6 ms·

> My view of technology and progress is that it's nearly monotonic in "goodness"... I think this is pretty naive or at the least, a simplistic way of viewing t

by notJim 14y ago

> My view of technology and progress is that it's nearly monotonic in "goodness"... I think this is pretty naive or at the least, a simplistic way of viewing technology. In the early 20th century, people in the US were using rational ideas to promote terribly racist and oppressive social practices. Suburbs and urban policy may have been an improvement for some, but they also greatly contributed to the death of urban cores, which lead to decades of poverty for the people who couldn't get out of those areas. The two world wars demonstrated how technology can be used for incredible death and destruction. Technology now is enabling global competition that puts a great deal of strain on the blue collar middle class in developed nations who used to have manufacturing jobs, meanwhile other countries get rich using their low wages and lack of labor and workplace safety standards to be more competitive. Don't get me wrong, I am not a luddite. I think it's fine to say that over the longer term, technology improves things. It's possible the people who lost their manufacturing jobs can eventually get higher-skilled jobs that allow them (and our society) to produce more advanced goods, and the people overseas will eventually be able to demand higher standards. People are noticing that living in an urban area has a lot of advantages over suburbs, and cities are springing back to life. But to gloss over the bad periods in between by saying that technology is monotically good is simply not an accurate viewpoint.

michaelochurch 14y ago
I guess I should couple "monotonic in goodness" with "taking a global perspective". Economically[0], the world hasn't had a down year for decades. Even the 1930s were an "up" decade, at least for the world. [0] One can make an argument about "economic bads", because economic growth isn't necessarily an indicator of humanitarian progress. However, I've seen no data to indicate that the proportion of economic bads has increased, so it wouldn't have a differential effect that would nullify observed growth. Locally speaking, there are horrible uses of technology that occur all the time, but people have been doing awful things to each other since there were humans, and I think it's hard to blame that on technology itself. So what I'm really saying is more restricted: that the march of technical progress has been, for the world, positive more than negative over almost any measurable timescale.
- sesqu 14y ago
  Economically, the world has seen down years within one decade, depending on what we're measuring. The somewhat-loose-yet-quantified world gross product, for example, is certainly an economic indicator and decreased in 2009.
georgeorwell 14y ago
I'd say goodness lies in how we use our technology and that in the balance it's hard to say. We have 7 billion people on the planet now compared to 1 billion in 1800. In addition to natural population biology, this growth has been influenced greatly by advances in medicine and agriculture. Yet today over 1 billion people live in extreme poverty, and only 1 billion people live in a so-called first-world country or at that approximate standard of living. I'm not sure if there was anybody living in extreme poverty in 1800. If we could quantify an individual's suffering, then we could look at two metrics: the sum of all suffering on the planet, and the average individual suffering on the planet. While I would probably agree that for 1st-world countries these numbers have gone down, I'm just not sure if the same can be said for the global population. It's also unclear whether technology was just ineffective here or actually contributed to the problem. Even as far as our current dreams of technotopia are concerned, it's important not to forget just how dependent they are on people working and living in what many of us consider abhorrent conditions. If our use of technology made it so that every human on the planet had to do less work overall then I might be convinced that it was "good" as opposed to "hard to say", but it seems like we want ourselves to do as much if not more work with each new advance, as if work and production of stuff is the ultimate measure of our lives.
- brian_cloutier 14y ago
  > I'm not sure if there was anybody living in extreme poverty in 1800. There was no extreme poverty during the second half of the industrial revolution? The Irish Great Famine never happened? In the late 1800's, 16million people /didn't/ immigrate to America, because the jobs they had were better and paid more than the shit factory jobs we had?
- pdonis 14y ago
  I'm not sure if there was anybody living in extreme poverty in 1800. You have got to be kidding. What we call "extreme poverty" today would have seemed like luxury to almost every human being who has ever lived. The difference today is not that there are a billion people who live in extreme poverty; it's that there are a billion who are living at a first world standard of living. That is a far higher fraction of humanity than ever before; I would be surprised if even a small fraction of a percent of all of humanity in 1800 lived at what would then have been considered a "first world" standard of living. (Not to mention that what qualifies as a first world standard of living today has, in many respects, never existed before--what qualified as "first world" in 1800 would, in many respects, be considered "extreme poverty" today.)
derleth 14y ago
> I think this is pretty naive or at the least, a simplistic way of viewing technology. Bear-baiting is not coming back. If you don't know what it is, learning about it might upset you, which is my point. Polio is confined to portions of the world instead of stalking the globe. Same with malaria. Smallpox is gone entirely. Even more dramatic, there are places on the Earth now where people think it is a terrible, horrible tragedy if even a single child under three dies. Those people think it equally tragic if even a single mother dies in childbirth. Children in those regions are named before they're even born because it is expected as a matter of course that they will get to use those names! It has been said that the past is a foreign country. Well, it is certainly inhabited by foreigners, people whose mindset was shaped by circumstances we shy from remembering. The mother of three children who gave birth eight times. The father of four children, the last of whom cost him his wife. Our minds are largely free of such horrors, and not inured to that kind of suffering. That is the progress of technology. That is what is improving the human race. It is a long, long ladder, and sometimes we slip, but we've never actually fallen. That is our progress.

by notJim 14y ago

michaelochurch 14y ago

I guess I should couple "monotonic in goodness" with "taking a global perspective". Economically[0], the world hasn't had a down year for decades. Even the 1930s were an "up" decade, at least for the world. [0] One can make an argument about "economic bads", because economic growth isn't necessarily an indicator of humanitarian progress. However, I've seen no data to indicate that the proportion of economic bads has increased, so it wouldn't have a differential effect that would nullify observed growth. Locally speaking, there are horrible uses of technology that occur all the time, but people have been doing awful things to each other since there were humans, and I think it's hard to blame that on technology itself. So what I'm really saying is more restricted: that the march of technical progress has been, for the world, positive more than negative over almost any measurable timescale.

sesqu 14y ago
Economically, the world has seen down years within one decade, depending on what we're measuring. The somewhat-loose-yet-quantified world gross product, for example, is certainly an economic indicator and decreased in 2009.

georgeorwell 14y ago

I'd say goodness lies in how we use our technology and that in the balance it's hard to say. We have 7 billion people on the planet now compared to 1 billion in 1800. In addition to natural population biology, this growth has been influenced greatly by advances in medicine and agriculture. Yet today over 1 billion people live in extreme poverty, and only 1 billion people live in a so-called first-world country or at that approximate standard of living. I'm not sure if there was anybody living in extreme poverty in 1800. If we could quantify an individual's suffering, then we could look at two metrics: the sum of all suffering on the planet, and the average individual suffering on the planet. While I would probably agree that for 1st-world countries these numbers have gone down, I'm just not sure if the same can be said for the global population. It's also unclear whether technology was just ineffective here or actually contributed to the problem. Even as far as our current dreams of technotopia are concerned, it's important not to forget just how dependent they are on people working and living in what many of us consider abhorrent conditions. If our use of technology made it so that every human on the planet had to do less work overall then I might be convinced that it was "good" as opposed to "hard to say", but it seems like we want ourselves to do as much if not more work with each new advance, as if work and production of stuff is the ultimate measure of our lives.

brian_cloutier 14y ago
> I'm not sure if there was anybody living in extreme poverty in 1800. There was no extreme poverty during the second half of the industrial revolution? The Irish Great Famine never happened? In the late 1800's, 16million people /didn't/ immigrate to America, because the jobs they had were better and paid more than the shit factory jobs we had?
pdonis 14y ago
I'm not sure if there was anybody living in extreme poverty in 1800. You have got to be kidding. What we call "extreme poverty" today would have seemed like luxury to almost every human being who has ever lived. The difference today is not that there are a billion people who live in extreme poverty; it's that there are a billion who are living at a first world standard of living. That is a far higher fraction of humanity than ever before; I would be surprised if even a small fraction of a percent of all of humanity in 1800 lived at what would then have been considered a "first world" standard of living. (Not to mention that what qualifies as a first world standard of living today has, in many respects, never existed before--what qualified as "first world" in 1800 would, in many respects, be considered "extreme poverty" today.)

derleth 14y ago

> I think this is pretty naive or at the least, a simplistic way of viewing technology. Bear-baiting is not coming back. If you don't know what it is, learning about it might upset you, which is my point. Polio is confined to portions of the world instead of stalking the globe. Same with malaria. Smallpox is gone entirely. Even more dramatic, there are places on the Earth now where people think it is a terrible, horrible tragedy if even a single child under three dies. Those people think it equally tragic if even a single mother dies in childbirth. Children in those regions are named before they're even born because it is expected as a matter of course that they will get to use those names! It has been said that the past is a foreign country. Well, it is certainly inhabited by foreigners, people whose mindset was shaped by circumstances we shy from remembering. The mother of three children who gave birth eight times. The father of four children, the last of whom cost him his wife. Our minds are largely free of such horrors, and not inured to that kind of suffering. That is the progress of technology. That is what is improving the human race. It is a long, long ladder, and sometimes we slip, but we've never actually fallen. That is our progress.