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Maybe not AI class algorithms, but the premier large scale algorithm related disaster is climate change, generated by optimization of profit and executed on a p
by dv_dt 3y ago
Maybe not AI class algorithms, but the premier large scale algorithm related disaster is climate change, generated by optimization of profit and executed on a platform of financial markets and accounting software (with lots of human prompting of course)..
- eru 3y agoThe Soviet Union had much larger environmental disasters than those 'evil' profit optimizers ever managed. See https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/history-of-soviet-whaling-greenpeace-twentieth-century.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/history-of-sovie... or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea as just two examples. Orthodox economics tells you that the obvious solution is to privatise the stuff you want people to protect. Instead of leaving it to the tragedy of the commons (or, worse, to the communists).
- dv_dt 3y agoI don’t think any Soviet disaster is as much as we have paid and will pay for climate change. Hundreds of billions of dollars of damage a year & Trillions of dollars of future damage
- creato 3y agoCommunists never burned any fossil fuels?
- dv_dt 3y agoPersonally, I think it's less of a communism or capitalism problem per se, but a representation problem of the mass of people vs a power cabal. This is a power and representation problem that neither communism nor capitalism offers particular resistance against degradation.
- eru 3y agoMore people are living better than ever before. Seems to be working.
- eru 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impacts_of_climate_change#Aggregate_impacts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impacts_of_climate_ch... suggests aggregate economic impacts of climate change might be between 0% to 20% of world GDP. On the one hand, that's really a lot. On the other hand, that's really only a few years of growth for market economies. Soviet style disasters were a lot worse, and didn't even really do anything for their economies, I mean compared to what even moderate access to markets does. See eg https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/norilsk-russian-arctic-became-one-polluted-places-earth-rcna6481 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/norilsk-russian-arctic-be...