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Wanted to address your question about decentralization of the supply chain. We can't decentralize computer manufacture at the moment because there are too many

Wanted to address your question about decentralization of the supply chain. We can't decentralize computer manufacture at the moment because there are too many specialized processes and materials in VLSI & beyond, many of which are secret/not published for no good reason. Okay I consider rent seeking not a good reason :) (Think Bell Labs vs post Bell Labs era) you saw the video of that kid making chips at home? It isn't remotely like cooking meth, AI isn't going to help. What is needed is radical simplification of chip design down to the atomic level. Beyond the chip level, tech becomes more decentralizable -- soon you will replicate many Shenzhens in India, but at that point you hit the diffusability of polymer and metalworking tech. No reference here, but money diffuses faster than technical knowhow, that is the issue, that's why markets seem like magic. See the quartz growing video I linked, I'm surprised that I'm surprised that this almost stone age but highly used tech is largely "secret" compared to random JavaScript tricks.

gvicino 2y ago
Let's hypothesize that from tomorrow, the knowledge to produce everything at home "DIY" becomes available because it's free (and even today this is increasingly true as the concept of patents is decidedly in crisis). We now possess all the possible knowledge to do everything ourselves. However, one thing remains missing for us to become self-sufficient, and it will always be missing regardless of the economic or political systems, as it remains a finite resource: time. We can afford to imagine new systems and models because we have significantly more time than our predecessors. We have more time than our ancestors because we are highly specialized, and we exchange this specialization on a local and international level for services, goods, and raw materials. In the scenario you propose, would we have the time to search for raw materials, study to understand how to process them, create the objects and tools we need, and simultaneously dedicate ourselves to other things (i.e.: while we are doing all of this, we need to attend to children, family, and the fulfillment of basic needs such as food, leisure, sleep, illness, etc.) In my opinion, it isn't possible. I would more readily understand forms of anarcho-primitivism in which people decide to return to nature and primitive values, either forcibly (which might be feasible) or voluntarily (which seems highly unlikely). At least these do not violate the spatial-temporal limits in which we live :) Friend, I love being as independent as possible, fixing things by myself and maintaining a garden at home, but I'm aware that it's just a hobby. It's a hobby I can indulge in because for other needs, there are others in the market to lend a hand. If I were to have a toothache tomorrow or if my glasses were to break, in a fully decentralized model like 100rabbits, I'd be in trouble :) Or perhaps, I'm still missing some pieces of the puzzle they propose.
- vinnyvichy 2y ago
  Hello. Thank you for engaging in good faith and friendliness.. I'm not sure what is this "scenario" that you think I'm proposing ;) You seem to like spending time on HN, as do I :) Are you a resident of Trieste, by any chance? rOtfl Let me stress, anarcho-primitivism isn't the label I would like to have thoughtful people put on my "scenario", haha! I will outline my "scenario" more carefully, promise! I realize what I have written here so far is still ripe to be misunderstood. Sorry! But I also have a job (,i.e. something equally crucial to the delicate art of time management) and that takes a lot of quality time as well ;) (Did you notice that rearchitecting finance is the top priority in my "scenario"? money=time=money?) Thank you for taking time out to formulate these important questions.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  > or if my glasses were to break was that a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_at_Last https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_at_Last reference? I think your reference to time as a limiting input may be very close to the objection I'm groping towards in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39844527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39844527 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34160852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34160852 , and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33952298 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33952298 ?
  - vinnyvichy 2y ago
    Thank you! Keep them objections coming, especially if they have a geometric or siliceous slant. Helps me to focus :) On second thought, these are more than enough lol Just a quick and dirty counter-objection-- to satisfy a Grothendieck model as well as yourselves, perhaps in the decentralized future, your glasses get fixed purely as a side effect of research on silica? So,really, the problem could be, as you implied, success in silica research is very random (Poisson?), but the need for silica manipulation is some other unfortunate mismatched distribution? You would think Russell already worked that out! I.e. why are you guys unhappy. You're already getting well-paid for managing!! (For my part, my other research feels like a rachet and not a controlled spiral into nothingburger, which is what I have to label the unhappy ones) Of course the tongue-in-cheek way to improve morale is to improve research until it feels more like labour :) EDIT: Less tongue-in-cheek guess is that interacting time-utility functions (i.e. connected "counter-rachets") are poorly worked out,or at least, not grokked by the unwashed masses (but very well understood by your Grandma) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-utility_function https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-utility_function

gvicino 2y ago

Let's hypothesize that from tomorrow, the knowledge to produce everything at home "DIY" becomes available because it's free (and even today this is increasingly true as the concept of patents is decidedly in crisis). We now possess all the possible knowledge to do everything ourselves. However, one thing remains missing for us to become self-sufficient, and it will always be missing regardless of the economic or political systems, as it remains a finite resource: time. We can afford to imagine new systems and models because we have significantly more time than our predecessors. We have more time than our ancestors because we are highly specialized, and we exchange this specialization on a local and international level for services, goods, and raw materials. In the scenario you propose, would we have the time to search for raw materials, study to understand how to process them, create the objects and tools we need, and simultaneously dedicate ourselves to other things (i.e.: while we are doing all of this, we need to attend to children, family, and the fulfillment of basic needs such as food, leisure, sleep, illness, etc.) In my opinion, it isn't possible. I would more readily understand forms of anarcho-primitivism in which people decide to return to nature and primitive values, either forcibly (which might be feasible) or voluntarily (which seems highly unlikely). At least these do not violate the spatial-temporal limits in which we live :) Friend, I love being as independent as possible, fixing things by myself and maintaining a garden at home, but I'm aware that it's just a hobby. It's a hobby I can indulge in because for other needs, there are others in the market to lend a hand. If I were to have a toothache tomorrow or if my glasses were to break, in a fully decentralized model like 100rabbits, I'd be in trouble :) Or perhaps, I'm still missing some pieces of the puzzle they propose.

vinnyvichy 2y ago
Hello. Thank you for engaging in good faith and friendliness.. I'm not sure what is this "scenario" that you think I'm proposing ;) You seem to like spending time on HN, as do I :) Are you a resident of Trieste, by any chance? rOtfl Let me stress, anarcho-primitivism isn't the label I would like to have thoughtful people put on my "scenario", haha! I will outline my "scenario" more carefully, promise! I realize what I have written here so far is still ripe to be misunderstood. Sorry! But I also have a job (,i.e. something equally crucial to the delicate art of time management) and that takes a lot of quality time as well ;) (Did you notice that rearchitecting finance is the top priority in my "scenario"? money=time=money?) Thank you for taking time out to formulate these important questions.
082349872349872 2y ago
> or if my glasses were to break was that a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_at_Last https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_at_Last reference? I think your reference to time as a limiting input may be very close to the objection I'm groping towards in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39844527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39844527 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34160852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34160852 , and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33952298 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33952298 ?
- vinnyvichy 2y ago
  Thank you! Keep them objections coming, especially if they have a geometric or siliceous slant. Helps me to focus :) On second thought, these are more than enough lol Just a quick and dirty counter-objection-- to satisfy a Grothendieck model as well as yourselves, perhaps in the decentralized future, your glasses get fixed purely as a side effect of research on silica? So,really, the problem could be, as you implied, success in silica research is very random (Poisson?), but the need for silica manipulation is some other unfortunate mismatched distribution? You would think Russell already worked that out! I.e. why are you guys unhappy. You're already getting well-paid for managing!! (For my part, my other research feels like a rachet and not a controlled spiral into nothingburger, which is what I have to label the unhappy ones) Of course the tongue-in-cheek way to improve morale is to improve research until it feels more like labour :) EDIT: Less tongue-in-cheek guess is that interacting time-utility functions (i.e. connected "counter-rachets") are poorly worked out,or at least, not grokked by the unwashed masses (but very well understood by your Grandma) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-utility_function https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-utility_function