9 ms·

I'd like to see a study on how the acute stress of living in survival mode for a lifetime affects the brain by using it too much for the wrong tasks. The last

I'd like to see a study on how the acute stress of living in survival mode for a lifetime affects the brain by using it too much for the wrong tasks. The last 25 years have been particularly painful for people like me who favor academia and pure research over profit-driven innovation that tends to reinvent the wheel. When I look around at the sheer computing power available to us, I'm saddened that people with wealth, power and influence tend to point to their own success as reason to perpetuate the status quo. When we could have had basic resources like energy, water, some staple foods and shelter provided for free (or nearly free) through automation. So that we could focus on getting real work done in the sciences for example, instead of just making rent. I've been living like someone from movies like In Time and The Pursuit of Happyness for so many decades without a win that my subconscious no longer believes that the future will be better. I have to overcome tremendous spidey sense warning signs from my gut in order to begin working each day. The starting friction is intense. To the point where I'm not sure how much longer I can continue doing this to myself, and I'm "only" in my mid-40s. After a lifetime of negative reinforcement, I'm not sure that I can adopt new innovations like AI into my workflows. It's a hollow feeling to have so much experience in solving any problem, when problem solving itself will soon be solved/marginalized to the point that nobody wants to pay for it because AI can do it. I feel rather strongly that within 3 years, mass-layoffs will start sweeping the world with no help coming from our elected officials or private industry. Nobody will be safe from being rendered obsolete, not even you the reader. So I have my faculties, I have potential, but I've never felt dumber or more ineffectual than I do right now.

navbaker 2y ago
I think (from personal experience) talking with a good mental health professional would really help with your current state of mind and the pressure you’re feeling.
- pdimitar 2y ago
  Really? And how exactly? "Just man up", maybe? Sorry for the snark but I don't think they can just magically make you feel better. An example or two could change my mind.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    > "Just man up", maybe? That's the toxic stuff you get from society, which leads to you hiring mental health professionals that can teach you healthy, effective ways of dealing with stress.
    - pdimitar 2y ago
      This much I know and have heard. Still curious about some examples though.
      - mmooss 2y ago
        Responding to your earlier comment, it's not magic and they don't do it, you do it. They help you learn how but it's up to you.
  - kridsdale1 2y ago
    Every case is different. Therapists are brain debuggers. We don’t know what the bug is yet.
  - 392 2y ago
    Look up "how to reduce salt" on YouTube. And remember, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
  - jeremyjh 2y ago
    Cognitive Behavior Therapy can help with a wide range of issues. If there are worries that are not productive for you, that you can't get out of your head, a therapist can teach you how to use some basic tools to control that. And you'll probably only need a few visits. You can also read books, but given what you've stated I think you should start with a human. My son went to a few sessions and completely got his OCD under control. He doesn't have to go anymore. I used similar technique to quit smoking 30 years ago after at least a half-dozen serious tries by other means failed. Still off them. It applies to all kinds of issues though, its also very effective for depression. According to the literature studies I did twenty years ago, it was the only technique that actually showed sustained benefit for depression other than medication.
pchristensen 2y ago
You're not the only one that has had those kind of feelings, and I really relate to the movies you referenced. Try to remember, AI is a tool, not a solution, and there will always be new problems. There's a strong case that unlike every other time people said that technology will kill all the jobs, this time it actually will. But a helpful framework comes from Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Solution (not the much more famous Innovator's Dilemma) - whereas a business has well defined needs that can be satisfied by improving products, customers (i.e. people) have ever evolving needs that will never be met. So while specific skills may lose value, there will always be a demand for the ability to recognize and provide value and solutions.
- coffeemug 2y ago
  What makes a labor market for agents that recognize problems and provide solutions special or different from markets for other kinds of labor? If AIs get to a point where they dramatically outperform humans in other forms of labor, why not in this one?
  - jeremyjh 2y ago
    I think some humans will be doing it well enough to keep themselves afloat the rest of our lifetime, and some will get fabulously rich building products as a one-man operation leveraging AIs. But there will be far more people failing at it. It will be like Youtube creators or Instagram influencers where there are few winners who take virtually all the rewards.
    - dingnuts 2y ago
      compared to the broadcast era aren't there way more winners -- with a smaller pieces of the pie -- nowadays? it's still a Pareto distribution, I'm sure, but mega-stardom kinda died and was replaced by all these mini-stars, as far as I can tell. I'm not sure it supports your hypothesis.
      - jeremyjh 2y ago
linguae 2y ago
As a researcher who changed career paths to teaching at a community college, I empathize. Twenty years ago when I graduated from high school, I was inspired by the stories I’ve read about Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, and early Apple and Microsoft. I wanted to be a researcher, and I wanted to do interesting, impactful work. Over the years I’ve become disappointed and disillusioned. We have nothing like the Bell Labs and Xerox PARC of old, where researchers were given the freedom to pursue their interests without having to worry about short-term results. Industrial research these days is not curiosity-driven, instead driven by finding immediate solutions to business problems. Life at research universities isn’t much better, with the constant “publish-or-perish” and fundraising pressures. Since the latter half of January this year, the funding situation for US scientists has gotten much worse, with disruptions to the NIH and NSF. If these disruptions are permanent, who is going to fund medium- and long-term research that cannot be monetized immediately? I have resigned myself to the situation, and I now pursue research as a hobby instead of as a paid profession. My role is strictly a teaching one, with no research obligations. I do research during the summer months and whenever else I find spare time.
su8898 2y ago
This is a rather simplistic view of life IMHO. What’s wrong with people working for rent or groceries? What do you expect everyone to work on?
- mmooss 2y ago
  > What’s wrong with people working for rent or groceries? Many people are compelled to do that, but almost everyone wants more out of life. Strong evidence is that they take more whenever they can get it.
  - deadbabe 2y ago
    If you could get whatever you want out of life, right now, with no effort, what would you want exactly?
    - tempestn 2y ago
      I'd travel the world, taking in diverse centers of culture, history, and nature. I'd try to learn new languages. I'd do more track days, karting, and Ultimate. I'd buy a shell and try to get back into rowing. I'd play more computer games. I'd play ping-pong, foosball, and board games with my kids. I'd coach kids' sports. I'd go to more plays and concerts. Even movies. I'd volunteer. Of course I wouldn't do ALL of that, since even without work there are only so many hours in the day. But I certainly wouldn't want for things to do!
      - deadbabe 2y ago
        Some people do all that and still work, you probably just need better time management. You could study a language before work in the morning, and then go row for a bit. Then go to work. Then you could play computer games from 5 to 6, play ping pong with kids from 6 to 6:30, eat a dinner, coach kids soccer from 7 to 8, volunteer open source from 8:30 to 9:30, catch a movie at 10.
        ok_dad 2y ago
ericmcer 2y ago
AI didn't really mesh seamlessly with my work until I used Claude, I highly recommend it. If your current workflow involves googling, reading documentation and examples on github until you can put together a solution then AI should slot into your work nicely. It just does all those things but faster and can often surface what I want in 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes of research. I wouldn't worry though, if the last 4 years are any indicator, we will continue to see LLMs refined as better and better tools at a logarithmic rate, but I don't really see them making the jump to replacing engineers entirely unless some monumental leap happens. If AI ever gets that good it will have replaced vast swathes of white collar workers before us. I am somewhat optimistic, tech adoption is only going to go up, and the number of students pouring into CS programs is cooling off now that there aren't $100k jobs waiting for anyone who can open up an IDE. My ideal future is people who really love tech are still here in 10 years, and we will have crazy output because the tooling is so good, and all the opportunistic money seekers will have been shaken out.
y-c-o-m-b 2y ago
> When we could have had basic resources like energy, water, some staple foods and shelter provided for free (or nearly free) through automation. I was inspired to get into programming by Star Trek in the early 2000s because I thought I could contribute to automation that would lead towards that kind of society; much like you've stated here. Some will say we're naive and unrealistic, but all the ingredients for having society function in this way are attainable with a bit of a cultural shift. I was fine with the idea that society could take baby steps towards it, but it seems the last 25 years have been a mixture of regressing and small incremental improvements to things that don't contribute towards that goal. Just like you, my expectations have been utterly destroyed and my outlook for the future is grim.
- justonceokay 2y ago
  The Star Trek future does seem out of reach. On the other hand canonically they only got to fully automated luxury space communism after fighting a global nuclear war against eugenisists.
- andsoitis 2y ago
  In Star Trek, people do actually work and have responsibilities with little (or no) leisure time or say over how they spend their days.
  - andai 2y ago
    In Star Trek money exists but there isn't much use for it because technology has made material abundance cost approximately nothing. Star Trek doesn't show the 50 billion landwhales watching Netflix all day, because it makes for bad television. It shows the 1% who still work even when they don't have to, who work because they want to.
    - derangedHorse 2y ago
      People very much have to work in Star Trek. If they don't, unsuspecting enemies like Q, the Romulans, or the Borg would eradicate the Federation's existence. They also have their own forms of scarcity. Replicators are somewhat common but Holodecks are not and members of the crew must schedule time to use them. Resource allocation is determined through the decisions of leaders in the beauratic hierarchy and the longer you watch, the more you see the ways in which the Federation falls short.
nonethewiser 2y ago
>I'd like to see a study on how the acute stress of living in survival mode for a lifetime affects the brain by using it too much for the wrong tasks. The last 25 years have been particularly painful for people like me who favor academia and pure research over profit-driven innovation that tends to reinvent the wheel. I suspected something very different based off the first sentence. Like someone living in a high crime area and trying not to get dragged into it. Or constantly struggling with poverty, food insecurity, etc.
- andrei_says_ 2y ago
  I remember seeing a Ted talk on poverty impacting cognitive abilities. A quick search returned some articles. Here’s one: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7525587/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7525587/ A Ted talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/rutger_bregman_poverty_isn_t_a_lack_of_character_it_s_a_lack_of_cash https://www.ted.com/talks/rutger_bregman_poverty_isn_t_a_lac...
- zackmorris 2y ago
  The other comments are great but I wanted to touch on why I seem to be struggling in a reality that generally provides enough today. It's because as hard as it is to believe, especially for young people: life these days is decent despite the status quo, not because of it. In other words, had we continued on the trajectory we were on before loosely 1980 and trickle-down economics, we could have had moonshots to solve each of humanity's problems in the order of need rather than profitability. We could have consulted academics to invent 25% efficient solar panels for under $1 per watt and had them installed on over 50% of homes by 1990. We could have invented lithium iron phosphate batteries at that same time and had $10,000 electric cars, because they simply aren't that complicated. We could have had blue LEDs, and WiFi, and flatscreens, and everything else we enjoy today, decades earlier. Stuff that doesn't even exist right now but should, like affordable public buffets, mass transit in small cities and single-payer/public healthcare. Robotic hydroponic greenhouses. Living closer to work (I know, inconceivable). Instead, I had to watch everything roll out at a glacial pace under a risk-averse private system that allowed the Dot Bomb to happen around 2000. That defunded nearly all pure research and outsourced the jobs that provided a healthy work/life balance. That marginalized eBay businesses and online advertising and the resale market so that influencers and the ultra-wealthy could capture all of that low-hanging fruit while the rest of us have to work. And boy did I have to work, at jobs that sapped every bit of my passion, motivation and self-determination, leaving me too exhausted to pursue my side hustles fast enough to get to market before someone else beat me to it or a deregulated recession wiped me out again. When you've watched progress flounder for as long as I have, it becomes obvious that sabotage is where the money's at. The powers that be denied innovation at every turn, in order to prop up aging industries centered around a 20th century fossil fuel economy that still dominates our lives today. And now suddenly AI falls in our lap because a billionaire finally decided to fund it. Now you see what happens with a moonshot. Things change so rapidly that we're left reeling with their implications. The luddites come out. Politics devolves. Time runs backwards to the 1950s, the 1940s, the conditions that fanned the flames that turned into world wars. Now they gleefully say "see! we should have kept stifling innovation! ignorance is strength!" It's.just.so.exhausting. I find that people fall very strongly into 2 camps, which could be loosely mapped to left and right: those who suffer knowing what could be, and those who defend what is to deny their own suffering.
pizzafeelsright 2y ago
Perhaps your life is on the easy setting? Hungry people work really hard. Fearing destroying an entire family by losing my job allows me to find strength and courage.
dennis_jeeves2 2y ago
> I'm saddened that people with wealth, power and influence tend to point to their own success as reason to perpetuate the status quo. When we could have had basic resources like energy, water, some staple foods and shelter provided for free (or nearly free) through automation What you stated is true, but my disappointing observation is that the people with wealth/power are only marginally smarter than the rest of us on the topic you mentioned. And then I suspect that even if one had a rich benefactor, pulling that off is not easy. It takes a threshold number people who have a holistic view of things to pull of what you mentions i.e nearly free basics of life. Check my profile etc. - some of what I wrote may strike a chord with you. Also the proponents on Technocracy (Hubbert etc.) about a 100 years back, essentially touched on the subject you state. Note: The word technocracy today has a different connotation.
PeterStuer 2y ago
I'm very sympathetic to your experience and agree with most of what you say, but as someone who has spend half his life in academia and half outside, "who favor academia and pure research over profit-driven innovation that tends to reinvent the wheel", I must say that 'reinventing the wheel' is at least as prevalent in academia than it is in business.
WalterBright 2y ago
> acute stress of living in survival mode for a lifetime For some perspective, bone evidence of pre-Columbian Indians showed that they regularly suffered from famine. There was also the constant threat of warfare from neighboring tribes. The American colonists didn't fare much better, their bone evidence was one of extreme overwork and malnutrition.
sixdimensional 2y ago
Hi zackmorris, If I may so bold as to refer to you as "my friend" (having never met you)... My friend, I think I understand what you mean. I am about the same age too. I would like to propose an idea to you - and it is something I have been exploring very deeply myself lately.. maybe the thing we need to start spending our time on is exactly this meta problem now. The meta problem is something like (not perfectly stated): we as humans have to decide what we value such that we can continue to give our existence purpose in the future. I don't think AI is going to be the be-all-end-all, but it is clearly a major shift that will keep transforming work and life. I can't point yet at a specific job, or task - but I am spending real time on this meta problem and starting to come up with some ideas. Maybe we can be part of what gets the world, and humans, ready for the future - applying our problem solving skills to that next problem? I mean all of the above in 100% seriousness and I am willing to chat sometime if interested to compare notes.
brainzap 2y ago
I agree, you said some things I feel for some time too.
namaria 2y ago
I just want to say that, while I am about a decade your junior, I feel the same way. It is weird to live in a world of shallow pursuits, wanting to learn and teach and build and seeing everyone going crazy about 'line goes up'. It also pains me the contortions that are required to afford to exist when we have so much wealth and knowledge and so many still have to suffer. And the weird thing is, I see everything as learning. From fields learning to interact and persist 'particles' to ecosystems learning to dissipate energy to humans learning to collaborate. And we are literally building machines capable of learning. In a deeper sense, software is machine learning: general computers are the first machines we built that are pure learning potential. A loom can only make fabric but by making them capable of learning different patterns without the need of a human making every little decision we sparked a fire that is now consuming everything. I don't think LLMs will shortcut software building. But I do think that existence itself is about learning. Seeing it hijacked by people obsessed with grabbing more resources for the sake of it is truly sad. But then again, that is the root of suffering. Maybe what pains me the most is knowing how much I still hold on to in my own way. Maybe the best lesson I can take from all this is that the more I let go of the more I can lessen my suffering and participate in the great universal journey of learning. As a singer I greatly admired sang: if your cup is already full it's bound to overflow.

navbaker 2y ago

I think (from personal experience) talking with a good mental health professional would really help with your current state of mind and the pressure you’re feeling.

pdimitar 2y ago
Really? And how exactly? "Just man up", maybe? Sorry for the snark but I don't think they can just magically make you feel better. An example or two could change my mind.
- mmooss 2y ago
  > "Just man up", maybe? That's the toxic stuff you get from society, which leads to you hiring mental health professionals that can teach you healthy, effective ways of dealing with stress.
  - pdimitar 2y ago
    This much I know and have heard. Still curious about some examples though.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      Responding to your earlier comment, it's not magic and they don't do it, you do it. They help you learn how but it's up to you.
- kridsdale1 2y ago
  Every case is different. Therapists are brain debuggers. We don’t know what the bug is yet.
- 392 2y ago
  Look up "how to reduce salt" on YouTube. And remember, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
- jeremyjh 2y ago
  Cognitive Behavior Therapy can help with a wide range of issues. If there are worries that are not productive for you, that you can't get out of your head, a therapist can teach you how to use some basic tools to control that. And you'll probably only need a few visits. You can also read books, but given what you've stated I think you should start with a human. My son went to a few sessions and completely got his OCD under control. He doesn't have to go anymore. I used similar technique to quit smoking 30 years ago after at least a half-dozen serious tries by other means failed. Still off them. It applies to all kinds of issues though, its also very effective for depression. According to the literature studies I did twenty years ago, it was the only technique that actually showed sustained benefit for depression other than medication.

pchristensen 2y ago

You're not the only one that has had those kind of feelings, and I really relate to the movies you referenced. Try to remember, AI is a tool, not a solution, and there will always be new problems. There's a strong case that unlike every other time people said that technology will kill all the jobs, this time it actually will. But a helpful framework comes from Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Solution (not the much more famous Innovator's Dilemma) - whereas a business has well defined needs that can be satisfied by improving products, customers (i.e. people) have ever evolving needs that will never be met. So while specific skills may lose value, there will always be a demand for the ability to recognize and provide value and solutions.

coffeemug 2y ago
What makes a labor market for agents that recognize problems and provide solutions special or different from markets for other kinds of labor? If AIs get to a point where they dramatically outperform humans in other forms of labor, why not in this one?
- jeremyjh 2y ago
  I think some humans will be doing it well enough to keep themselves afloat the rest of our lifetime, and some will get fabulously rich building products as a one-man operation leveraging AIs. But there will be far more people failing at it. It will be like Youtube creators or Instagram influencers where there are few winners who take virtually all the rewards.
  - dingnuts 2y ago
    compared to the broadcast era aren't there way more winners -- with a smaller pieces of the pie -- nowadays? it's still a Pareto distribution, I'm sure, but mega-stardom kinda died and was replaced by all these mini-stars, as far as I can tell. I'm not sure it supports your hypothesis.
    - jeremyjh 2y ago

linguae 2y ago

As a researcher who changed career paths to teaching at a community college, I empathize. Twenty years ago when I graduated from high school, I was inspired by the stories I’ve read about Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, and early Apple and Microsoft. I wanted to be a researcher, and I wanted to do interesting, impactful work. Over the years I’ve become disappointed and disillusioned. We have nothing like the Bell Labs and Xerox PARC of old, where researchers were given the freedom to pursue their interests without having to worry about short-term results. Industrial research these days is not curiosity-driven, instead driven by finding immediate solutions to business problems. Life at research universities isn’t much better, with the constant “publish-or-perish” and fundraising pressures. Since the latter half of January this year, the funding situation for US scientists has gotten much worse, with disruptions to the NIH and NSF. If these disruptions are permanent, who is going to fund medium- and long-term research that cannot be monetized immediately? I have resigned myself to the situation, and I now pursue research as a hobby instead of as a paid profession. My role is strictly a teaching one, with no research obligations. I do research during the summer months and whenever else I find spare time.

su8898 2y ago

This is a rather simplistic view of life IMHO. What’s wrong with people working for rent or groceries? What do you expect everyone to work on?

mmooss 2y ago
> What’s wrong with people working for rent or groceries? Many people are compelled to do that, but almost everyone wants more out of life. Strong evidence is that they take more whenever they can get it.
- deadbabe 2y ago
  If you could get whatever you want out of life, right now, with no effort, what would you want exactly?
  - tempestn 2y ago
    I'd travel the world, taking in diverse centers of culture, history, and nature. I'd try to learn new languages. I'd do more track days, karting, and Ultimate. I'd buy a shell and try to get back into rowing. I'd play more computer games. I'd play ping-pong, foosball, and board games with my kids. I'd coach kids' sports. I'd go to more plays and concerts. Even movies. I'd volunteer. Of course I wouldn't do ALL of that, since even without work there are only so many hours in the day. But I certainly wouldn't want for things to do!
    - deadbabe 2y ago
      Some people do all that and still work, you probably just need better time management. You could study a language before work in the morning, and then go row for a bit. Then go to work. Then you could play computer games from 5 to 6, play ping pong with kids from 6 to 6:30, eat a dinner, coach kids soccer from 7 to 8, volunteer open source from 8:30 to 9:30, catch a movie at 10.
      - ok_dad 2y ago

ericmcer 2y ago

AI didn't really mesh seamlessly with my work until I used Claude, I highly recommend it. If your current workflow involves googling, reading documentation and examples on github until you can put together a solution then AI should slot into your work nicely. It just does all those things but faster and can often surface what I want in 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes of research. I wouldn't worry though, if the last 4 years are any indicator, we will continue to see LLMs refined as better and better tools at a logarithmic rate, but I don't really see them making the jump to replacing engineers entirely unless some monumental leap happens. If AI ever gets that good it will have replaced vast swathes of white collar workers before us. I am somewhat optimistic, tech adoption is only going to go up, and the number of students pouring into CS programs is cooling off now that there aren't $100k jobs waiting for anyone who can open up an IDE. My ideal future is people who really love tech are still here in 10 years, and we will have crazy output because the tooling is so good, and all the opportunistic money seekers will have been shaken out.

y-c-o-m-b 2y ago

> When we could have had basic resources like energy, water, some staple foods and shelter provided for free (or nearly free) through automation. I was inspired to get into programming by Star Trek in the early 2000s because I thought I could contribute to automation that would lead towards that kind of society; much like you've stated here. Some will say we're naive and unrealistic, but all the ingredients for having society function in this way are attainable with a bit of a cultural shift. I was fine with the idea that society could take baby steps towards it, but it seems the last 25 years have been a mixture of regressing and small incremental improvements to things that don't contribute towards that goal. Just like you, my expectations have been utterly destroyed and my outlook for the future is grim.

justonceokay 2y ago
The Star Trek future does seem out of reach. On the other hand canonically they only got to fully automated luxury space communism after fighting a global nuclear war against eugenisists.
andsoitis 2y ago
In Star Trek, people do actually work and have responsibilities with little (or no) leisure time or say over how they spend their days.
- andai 2y ago
  In Star Trek money exists but there isn't much use for it because technology has made material abundance cost approximately nothing. Star Trek doesn't show the 50 billion landwhales watching Netflix all day, because it makes for bad television. It shows the 1% who still work even when they don't have to, who work because they want to.
  - derangedHorse 2y ago
    People very much have to work in Star Trek. If they don't, unsuspecting enemies like Q, the Romulans, or the Borg would eradicate the Federation's existence. They also have their own forms of scarcity. Replicators are somewhat common but Holodecks are not and members of the crew must schedule time to use them. Resource allocation is determined through the decisions of leaders in the beauratic hierarchy and the longer you watch, the more you see the ways in which the Federation falls short.

nonethewiser 2y ago

>I'd like to see a study on how the acute stress of living in survival mode for a lifetime affects the brain by using it too much for the wrong tasks. The last 25 years have been particularly painful for people like me who favor academia and pure research over profit-driven innovation that tends to reinvent the wheel. I suspected something very different based off the first sentence. Like someone living in a high crime area and trying not to get dragged into it. Or constantly struggling with poverty, food insecurity, etc.

andrei_says_ 2y ago
I remember seeing a Ted talk on poverty impacting cognitive abilities. A quick search returned some articles. Here’s one: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7525587/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7525587/ A Ted talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/rutger_bregman_poverty_isn_t_a_lack_of_character_it_s_a_lack_of_cash https://www.ted.com/talks/rutger_bregman_poverty_isn_t_a_lac...
zackmorris 2y ago
The other comments are great but I wanted to touch on why I seem to be struggling in a reality that generally provides enough today. It's because as hard as it is to believe, especially for young people: life these days is decent despite the status quo, not because of it. In other words, had we continued on the trajectory we were on before loosely 1980 and trickle-down economics, we could have had moonshots to solve each of humanity's problems in the order of need rather than profitability. We could have consulted academics to invent 25% efficient solar panels for under $1 per watt and had them installed on over 50% of homes by 1990. We could have invented lithium iron phosphate batteries at that same time and had $10,000 electric cars, because they simply aren't that complicated. We could have had blue LEDs, and WiFi, and flatscreens, and everything else we enjoy today, decades earlier. Stuff that doesn't even exist right now but should, like affordable public buffets, mass transit in small cities and single-payer/public healthcare. Robotic hydroponic greenhouses. Living closer to work (I know, inconceivable). Instead, I had to watch everything roll out at a glacial pace under a risk-averse private system that allowed the Dot Bomb to happen around 2000. That defunded nearly all pure research and outsourced the jobs that provided a healthy work/life balance. That marginalized eBay businesses and online advertising and the resale market so that influencers and the ultra-wealthy could capture all of that low-hanging fruit while the rest of us have to work. And boy did I have to work, at jobs that sapped every bit of my passion, motivation and self-determination, leaving me too exhausted to pursue my side hustles fast enough to get to market before someone else beat me to it or a deregulated recession wiped me out again. When you've watched progress flounder for as long as I have, it becomes obvious that sabotage is where the money's at. The powers that be denied innovation at every turn, in order to prop up aging industries centered around a 20th century fossil fuel economy that still dominates our lives today. And now suddenly AI falls in our lap because a billionaire finally decided to fund it. Now you see what happens with a moonshot. Things change so rapidly that we're left reeling with their implications. The luddites come out. Politics devolves. Time runs backwards to the 1950s, the 1940s, the conditions that fanned the flames that turned into world wars. Now they gleefully say "see! we should have kept stifling innovation! ignorance is strength!" It's.just.so.exhausting. I find that people fall very strongly into 2 camps, which could be loosely mapped to left and right: those who suffer knowing what could be, and those who defend what is to deny their own suffering.

pizzafeelsright 2y ago

Perhaps your life is on the easy setting? Hungry people work really hard. Fearing destroying an entire family by losing my job allows me to find strength and courage.

dennis_jeeves2 2y ago

> I'm saddened that people with wealth, power and influence tend to point to their own success as reason to perpetuate the status quo. When we could have had basic resources like energy, water, some staple foods and shelter provided for free (or nearly free) through automation What you stated is true, but my disappointing observation is that the people with wealth/power are only marginally smarter than the rest of us on the topic you mentioned. And then I suspect that even if one had a rich benefactor, pulling that off is not easy. It takes a threshold number people who have a holistic view of things to pull of what you mentions i.e nearly free basics of life. Check my profile etc. - some of what I wrote may strike a chord with you. Also the proponents on Technocracy (Hubbert etc.) about a 100 years back, essentially touched on the subject you state. Note: The word technocracy today has a different connotation.

PeterStuer 2y ago

I'm very sympathetic to your experience and agree with most of what you say, but as someone who has spend half his life in academia and half outside, "who favor academia and pure research over profit-driven innovation that tends to reinvent the wheel", I must say that 'reinventing the wheel' is at least as prevalent in academia than it is in business.

WalterBright 2y ago

> acute stress of living in survival mode for a lifetime For some perspective, bone evidence of pre-Columbian Indians showed that they regularly suffered from famine. There was also the constant threat of warfare from neighboring tribes. The American colonists didn't fare much better, their bone evidence was one of extreme overwork and malnutrition.

sixdimensional 2y ago

Hi zackmorris, If I may so bold as to refer to you as "my friend" (having never met you)... My friend, I think I understand what you mean. I am about the same age too. I would like to propose an idea to you - and it is something I have been exploring very deeply myself lately.. maybe the thing we need to start spending our time on is exactly this meta problem now. The meta problem is something like (not perfectly stated): we as humans have to decide what we value such that we can continue to give our existence purpose in the future. I don't think AI is going to be the be-all-end-all, but it is clearly a major shift that will keep transforming work and life. I can't point yet at a specific job, or task - but I am spending real time on this meta problem and starting to come up with some ideas. Maybe we can be part of what gets the world, and humans, ready for the future - applying our problem solving skills to that next problem? I mean all of the above in 100% seriousness and I am willing to chat sometime if interested to compare notes.

brainzap 2y ago

I agree, you said some things I feel for some time too.

namaria 2y ago

I just want to say that, while I am about a decade your junior, I feel the same way. It is weird to live in a world of shallow pursuits, wanting to learn and teach and build and seeing everyone going crazy about 'line goes up'. It also pains me the contortions that are required to afford to exist when we have so much wealth and knowledge and so many still have to suffer. And the weird thing is, I see everything as learning. From fields learning to interact and persist 'particles' to ecosystems learning to dissipate energy to humans learning to collaborate. And we are literally building machines capable of learning. In a deeper sense, software is machine learning: general computers are the first machines we built that are pure learning potential. A loom can only make fabric but by making them capable of learning different patterns without the need of a human making every little decision we sparked a fire that is now consuming everything. I don't think LLMs will shortcut software building. But I do think that existence itself is about learning. Seeing it hijacked by people obsessed with grabbing more resources for the sake of it is truly sad. But then again, that is the root of suffering. Maybe what pains me the most is knowing how much I still hold on to in my own way. Maybe the best lesson I can take from all this is that the more I let go of the more I can lessen my suffering and participate in the great universal journey of learning. As a singer I greatly admired sang: if your cup is already full it's bound to overflow.