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> They'll write: "look, people used to think we'd have blockchain-based economies and that AI was about to take over the world! How silly they were." I get the

> They'll write: "look, people used to think we'd have blockchain-based economies and that AI was about to take over the world! How silly they were." I get the wider point of your comment -- which is that most people don't agree with the wild predictions of futurists -- but I wanted to respond to this quote in particular. I think a lot of people mistake being cynical with being clever. In particular, treating blockchain and AI like they have the same potential as one another is maybe overlooking what each of them does. I'm going to quote from this: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/heuristics-that-almost-always-work https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/heuristics-that-almost-alwa... He comments on the latest breathless press releases from tech companies. This will change everything! say the press releases. “No it won’t”, he comments. This is the greatest invention ever to exist! say the press releases. “It’s a scam,” he says. His the best futurist of all. Everyone else occasionally gets bamboozled by some scam or hype train, but he never does. His heuristic is truly superb. But - say it with me - he could be profitably replaced with a rock. “NOTHING EVER CHANGES OR IS INTERESTING”, says the rock, in letters chiseled into its surface. [EDIT: I think my original comment was a bit uncivil and missed your wider point, which remains an interesting one]

ajkjk 3y ago
I've read that ACX post, and it is frustratingly close-minded, like many of his posts. I swear, sometimes it seems like Scott is trying to trojan-horse "bad" ideas into his readership on purpose, given his consistency at picking bad ideas and then dressing them up to make them sound palatable. It is really weird. I guess we are ideological opposites in some way. Anyway, the obvious response to that strawman of a critic is: nobody is using that heuristic, "disbelieving in everything". They're disbelieving in things by evaluating them. It's these things, the stupid "get rich quick" scams and the "crazy new technology that makes no sense on its fundamentals", that aren't interesting. Now I would love to know why Bay-Area technologists (or a certain subtype of them) are so attracted to things I evaluate as bad ideas and not attracted to things I evaluate as good ideas. From the perspective of someone in that community it would seem like I shoot down every idea, but that's because their selection of ideas is uniquely bad. Out of the space of "all ideas I see", I see good ideas every day. Out of the space of "ideas they like", I seem to see only bad ones. The group with the strange selection bias is them, not me.
- ajkjk 3y ago
  I think I can say why, also, although it will sound kind of weird: A lot of Silicon-Valley technofuturists seem to me to be specifically attracted to ideas that "toss out the world as we know it". Not a way of making a better financial system on ours -- a new one entirely. Not a way of making better software -- new frameworks entirely. Or replacing it with AI. Or rebuilding everything from scratch. Not a way of cities better -- new cities entirely. Not a way of making government better -- new governments entirely. It strikes me as a fallacy, every time. They seem to believe that the existing world is hopeless, that human endeavor on it is pointless, and that the only thing that will save us is some kind of brand new far-flung idea, and then, desperate for that to be true, believe in any far-flung idea that sounds plausible, not on its merits but because it matches what they are looking for. Somehow they believe themselves not a member of the current world and they would rather find a new one that they have an important role in, or at least that they can feel "hopeful" about. But, if you do not have the same insecurity and are instead just evaluating the ideas on their merits... well, they're just really stupid ideas. That's why we always disagree. It's very frustrating to watch, though. They'll spend years talking about prediction markets in order to predict events, but not talk about actually getting savvier at understanding how the world works through experience. Or they'll, like, invent new ways to find people without going on normal dates where you ask somebody out, but not actually go on dates, or work on being more likeable and attractive, or actually try to meet new kinds of people. They'll talk about designing new cities from scratch but won't even try fix the city they live in by engaging with its actual processes for fixing it. It is all tinged by a sort of... "loss of hope that anything can be better", and a general fear of engaging with the world because it's too scary. Or maybe they feel too much outsiders who don't belong in it. Or maybe it's too scary to try to do something new in the real world because of the risk of failure. Whatever the reason, they obsess over changing the world/their lives with ideas because changing the world/their lives with actions risks failure and shame and disappointment. It is, I think, the Shakespearean-grade tragedy of our age, and it hasn't finished playing out yet.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

ajkjk 3y ago

I've read that ACX post, and it is frustratingly close-minded, like many of his posts. I swear, sometimes it seems like Scott is trying to trojan-horse "bad" ideas into his readership on purpose, given his consistency at picking bad ideas and then dressing them up to make them sound palatable. It is really weird. I guess we are ideological opposites in some way. Anyway, the obvious response to that strawman of a critic is: nobody is using that heuristic, "disbelieving in everything". They're disbelieving in things by evaluating them. It's these things, the stupid "get rich quick" scams and the "crazy new technology that makes no sense on its fundamentals", that aren't interesting. Now I would love to know why Bay-Area technologists (or a certain subtype of them) are so attracted to things I evaluate as bad ideas and not attracted to things I evaluate as good ideas. From the perspective of someone in that community it would seem like I shoot down every idea, but that's because their selection of ideas is uniquely bad. Out of the space of "all ideas I see", I see good ideas every day. Out of the space of "ideas they like", I seem to see only bad ones. The group with the strange selection bias is them, not me.

ajkjk 3y ago
I think I can say why, also, although it will sound kind of weird: A lot of Silicon-Valley technofuturists seem to me to be specifically attracted to ideas that "toss out the world as we know it". Not a way of making a better financial system on ours -- a new one entirely. Not a way of making better software -- new frameworks entirely. Or replacing it with AI. Or rebuilding everything from scratch. Not a way of cities better -- new cities entirely. Not a way of making government better -- new governments entirely. It strikes me as a fallacy, every time. They seem to believe that the existing world is hopeless, that human endeavor on it is pointless, and that the only thing that will save us is some kind of brand new far-flung idea, and then, desperate for that to be true, believe in any far-flung idea that sounds plausible, not on its merits but because it matches what they are looking for. Somehow they believe themselves not a member of the current world and they would rather find a new one that they have an important role in, or at least that they can feel "hopeful" about. But, if you do not have the same insecurity and are instead just evaluating the ideas on their merits... well, they're just really stupid ideas. That's why we always disagree. It's very frustrating to watch, though. They'll spend years talking about prediction markets in order to predict events, but not talk about actually getting savvier at understanding how the world works through experience. Or they'll, like, invent new ways to find people without going on normal dates where you ask somebody out, but not actually go on dates, or work on being more likeable and attractive, or actually try to meet new kinds of people. They'll talk about designing new cities from scratch but won't even try fix the city they live in by engaging with its actual processes for fixing it. It is all tinged by a sort of... "loss of hope that anything can be better", and a general fear of engaging with the world because it's too scary. Or maybe they feel too much outsiders who don't belong in it. Or maybe it's too scary to try to do something new in the real world because of the risk of failure. Whatever the reason, they obsess over changing the world/their lives with ideas because changing the world/their lives with actions risks failure and shame and disappointment. It is, I think, the Shakespearean-grade tragedy of our age, and it hasn't finished playing out yet.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]