition, it threatens much worse modes of failure. Unlike traditional religion technology is not subject to the same constraints as stone churches, dusty books and preachers. Zuckerberg's "Meta" is literally a Gnostic/Cosmist project to create "Another Place" here on Earth. Because it has the potential to create more and bloodier wars than religion ever could, we have a solemn duty as hackers to steward it and think very carefully about what we create. "Move fast and break things" is not apropos this duty.
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  > Unlike traditional religion technology is not subject to the same constraints as stone churches, dusty books and preachers. Because technology can take physical form like robots and cars? IMO religion has done so much damage in the form of wars, torture, and (mass and individual) mental illness that I imagine modern technology has a long way to go before it t can be considered as worrisome as religion and its memes.
  - nonrandomstring 5y ago
    @paul > Because technology can take physical form like robots and cars? Not so much that, no. Quite the opposite, because it's non-physical. Physical technology has already taken on worrying forms, like atomic weapons and gasoline automobiles. We've managed those admirably I think [1] - even though it may seem otherwise at times. Physical has inbuilt limitations. Consider Google Glass and the near unanimous societal rejection of "glassholes". I am just recycling Mumford, Ellul and Postman here, but digital technology is different as it can produce near instantaneous change on global culture. > IMO religion has done so much damage in the form of wars, torture, and (mass and individual) mental illness that I imagine modern technology has a long way to go before it t can be considered as worrisome as religion and its memes. You're right, religion has and still does yield these consequences. BTW I am not rejecting _all_ of religion, it has many good sides too. But religion took thousands of years for its damaging effects to happen. Much of what we blame 'religion' for is really a parochial perspective on history (the view from now) and the playing out of human evolutionary affairs through it. The same will be true of technology . What we must be mindful of is that they are (1) essentially the same phenomenon, and (2) that digital technology will produce effects much, much faster than religion. It;s really only been 50 years, which is nothing in historical terms. [1] That might seem like a disingenuous thing to say within a context that feels so cynical, and we don't get to run control groups on history, but I like to think that we're on course to correct for climate change and that the game-theoretical MAD aspect to nukes has proven somewhat correct so far and we will reach a future time of disarmament. In that sense I have faith in science and people.

34 points by mparramon 5y ago

I find this an interesting article,it makes me see a few things in a new light. One thing that stood out was: is there any difference between natural wasp nest and a human house. For me, the answer is yes. Humans learn from previous humans. There must exist something like a genius wasp, building better nests than any wasp before it. When it dies, wasp nest quality will revert to what it was before. Not with humans, where other humans learn from the genius. You get a kind of compound interest effect, providing humans with a shortcut to evolution for learning, based on our ability to communicate. This means the defining characteristic of humans, the part that moves us away from our natural state, is not our intelligence but our ability to communicate and store knowledge. Intelligence is a means for this, not an end. As a corolary, the genius hiding in a back room designing genius contraptions is worth less for humanity than the less smart person sitting in the center of our relationship graph, sharing knowledge.

Wildgoose 5y ago
I think the word you are searching for is “Culture”. The compound interest of successful decisions applied over a wide area.
- hyperman1 5y ago
  Now that's a really interesting way to look at culture. You just made me a bit smarter. Thanks.
  - aradox66 5y ago
    Don't overlook that this mechanism of intergenerational knowledge transfer (culture) exists in many species, not just humans
- shakezula 5y ago
  This is the best definition I’ve ever come across for culture. Going to be stealing this.
zabzonk 5y ago
Of course, wasps with their short reproductive cycle have already produced genius nests, via Darwinian evolution. I think what you may be talking about is Lamarkism.
- netmonk 5y ago
  wasp are able collectively to solve mathematical problem like arithmetical and geometrical series.

nonrandomstring 5y ago

> Remember this is a legacy worldview. We'd been building all sorts of dependencies on the idea of God. You can't just s/God/evolution/ and expect a 3000-year-old codebase to compile. Nietzsche's parable of the Death of God is absolutely essential reading for all hackers. Pay very close attention to the exact words of the madman in the marketplace. Technology is very evidently bound up with the "new rites and rituals". Much of what we do in digital technology is no more than a new cult, more or less arbitrary in its form but still fulfilling the old religious negative functions - distraction, domination, fealty, creating new sins and pleasures, new rituals, new denominations and partitions on humanity. Of course Jung and Freud said the same and went further. It doesn't merely fail to be a rational and benevolent replacement for superstition, it threatens much worse modes of failure. Unlike traditional religion technology is not subject to the same constraints as stone churches, dusty books and preachers. Zuckerberg's "Meta" is literally a Gnostic/Cosmist project to create "Another Place" here on Earth. Because it has the potential to create more and bloodier wars than religion ever could, we have a solemn duty as hackers to steward it and think very carefully about what we create. "Move fast and break things" is not apropos this duty.

paulryanrogers 5y ago
> Unlike traditional religion technology is not subject to the same constraints as stone churches, dusty books and preachers. Because technology can take physical form like robots and cars? IMO religion has done so much damage in the form of wars, torture, and (mass and individual) mental illness that I imagine modern technology has a long way to go before it t can be considered as worrisome as religion and its memes.
- nonrandomstring 5y ago
  @paul > Because technology can take physical form like robots and cars? Not so much that, no. Quite the opposite, because it's non-physical. Physical technology has already taken on worrying forms, like atomic weapons and gasoline automobiles. We've managed those admirably I think [1] - even though it may seem otherwise at times. Physical has inbuilt limitations. Consider Google Glass and the near unanimous societal rejection of "glassholes". I am just recycling Mumford, Ellul and Postman here, but digital technology is different as it can produce near instantaneous change on global culture. > IMO religion has done so much damage in the form of wars, torture, and (mass and individual) mental illness that I imagine modern technology has a long way to go before it t can be considered as worrisome as religion and its memes. You're right, religion has and still does yield these consequences. BTW I am not rejecting _all_ of religion, it has many good sides too. But religion took thousands of years for its damaging effects to happen. Much of what we blame 'religion' for is really a parochial perspective on history (the view from now) and the playing out of human evolutionary affairs through it. The same will be true of technology . What we must be mindful of is that they are (1) essentially the same phenomenon, and (2) that digital technology will produce effects much, much faster than religion. It;s really only been 50 years, which is nothing in historical terms. [1] That might seem like a disingenuous thing to say within a context that feels so cynical, and we don't get to run control groups on history, but I like to think that we're on course to correct for climate change and that the game-theoretical MAD aspect to nukes has proven somewhat correct so far and we will reach a future time of disarmament. In that sense I have faith in science and people.