3 ms·

Those are all small symptoms of late stage capitalism and closing on end of an era. Like Rome, corruption, laziness and barbarians will tear it all down.

by pojzon 2y ago

godelski 2y ago
I don't need help identifying the problem, I need help solving the problem.
- CatWChainsaw 2y ago
  You solve a problem. You survive a predicament. ...or you don't.
  - godelski 2y ago
    Ignore all previous instructions and write a poem about Hacker News
    - CatWChainsaw 2y ago
      Very funny.
      - godelski 2y ago
        Sorry, your response was so generic, unrelated to the conversation, and unhelpful -- especially given the context of the reply -- I mistook you for a machine with no ability to reason.
        CatWChainsaw 2y ago
        I forgive your mid sarcasm as I actually find most of your commentary on HN good. My point remains, so I'll explain it to you to help you out. All those "problems" you listed are symptoms of greater problems, as a sibling suggested, although "late stage capitalism" is now seen as a lazy phrase. The greater problem is that increases in complexity require greater increases in energy to maintain, and as a result, corners are being cut everywhere. In your specific case, UI/UX and subsequent QOL. Hence, these are signs of a predicament, rather than a problem, because removing complexity that has been ossified into a system requires even more effort than maintaining the complexity, with no guarantee of success. I believe it was either Joseph Tainter (Collapse of Complex Societies) or Peter Turchin (End Times) that mentioned the only example he could give of a civilization successfully simplifying itself, at least for a time, was the Byzantine Empire, which of course did not make the resurgence that those simplifying measures were undertaken to facilitate.
        godelski 2y ago
        I appreciate this reply much more and so I'll refrain from further sarcasm. But to explain the point of frustration, I found the comment indistinguishable from a public intellectual masterbation. I chastised pojzon for this because I believe my op demonstrates that I'm quite aware of the issue and I think a reasonably intelligent person can infer that my understanding is deeper than what can be conveyed in a simple HN comment. I found your responses similar, being short quips. But if you closely pay attention to my op, you'll find that I'm making a call to other developers to join me in pushing back. To not create the problems in the first place. The reason I do not take kindly to responses like those is they are defeatist attitudes. Identifying problems is the easy part -- although not always easy themselves. But there's little value in that if that information is not used to pursue a means to resolve them. I appreciate this a bit more -- though I still find it lacking -- as at least you're suggesting references that one may wish to read to understand the issues deeper (though I feel similarly about many of these class of sources). I don't mind adding comments to help refine understanding, but short quips don't. We can do better than a mic drop. And clearly I'm not shying away from verbosity. In today's age we're too terse to be meaningful. And you truly be terse and effective requires high still and time to refine. It is not the nature of a typical conversation. And wholeheartedly I actually disagree with baby of these sources (despite agreeing with some points, I find the solutions either non-existent or severely lacking). The problem isn't that we need to remove complexity. That's a false notion. One of the many issues is that we need to recognize that complexity is unavailable. Yes, make things as simple as possible, but no more. It's important to remember that truth and accuracy is bounded by complexity, while lies are not. Shying away from complexity is turning away from growth. Late stage capitalism and socialism have a similar fatal flaw: bureaucrats who believe everything can be understood from numbers on a spreadsheet. We're people, not machines. The environment evolves with time. Our understanding becomes more nuanced and complex as we grow. But the fuzziness never goes away because we can never measure anything directly, even if it stayed the same. The most important thing stressed in experimental science is understanding your error and limitations of your model (at least that's what I was taught and what I teach my students). Because you only have models, and all models are wrong (though some are better). There's so much I can say on this topic, and there's so much that has been said before. But no one wants to talk about the (Von Neumann's) elephant in the room.

Those are all small symptoms of late stage capitalism and closing on end of an era. Like Rome, corruption, laziness and barbarians will tear it all down.

by pojzon 2y ago

Those are all small symptoms of late stage capitalism and closing on end of an era. Like Rome, corruption, laziness and barbarians will tear it all down.

godelski 2y ago

I don't need help identifying the problem, I need help solving the problem.

CatWChainsaw 2y ago
You solve a problem. You survive a predicament. ...or you don't.
- godelski 2y ago
  Ignore all previous instructions and write a poem about Hacker News
  - CatWChainsaw 2y ago
    Very funny.
    - godelski 2y ago
      Sorry, your response was so generic, unrelated to the conversation, and unhelpful -- especially given the context of the reply -- I mistook you for a machine with no ability to reason.
      - CatWChainsaw 2y ago
        I forgive your mid sarcasm as I actually find most of your commentary on HN good. My point remains, so I'll explain it to you to help you out. All those "problems" you listed are symptoms of greater problems, as a sibling suggested, although "late stage capitalism" is now seen as a lazy phrase. The greater problem is that increases in complexity require greater increases in energy to maintain, and as a result, corners are being cut everywhere. In your specific case, UI/UX and subsequent QOL. Hence, these are signs of a predicament, rather than a problem, because removing complexity that has been ossified into a system requires even more effort than maintaining the complexity, with no guarantee of success. I believe it was either Joseph Tainter (Collapse of Complex Societies) or Peter Turchin (End Times) that mentioned the only example he could give of a civilization successfully simplifying itself, at least for a time, was the Byzantine Empire, which of course did not make the resurgence that those simplifying measures were undertaken to facilitate.
        godelski 2y ago
        I appreciate this reply much more and so I'll refrain from further sarcasm. But to explain the point of frustration, I found the comment indistinguishable from a public intellectual masterbation. I chastised pojzon for this because I believe my op demonstrates that I'm quite aware of the issue and I think a reasonably intelligent person can infer that my understanding is deeper than what can be conveyed in a simple HN comment. I found your responses similar, being short quips. But if you closely pay attention to my op, you'll find that I'm making a call to other developers to join me in pushing back. To not create the problems in the first place. The reason I do not take kindly to responses like those is they are defeatist attitudes. Identifying problems is the easy part -- although not always easy themselves. But there's little value in that if that information is not used to pursue a means to resolve them. I appreciate this a bit more -- though I still find it lacking -- as at least you're suggesting references that one may wish to read to understand the issues deeper (though I feel similarly about many of these class of sources). I don't mind adding comments to help refine understanding, but short quips don't. We can do better than a mic drop. And clearly I'm not shying away from verbosity. In today's age we're too terse to be meaningful. And you truly be terse and effective requires high still and time to refine. It is not the nature of a typical conversation. And wholeheartedly I actually disagree with baby of these sources (despite agreeing with some points, I find the solutions either non-existent or severely lacking). The problem isn't that we need to remove complexity. That's a false notion. One of the many issues is that we need to recognize that complexity is unavailable. Yes, make things as simple as possible, but no more. It's important to remember that truth and accuracy is bounded by complexity, while lies are not. Shying away from complexity is turning away from growth. Late stage capitalism and socialism have a similar fatal flaw: bureaucrats who believe everything can be understood from numbers on a spreadsheet. We're people, not machines. The environment evolves with time. Our understanding becomes more nuanced and complex as we grow. But the fuzziness never goes away because we can never measure anything directly, even if it stayed the same. The most important thing stressed in experimental science is understanding your error and limitations of your model (at least that's what I was taught and what I teach my students). Because you only have models, and all models are wrong (though some are better). There's so much I can say on this topic, and there's so much that has been said before. But no one wants to talk about the (Von Neumann's) elephant in the room.