3 ms·

This is relative. In two generations, the concept of "master craftsman" and longevity will have been forgotten and short term thinking will the be "norm". It i

This is relative. In two generations, the concept of "master craftsman" and longevity will have been forgotten and short term thinking will the be "norm". It is only because we know and can compare that we judge. Remember, when we were hunter & gatherers, before becoming bound to the land and tilling that land, we had different gifts and talents that have all been lost. For better or worse. Or closer to home: barely anyone remembers black and white television or the feeling it must have been to view the moon landing on one.[1] Cathode ray TVs have gone the way of the Dodos - good or bad? Who knows. Whether a long term or short term outlook is better or worse, no one can tell because there aren't any goals nor targets to meet in evolution. [1] https://archive.org/details/apollo-8-bbc-coverage https://archive.org/details/apollo-8-bbc-coverage

cucumber3732842 1mo ago
>and longevity will have been forgotten and short term thinking will the be "norm". Nobody plans for decades because nobody can afford the risk. On a personal or organizational level there is no point in making investments that will turn profit over the course of decades if over the ~5yr horizon there's there's always the looming risk that the government will kick your craft out of the country at the behest of the people. What happened to all the men who specialized in casting steels? What happened to those facilities? What happened to those companies? The math is simple and they teach it in every business school in the country.
- Towaway69 1mo ago
  That raises the question, what came first: maths or evolution? Of course we can apply the laws of physics and the theories of maths onto everything we see and experience around us but does that make them so - those experiences. > What happened to all the men who specialized in casting steels? What happened to those facilities? What happened to those companies? Nobody plans for decades because nobody can afford the risk. Take a more holistic view, what happened to all the stars and galaxies?[1] The spiritual acceptance of the inevitable end of everything isn't taught in any business school and we are left to face/cope with that ourselves. If maths/business is your poison for coping, then so be it. I dislike reducing every experience to numbers and graphs, profit margins, win/loss and them/us. I guess I'm trying to say is that even the biggest profit will have no longevity when compared to, even just human history, let alone the history of the universe. [1] https://www.legacysurvey.org/viewer?ra=229.6352&dec=2.0739&layer=ls-dr11&zoom=12 https://www.legacysurvey.org/viewer?ra=229.6352&dec=2.0739&l...
- 1718627440 1mo ago
  The thing is that profit is not the only reason people do something. Some people just like their profession, I would argue that this is kinda a requirement to actually become really good. So in order to actually matter for a good skill you must lack the very argument you argue with. The leading of companies with people not actually skilled at the craft is still a historic anomaly.
  - cucumber3732842 1mo ago
    Money is not the "only" reason people do things. But it sure helps. Would we have nearly as many slime-balls scheming up ways to plaster ads upon everyone's eyeballs and record our every movement and click if not for the money in it? At a societal level almost nothing ever gets done at scale if there isn't money in it. You remove the financial incentive and things atrophy, new investment stops replacing old, etc.
    - 1718627440 1mo ago
      Sure, but the incredible skilledness in a single craft, which we are discussing here, doesn't happen at a societal level. That is the hard work of an individual and has always been.
      - cucumber3732842 1mo ago
        At the societal level it's a numbers game. These people are the end of a very long tail. If you reduce the area under the curve you also reduce the long tail.
        cindyllm 1mo ago
        [dead]
    - NetMageSCW 1mo ago
      Much of today’s world run on FOSS that says exactly the opposite. Gnu, emacs, Linux weren’t created for money.
- lotsofpulp 1mo ago
  Tech companies, pharmaceutical companies, real estate development companies, banks, and others plan for decades. People also lend money and invest in equities like index funds to plan for decades.
  - cucumber3732842 1mo ago
    None of those industries create the material or social plenty that make us all richer. You cannot eat real estate or stock options, the medical industry is a drag on us all though obviously you can cherry pick examples where things don't look perverse.
    - lotsofpulp 1mo ago
      Am I being trolled? People live in buildings developed by real estate development companies, people take life saving and life extending medicines made by pharmaceutical companies, and people communicate and navigate using the electronics made by tech companies. The things they create (and not exclusively they, obviously the country as a whole creates too) directly lead to the share price increases and dividends that allow many or most people in the US to maintain purchasing power.
      - cucumber3732842 1mo ago
        >Am I being trolled? People live in buildings developed by real estate development companies, people take life saving and life extending medicines made by pharmaceutical companies, and people communicate and navigate using the electronics made by tech companies. When you look at indoor square footage per capita (so like include the average HNer's share of the Starbucks and Whole Foods they patronize) and square footage and compare that to unit development trends and look at the costs it looks like we're just building bigger boxes rather than more of them. Basically the same story of the winners carrying the average that you see in every other market segment. Real estate development is probably one of the best market segments that illustrates the "K shaped economy". Likewise with medical. It's probably a fools errand to try and figure out whether wiping the elderly's asses is over sold or drugs are over sold and both sides claim they're creating Real Value (TM) and making people's lives better but when you zoom out and look at how much we pay for all that it's clear that something is very wrong and it's a monetary drag on us that prevents us from being to spend our money on hookers and blow and Big Macs (or whatever it is that we want to spend out money on). I didn't mention the tech industry in my quip because it makes things people elect to use voluntarily (to an extent, try not having an email these days) rather than structures itself to essentially compel more money to be spent within it like the industries within real estate development and medical do.
1718627440 1mo ago
> barely anyone remembers black and white television I feel like some "old" people have the weird idea that "young" people are just clueless about anything older than themselves. Just because some technology is no longer in use, does not mean that you don't get in touch with it. You don't grow up in isolation. There are always museums and of course the appliances of your parents and grandparents, in this case their photos. All the films beyond some point are black and white and it's not like there were no significant events during that time. (Although I have seen some color-pictures from the 1900s, but the majority of course wasn't.) Sure, you only use the technology from the past 15-20 years in daily life, but I feel like the technology you get in touch with is more closer to 80-100 years.
- Towaway69 1mo ago
  I didn't mean whether folks know the technology, I meant more whether folks interacted with that technology. And even better, thought that the technology was absolutely amazing! The feeling of B/W TVs being the bees-knees is not something anyone of us can experience simply because our expectations have been "influenced" by colour devices. Those that experienced those moment of absolute amazement will have a different appreciation for technology, simply because of that experience. The same goes with "master craftsman", everyone will know of the concept but to have experienced it and learnt with a master craftsperson is completely different. Just because I know of something does not mean that I understand what it is like to interact with that something. And that has nothing to do with "old" or "young", that's just how life is. What is truly like to have watched the moon landing on a B/W TV in a world where no one had a mini-supercomputer in their pocket. Or an internet connection providing more information and knowledge than the library down the road. I can't experience that moment, no matter how many devices I remove from my life - my experiences and expectations have already been too influenced by my previous experiences.
BoxOfRain 1mo ago
Black and white TV left enough of a cultural impact that despite not living through that era, when I got a black and white e-ink smartphone recently I joked that if I were to watch the snooker on it I'd have to judge the green by its proximity to the pink. Also the BBC still issue black and white TV licences, I suspect my phone is eligible for one! Still about 3.5k of them working apparently.
- Towaway69 1mo ago
  B/W TVs is still the reason why football teams (the soccer kind) have two different jerseys - one light and one dark. So when two teams play, one in their light and the other in their dark jersey. Hence also stripes are important. Gotta ensure backward compatibility!
GolfPopper 1mo ago
>barely anyone remembers black and white television or the feeling it must have been to view the moon landing on one. Apollo 11 landed in 1969. Roughly a third of living Americans are of an age to remember watching it, and more than half of them would have done so on black and white TVs. (Color TV's didn't pass 50% of sales & ownership until 1972.)

cucumber3732842 1mo ago

>and longevity will have been forgotten and short term thinking will the be "norm". Nobody plans for decades because nobody can afford the risk. On a personal or organizational level there is no point in making investments that will turn profit over the course of decades if over the ~5yr horizon there's there's always the looming risk that the government will kick your craft out of the country at the behest of the people. What happened to all the men who specialized in casting steels? What happened to those facilities? What happened to those companies? The math is simple and they teach it in every business school in the country.

Towaway69 1mo ago
That raises the question, what came first: maths or evolution? Of course we can apply the laws of physics and the theories of maths onto everything we see and experience around us but does that make them so - those experiences. > What happened to all the men who specialized in casting steels? What happened to those facilities? What happened to those companies? Nobody plans for decades because nobody can afford the risk. Take a more holistic view, what happened to all the stars and galaxies?[1] The spiritual acceptance of the inevitable end of everything isn't taught in any business school and we are left to face/cope with that ourselves. If maths/business is your poison for coping, then so be it. I dislike reducing every experience to numbers and graphs, profit margins, win/loss and them/us. I guess I'm trying to say is that even the biggest profit will have no longevity when compared to, even just human history, let alone the history of the universe. [1] https://www.legacysurvey.org/viewer?ra=229.6352&dec=2.0739&layer=ls-dr11&zoom=12 https://www.legacysurvey.org/viewer?ra=229.6352&dec=2.0739&l...
1718627440 1mo ago
The thing is that profit is not the only reason people do something. Some people just like their profession, I would argue that this is kinda a requirement to actually become really good. So in order to actually matter for a good skill you must lack the very argument you argue with. The leading of companies with people not actually skilled at the craft is still a historic anomaly.
- cucumber3732842 1mo ago
  Money is not the "only" reason people do things. But it sure helps. Would we have nearly as many slime-balls scheming up ways to plaster ads upon everyone's eyeballs and record our every movement and click if not for the money in it? At a societal level almost nothing ever gets done at scale if there isn't money in it. You remove the financial incentive and things atrophy, new investment stops replacing old, etc.
  - 1718627440 1mo ago
    Sure, but the incredible skilledness in a single craft, which we are discussing here, doesn't happen at a societal level. That is the hard work of an individual and has always been.
    - cucumber3732842 1mo ago
      At the societal level it's a numbers game. These people are the end of a very long tail. If you reduce the area under the curve you also reduce the long tail.
      - cindyllm 1mo ago
        [dead]
  - NetMageSCW 1mo ago
    Much of today’s world run on FOSS that says exactly the opposite. Gnu, emacs, Linux weren’t created for money.
lotsofpulp 1mo ago
Tech companies, pharmaceutical companies, real estate development companies, banks, and others plan for decades. People also lend money and invest in equities like index funds to plan for decades.
- cucumber3732842 1mo ago
  None of those industries create the material or social plenty that make us all richer. You cannot eat real estate or stock options, the medical industry is a drag on us all though obviously you can cherry pick examples where things don't look perverse.
  - lotsofpulp 1mo ago
    Am I being trolled? People live in buildings developed by real estate development companies, people take life saving and life extending medicines made by pharmaceutical companies, and people communicate and navigate using the electronics made by tech companies. The things they create (and not exclusively they, obviously the country as a whole creates too) directly lead to the share price increases and dividends that allow many or most people in the US to maintain purchasing power.
    - cucumber3732842 1mo ago
      >Am I being trolled? People live in buildings developed by real estate development companies, people take life saving and life extending medicines made by pharmaceutical companies, and people communicate and navigate using the electronics made by tech companies. When you look at indoor square footage per capita (so like include the average HNer's share of the Starbucks and Whole Foods they patronize) and square footage and compare that to unit development trends and look at the costs it looks like we're just building bigger boxes rather than more of them. Basically the same story of the winners carrying the average that you see in every other market segment. Real estate development is probably one of the best market segments that illustrates the "K shaped economy". Likewise with medical. It's probably a fools errand to try and figure out whether wiping the elderly's asses is over sold or drugs are over sold and both sides claim they're creating Real Value (TM) and making people's lives better but when you zoom out and look at how much we pay for all that it's clear that something is very wrong and it's a monetary drag on us that prevents us from being to spend our money on hookers and blow and Big Macs (or whatever it is that we want to spend out money on). I didn't mention the tech industry in my quip because it makes things people elect to use voluntarily (to an extent, try not having an email these days) rather than structures itself to essentially compel more money to be spent within it like the industries within real estate development and medical do.

1718627440 1mo ago

> barely anyone remembers black and white television I feel like some "old" people have the weird idea that "young" people are just clueless about anything older than themselves. Just because some technology is no longer in use, does not mean that you don't get in touch with it. You don't grow up in isolation. There are always museums and of course the appliances of your parents and grandparents, in this case their photos. All the films beyond some point are black and white and it's not like there were no significant events during that time. (Although I have seen some color-pictures from the 1900s, but the majority of course wasn't.) Sure, you only use the technology from the past 15-20 years in daily life, but I feel like the technology you get in touch with is more closer to 80-100 years.

Towaway69 1mo ago
I didn't mean whether folks know the technology, I meant more whether folks interacted with that technology. And even better, thought that the technology was absolutely amazing! The feeling of B/W TVs being the bees-knees is not something anyone of us can experience simply because our expectations have been "influenced" by colour devices. Those that experienced those moment of absolute amazement will have a different appreciation for technology, simply because of that experience. The same goes with "master craftsman", everyone will know of the concept but to have experienced it and learnt with a master craftsperson is completely different. Just because I know of something does not mean that I understand what it is like to interact with that something. And that has nothing to do with "old" or "young", that's just how life is. What is truly like to have watched the moon landing on a B/W TV in a world where no one had a mini-supercomputer in their pocket. Or an internet connection providing more information and knowledge than the library down the road. I can't experience that moment, no matter how many devices I remove from my life - my experiences and expectations have already been too influenced by my previous experiences.

BoxOfRain 1mo ago

Black and white TV left enough of a cultural impact that despite not living through that era, when I got a black and white e-ink smartphone recently I joked that if I were to watch the snooker on it I'd have to judge the green by its proximity to the pink. Also the BBC still issue black and white TV licences, I suspect my phone is eligible for one! Still about 3.5k of them working apparently.

Towaway69 1mo ago
B/W TVs is still the reason why football teams (the soccer kind) have two different jerseys - one light and one dark. So when two teams play, one in their light and the other in their dark jersey. Hence also stripes are important. Gotta ensure backward compatibility!

GolfPopper 1mo ago

>barely anyone remembers black and white television or the feeling it must have been to view the moon landing on one. Apollo 11 landed in 1969. Roughly a third of living Americans are of an age to remember watching it, and more than half of them would have done so on black and white TVs. (Color TV's didn't pass 50% of sales & ownership until 1972.)