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There's a powerful and outspoken modern cult that worships technological progress, but only for values of "progress" that meet a certain wow-factor/"shininess"
by kibwen 10mo ago
There's a powerful and outspoken modern cult that worships technological progress, but only for values of "progress" that meet a certain wow-factor/"shininess" threshold.
The idea that such progress could ever falter is anathema to such a cohort (which, in their defense, have lived their whole lives in the most technologically anomalous period of the entirety of human history), making them susceptible to scams like Boom.
Instead, I'd implore people to consider that true progress is the ability to do more with less, and not merely the ability to do more with more.
- andrepd 10mo agoWould expect nothing less from someone self-styling as "rational optimist".
- mlinhares 10mo agoBecause these are not solutions, they're just fluff. If they were actual solutions these people would kill them because they'd diminish the power their real overlords have. Just look at the whole circus around the hyperloop instead of just building high speed trains.
- TeMPOraL 10mo ago> Instead, I'd implore people to consider that true progress is the ability to do more with less, and not merely the ability to do more with more. Being able to do more with less is equivalent to being able to do much more with only little more.
- kibwen 10mo agoAnd yet all that the aforementioned progress-cultists care about is being able to do a little more, even if it costs much more. The rate of return based on the effort invested is precisely the issue here.
- TeMPOraL 10mo agoAI has some of the most stupidly high rates of return on effort and energy used out of all modern inventions, so I'm not sure what your point is.