4 ms·

I'll echo what others have said, utopias aren't real. What this author is describing was futurism informed by science fiction. Also most of the things they co

I'll echo what others have said, utopias aren't real. What this author is describing was futurism informed by science fiction. Also most of the things they complain about and their list are ridiculous. - They both criticize ByteDance for pushing Russian propaganda, and Google for not pushing Russian propaganda (sorry, "censoring"). - Also criticizing people for having the "wrong" political persuasion is telling. I'm not American so I can only look in from the outside but if Donald Trump won so decisively, maybe the left needs to look inward at what they did wrong instead of blaming big tech for not supporting "their side" enough. - Criticizing tech for being anti-regulation and anti-deceleration... If we regulate our own technology all that'll happen is that bad actors will leapfrog us. Maintaining technological superiority is a matter of survival for liberal democracies. Friendly reminder that 70% of the world population lives under dictatorships today and it's ever rising... - The idea that social networks accelerate xenophobia is ridiculous. All it does it expose it. Also left-leaning westerners have this ridiculous idea that we're not the most progressive culture on earth. We are and it's not even close. There's literally race wars and modern day slavery all over the world. - Labour conditions... It's obvious the author has never worked in a truly bad work environment. While their criticisms aren't unfounded, perspective is needed. The past was worse, things have gotten better. IMO tech is still an overall net positive. It's what's enabled the earth to support so many people, even if power generation is higher and less efficient than we want, it's more efficient than it used to be. Even if the current geopolitical situation is getting spicy, most of human history was still worse... This reads to me as a leftist having a meltdown over the current political state. The truth is, leftist governments brought this upon themselves. They thought that QE wouldn't lead to inflation because it didn't during the 2010s... However the economy then was otherwise deflationary. When those conditions ended, QE did what economists always knew it would, add inflationary pressure. And let's be real, most people vote based on economics. Left-leaning governments tried to gloss over the poor state of their economies with social issues that most people are ambivalent about at best and lost. Also millennials are the next largest cohort after boomers now. Even if the birth rate is lower than ever, a majority of millennial women have had at least 1 child. This changes voting demographics dramatically... The US left needs a bit of introspection instead of blaming everyone for their loss. Maybe this person should try using tech for something positive. Or go outside and touch grass. While I'm slightly ambivalent about LLMs, I do think that the promise of AGI has awakened something in the tech world... AI could usher in a new age, supercharge the economy, bring about a lot of positive change. Instead of whinging about the current state of politics, maybe think of positive uses for it. I'm personally using AI to build an app in the domain of finance and economics. I think AI could bring about a lot of economic benefits and change a lot of the things OP is complaining about. And final thought. Depression is real. Currently it's -20 degrees celcius outside, there's a foot of snow on the ground and the wind is blowing. We lost our home to a wildfire this summer and spent much of the summer homeless (well, bouncing around various places anyway) with a toddler. My SO is East European, have lots of family within 1000km of Ukraine, have Ukrainian friends and family (even my own family, although they immigrated to the west long ago)... It's not like my life is without stress. But I'm still optimistic that tech can produce good in the world.

District5524 2y ago
I so very much agree with you... I was first baffled by how unintelligent some parts of the OP managed to come through - while it's still a very nice collection of woes and unethical lies, which is very valuable in itself. But then, I've read the linked CNN post about Jeff Bezos prohibiting presidential endorsement in Washington Posts and the outrage that has generated. No, this is surely not the author's folly - there must be a more generic problem there... Why do so many people considered intelligent think it's normal practice that newspapers give such a very direct and simple political message, like vote for X. And have been doing it for 40 years. It's normal for newspapers and editors to have clear and mostly stable political views and voice that, but I feel it very weird that they publish something as direct as this one. Just like it's very weird for celebrities (who normally work outside politics) to publicly endorse X or Y. By doing this, you lose focus on what you really want to say, and just simplify politics and communication into a binary question. Is it really needed to ELI3 everything even in politics, even to such a binary degree, and if we don't THAT is the "betrayal of responsibility"? While I'm not a great friend of using the usual left-right distinctions, especially in global settings, but that's not really important (people will see whatever enemies where they want to see, but it's still much better than naming your global enemies after a more specific group/country/religion). Technology can give us hope for new opportunities, that we can receive some "outside help" to change our social constraints. But we shouldn't blame yet another group of people for specific technology failing to solve or address some important issues of society. I wholeheartedly believe it is inevitable to convince as many people of the 8 billion to feel compassion for each other, to save the planet, to give better education and equal chances to live a full life for those who can make use of that and social care to those who need it, and, to work together for such important and clear goals... But business-as-usual will not do that, current recipes of "pluralistic democracies led by wise citizen journalists telling us what to do and think" will not get us there. And that's also a problem for LLMs: mandating guardrails will not make them more useful, and as long as LLM safety and "bias" is about how many people will be offended by their responses, then we're clearly just heading in the same wrong direction of blinding ourselves. (My condolences with you! But having a toddler is a wonderful thing, it gives you hope and a good reason to expect many joy from the future ... even if it doesn't look bright now, cheer up!)
- 2y ago

District5524 2y ago

I so very much agree with you... I was first baffled by how unintelligent some parts of the OP managed to come through - while it's still a very nice collection of woes and unethical lies, which is very valuable in itself. But then, I've read the linked CNN post about Jeff Bezos prohibiting presidential endorsement in Washington Posts and the outrage that has generated. No, this is surely not the author's folly - there must be a more generic problem there... Why do so many people considered intelligent think it's normal practice that newspapers give such a very direct and simple political message, like vote for X. And have been doing it for 40 years. It's normal for newspapers and editors to have clear and mostly stable political views and voice that, but I feel it very weird that they publish something as direct as this one. Just like it's very weird for celebrities (who normally work outside politics) to publicly endorse X or Y. By doing this, you lose focus on what you really want to say, and just simplify politics and communication into a binary question. Is it really needed to ELI3 everything even in politics, even to such a binary degree, and if we don't THAT is the "betrayal of responsibility"? While I'm not a great friend of using the usual left-right distinctions, especially in global settings, but that's not really important (people will see whatever enemies where they want to see, but it's still much better than naming your global enemies after a more specific group/country/religion). Technology can give us hope for new opportunities, that we can receive some "outside help" to change our social constraints. But we shouldn't blame yet another group of people for specific technology failing to solve or address some important issues of society. I wholeheartedly believe it is inevitable to convince as many people of the 8 billion to feel compassion for each other, to save the planet, to give better education and equal chances to live a full life for those who can make use of that and social care to those who need it, and, to work together for such important and clear goals... But business-as-usual will not do that, current recipes of "pluralistic democracies led by wise citizen journalists telling us what to do and think" will not get us there. And that's also a problem for LLMs: mandating guardrails will not make them more useful, and as long as LLM safety and "bias" is about how many people will be offended by their responses, then we're clearly just heading in the same wrong direction of blinding ourselves. (My condolences with you! But having a toddler is a wonderful thing, it gives you hope and a good reason to expect many joy from the future ... even if it doesn't look bright now, cheer up!)

2y ago