5 ms·

We survived industrial revolution, we’ll survive AI.

throwaway09387 1y ago
> We survived industrial revolution Did we? I mean, I guess we're surviving it for now, but climate change data doesn't tell the most optimistic story.
- cloverich 1y ago
  TBF the worst outcome is famine and mass death of humans which... was somewhat the standard historically (low populations / intermittent famine). I have as much existential dread as you but that's also because I overvalue human life relative to what nature has historically thought about us.
croes 1y ago
Survivorship bias. You always survive unless you don’t.
- sgjohnson 1y ago
  Doesn’t matter. Our species survived. Individual casualties don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
  - croes 1y ago
    It does matter because it‘s a false trust in our ability to survive. We could make an error that kills the whole species based on the assumption because we survived before
ben_w 1y ago
The industrial revolution was so good for those living through it, that they invented communism and recognisably modern policing. And we got a few wars whose death toll exceeded the pre-industrial population of the UK. And one whose toll exceeds the current population of the UK.
vincentpants 1y ago
Isn't the jury still out on that statement? Pretty sure we've been experiencing the long-tail cultural decomposition caused by the effects the industrial revolution brought with it with the exception of a 20 year opportunity to change our trajectory as a species. I think getting out of this conundrum alive will require de-segmenting our cultural narrative around how we got here. edit: typos/grammar abound.
- guywithahat 1y ago
  > Isn't the jury still out on that statement? No
  - archagon 1y ago
    Content-free comment.
willis936 1y ago
This isn't an industrial revolution moment; it's a printing press moment.
hayst4ck 1y ago
"We" is doing an awful lot of work. We may have survived the industrial revolution, but subjective individual experience varies widely. Life would be quite different if we could subjectively experience ourselves as a whole.

> We survived industrial revolution Did we? I mean, I guess we're surviving it for now, but climate change data doesn't tell the most optimistic story.

cloverich 1y ago
TBF the worst outcome is famine and mass death of humans which... was somewhat the standard historically (low populations / intermittent famine). I have as much existential dread as you but that's also because I overvalue human life relative to what nature has historically thought about us.

croes 1y ago

Survivorship bias. You always survive unless you don’t.

sgjohnson 1y ago
Doesn’t matter. Our species survived. Individual casualties don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
- croes 1y ago
  It does matter because it‘s a false trust in our ability to survive. We could make an error that kills the whole species based on the assumption because we survived before

ben_w 1y ago

The industrial revolution was so good for those living through it, that they invented communism and recognisably modern policing. And we got a few wars whose death toll exceeded the pre-industrial population of the UK. And one whose toll exceeds the current population of the UK.

vincentpants 1y ago

Isn't the jury still out on that statement? Pretty sure we've been experiencing the long-tail cultural decomposition caused by the effects the industrial revolution brought with it with the exception of a 20 year opportunity to change our trajectory as a species. I think getting out of this conundrum alive will require de-segmenting our cultural narrative around how we got here. edit: typos/grammar abound.

guywithahat 1y ago
> Isn't the jury still out on that statement? No
- archagon 1y ago
  Content-free comment.

willis936 1y ago

This isn't an industrial revolution moment; it's a printing press moment.

hayst4ck 1y ago

"We" is doing an awful lot of work. We may have survived the industrial revolution, but subjective individual experience varies widely. Life would be quite different if we could subjectively experience ourselves as a whole.