4 ms·

There Is No Business Case for Civilization

70 points by NavinF 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Animats 2y ago
"The guidance computer, however, turbocharged the semiconductor industry, leading directly to the microcomputer revolution and a significant portion of the productivity increases across the world since." Not the Apollo guidance computer, though. The D-17B Minuteman guidance computer, from 1962.[1] Long before Apollo. The USAF was for most of the 1950s and 1960s the largest purchaser of semiconductors. Nor is NASA responsible for Velcro, Teflon, or Tang. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-17B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-17B
- NegativeLatency 2y ago
  Probably both? Why does it have to be one or the other?
  - Animats 2y ago
    Timing and scale. 800 Minuteman I missiles (the 1962 model were produced), each with its own guidance computer. The Apollo Guidance Computer came out in 1966, by which time transistorized computers were a mature technology. The IBM 1401, all transistor, came out in 1959. IBM System/360 systems came out in 1964.
    - jahewson 2y ago
      I don’t think it’s transistors that the article is alluding to when it says “semiconductors” but integrated circuits. While individual germanium transistors were (as you note) already widely used, the AGC was the first computer to make use of integrated circuits, in which multiple transistors are etched onto a single piece of silicon.
janalsncm 2y ago
> the dominant ideology of our time is a mix of utilitarianism without the ability to calculate utility, and cost-benefit analysis without the ability to calculate benefits This is the crux of the issue. Assessing the “business case” will vastly underestimate the upside and overestimate the downside of infrastructure projects. There are emergent effects that businesses never get to tap into but governments can, because they have a monopoly on being the government. It’s a scarcity mindset. Compare with various Chinese megaprojects like the infrastructure connecting Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Macau, and Guangzhou in China. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong%E2%80%93Hong_Kong%E2%80%93Macao_Greater_Bay_Area https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong%E2%80%93Hong_Kong%... Aside from transforming the region into an economic powerhouse (most of your electronics were probably manufactured there) better transportation makes it easier to attract talent, lowers the cost of housing, and makes a generally more productive workforce. It makes businesses possible that would otherwise not be. How many Americans have turned down jobs in nearby cities because poor transportation options force a choice between family and work? Hell, even though San Jose and San Francisco are basically neighbors commuting from one to the other (2+ hours in traffic) is a non-starter. Further, because the Chinese have built so many railroads, China can export their expertise to other countries. Chinese subway companies built metros in Portugal, Mexico, and Turkey. If Western governments instead had a growth mindset for their economies I think we would see a lot more infrastructure being created because they enable network effects in which the whole is better than the sum of its parts.
- inglor_cz 2y ago
  Let's not pretend that autocracy doesn't come with downsides. The same ease of decision that leads to the ability to build quickly (opposition is illegal) can lead to a fatal miscalculation like Putin did in February 2022. Democracies are messy, but a lot less warlike. Current peace in Europe, after centuries of endless bloodshed, is nice to have. NIMBY is a bad problem for growth, but I am positive we can overcome it one day. Some places already did, by clever legislation (NZ, Israel, several cities in the US). Even without wars, you can have autocrats making stupid economic decisions. I am not convinced that a septuagenarian apparatchik like Xi can wisely decide that software bad, manufacturing good. And yet he makes such decisions on behalf of 1,5 billion people and thus shapes the investment flows and future of the Chinese economy for decades to come, decades that he personally won't even live in.
bargainbot3k 2y ago
I have in the past applied a similar (though broader-stroked) analogy to other things, by simply asking “if things were to continue this way, could a civilization or at least a society be built out of it?” The answer in a lot of cases of the things we do today, from health and food, jobs and work, living and dying and dating and marriage and all sorts of other things is no.
tim333 2y ago
>No Business Case For Civilisation... >...quip that SpaceX would send a human to Mars before the UK government could get a high speed train I get what he's saying but it's kind of ironic that SpaceX is a business that's cracking away, while the government planning is a mess. Also the British rail network was built out in a hurry during railway boom of the 1840s by private businesses. I imagine a lot of what we call civilisation was built by businesses rather than some great bureaucrat.
- p_l 2y ago
  And SpaceX exists because US government, specifically Department of Defense, had a program to throw lots and lots of money at companies with a goal of having few of them survive as new space launch vendor.
- metalman 2y ago
  not quite built by business, built by business on rights of way, granted by the state, over other peoples cold dead bodys. Which is one of the sticking points today in that expanding rights of way for railways, etc, is just to monsterous to consider
imtringued 2y ago
Peter Hague is definitely exploring the existential crisis of capitalism. In theory you can earn money and then spend it, thereby directing society towards satisfying your wishes, but the richest people in the world do not earn money to spend it. They earn money to earn even more money. There is no end goal here. It is an existential crisis, because in a long chain S -> I1 -> ... -> In -> C, if C never happens, then In becomes meaningless, then I(n-1) becomes meaningless all the way to I0 and S. You worked for nothing. What you did was meaningless and it served no purpose, but it is dominating the system and imposing a meaningless life on everyone else.

70 points by NavinF 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

"The guidance computer, however, turbocharged the semiconductor industry, leading directly to the microcomputer revolution and a significant portion of the productivity increases across the world since." Not the Apollo guidance computer, though. The D-17B Minuteman guidance computer, from 1962.[1] Long before Apollo. The USAF was for most of the 1950s and 1960s the largest purchaser of semiconductors. Nor is NASA responsible for Velcro, Teflon, or Tang. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-17B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-17B

NegativeLatency 2y ago
Probably both? Why does it have to be one or the other?
- Animats 2y ago
  Timing and scale. 800 Minuteman I missiles (the 1962 model were produced), each with its own guidance computer. The Apollo Guidance Computer came out in 1966, by which time transistorized computers were a mature technology. The IBM 1401, all transistor, came out in 1959. IBM System/360 systems came out in 1964.
  - jahewson 2y ago
    I don’t think it’s transistors that the article is alluding to when it says “semiconductors” but integrated circuits. While individual germanium transistors were (as you note) already widely used, the AGC was the first computer to make use of integrated circuits, in which multiple transistors are etched onto a single piece of silicon.

janalsncm 2y ago

> the dominant ideology of our time is a mix of utilitarianism without the ability to calculate utility, and cost-benefit analysis without the ability to calculate benefits This is the crux of the issue. Assessing the “business case” will vastly underestimate the upside and overestimate the downside of infrastructure projects. There are emergent effects that businesses never get to tap into but governments can, because they have a monopoly on being the government. It’s a scarcity mindset. Compare with various Chinese megaprojects like the infrastructure connecting Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Macau, and Guangzhou in China. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong%E2%80%93Hong_Kong%E2%80%93Macao_Greater_Bay_Area https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong%E2%80%93Hong_Kong%... Aside from transforming the region into an economic powerhouse (most of your electronics were probably manufactured there) better transportation makes it easier to attract talent, lowers the cost of housing, and makes a generally more productive workforce. It makes businesses possible that would otherwise not be. How many Americans have turned down jobs in nearby cities because poor transportation options force a choice between family and work? Hell, even though San Jose and San Francisco are basically neighbors commuting from one to the other (2+ hours in traffic) is a non-starter. Further, because the Chinese have built so many railroads, China can export their expertise to other countries. Chinese subway companies built metros in Portugal, Mexico, and Turkey. If Western governments instead had a growth mindset for their economies I think we would see a lot more infrastructure being created because they enable network effects in which the whole is better than the sum of its parts.

inglor_cz 2y ago
Let's not pretend that autocracy doesn't come with downsides. The same ease of decision that leads to the ability to build quickly (opposition is illegal) can lead to a fatal miscalculation like Putin did in February 2022. Democracies are messy, but a lot less warlike. Current peace in Europe, after centuries of endless bloodshed, is nice to have. NIMBY is a bad problem for growth, but I am positive we can overcome it one day. Some places already did, by clever legislation (NZ, Israel, several cities in the US). Even without wars, you can have autocrats making stupid economic decisions. I am not convinced that a septuagenarian apparatchik like Xi can wisely decide that software bad, manufacturing good. And yet he makes such decisions on behalf of 1,5 billion people and thus shapes the investment flows and future of the Chinese economy for decades to come, decades that he personally won't even live in.

bargainbot3k 2y ago

I have in the past applied a similar (though broader-stroked) analogy to other things, by simply asking “if things were to continue this way, could a civilization or at least a society be built out of it?” The answer in a lot of cases of the things we do today, from health and food, jobs and work, living and dying and dating and marriage and all sorts of other things is no.

tim333 2y ago

>No Business Case For Civilisation... >...quip that SpaceX would send a human to Mars before the UK government could get a high speed train I get what he's saying but it's kind of ironic that SpaceX is a business that's cracking away, while the government planning is a mess. Also the British rail network was built out in a hurry during railway boom of the 1840s by private businesses. I imagine a lot of what we call civilisation was built by businesses rather than some great bureaucrat.

p_l 2y ago
And SpaceX exists because US government, specifically Department of Defense, had a program to throw lots and lots of money at companies with a goal of having few of them survive as new space launch vendor.
metalman 2y ago
not quite built by business, built by business on rights of way, granted by the state, over other peoples cold dead bodys. Which is one of the sticking points today in that expanding rights of way for railways, etc, is just to monsterous to consider

imtringued 2y ago

Peter Hague is definitely exploring the existential crisis of capitalism. In theory you can earn money and then spend it, thereby directing society towards satisfying your wishes, but the richest people in the world do not earn money to spend it. They earn money to earn even more money. There is no end goal here. It is an existential crisis, because in a long chain S -> I1 -> ... -> In -> C, if C never happens, then In becomes meaningless, then I(n-1) becomes meaningless all the way to I0 and S. You worked for nothing. What you did was meaningless and it served no purpose, but it is dominating the system and imposing a meaningless life on everyone else.