3 ms·

This guy ought to try a thought experiment: If it were possible, would he willingly agree to _permanently_ trade places with a _random_ person who lived in 195

by dctoedt 17y ago

This guy ought to try a thought experiment: If it were possible, would he willingly agree to _permanently_ trade places with a _random_ person who lived in 1959? That would serve as a summing function of sorts, to integrate all the different components of life-goodness into one binary value: Yes I'd trade permanently; or No, I prefer my life here-and-now. (This is a variation on Gregg Easterbrook's thought experiment in his book, The Progress Paradox.)

jimbokun 17y ago
The article does not make the argument that life was better in 1959 than today. The argument is that progress from 1909 to 1959 dwarfs the amount of progress from 1959 to today. I agree that is in conflict with the headline. I wonder if he chose the title himself, or if it was assigned by the publication.
- khafra 17y ago
  "The Myth of Accelerating Technological Progress" fits the article better, but then everybody would think it's by an anti-Singularitarian.
ajscherer 17y ago
The random person element of your thought experiment strikes me as pretty important because cost is one of the only ways I can think of to measure technological progress. Simply picking two specific technologies from the same sector and then stating an opinion that the progress isn't impressive doesn't persuade me. What could possibly persuade me is answers to questions like these: in present day dollars, how much would it cost to purchase one extra year of life in 1909, 1959, and 2009? For N present day dollars, how long would it take you to travel from New York to London in 1909, 1959, and 2009? For $100 present day dollars, how many copies of a book can you make in those each of years? I think the author is right in that there are physical constraints on what types of things are possible, so any improvements will only be of degree. Once you have weapons that harness nuclear reactions, there aren't a lot of other fundamental forces left to harness. Likewise once you have devices that can reproduce sights and sounds (the two senses used for communication) all you can really do is make those devices cheaper and bigger (or smaller). The author didn't express that very well, choosing instead to cherry pick specific inventions and present opinions as facts.
- nate_meurer 17y ago
  Yes! Excellent, excellent point. The industrial revolution put a whole raft of the "easiest" inventions within a century's reach. Internal combustion, electricity, telegraphy, etc., these were waiting for just a few pieces of basic core technology (like coke-fired smelting)) to fall into place before they could erupt into mass deployment. It makes perfect sense that refinement of existing technology would overtake invention of new ones. I don't see how it could be otherwise given the physical constraints you speak of; how many radical new sources of energy can we come up with, aside from fusion?

by dctoedt 17y ago

jimbokun 17y ago

The article does not make the argument that life was better in 1959 than today. The argument is that progress from 1909 to 1959 dwarfs the amount of progress from 1959 to today. I agree that is in conflict with the headline. I wonder if he chose the title himself, or if it was assigned by the publication.

khafra 17y ago
"The Myth of Accelerating Technological Progress" fits the article better, but then everybody would think it's by an anti-Singularitarian.

ajscherer 17y ago

The random person element of your thought experiment strikes me as pretty important because cost is one of the only ways I can think of to measure technological progress. Simply picking two specific technologies from the same sector and then stating an opinion that the progress isn't impressive doesn't persuade me. What could possibly persuade me is answers to questions like these: in present day dollars, how much would it cost to purchase one extra year of life in 1909, 1959, and 2009? For N present day dollars, how long would it take you to travel from New York to London in 1909, 1959, and 2009? For $100 present day dollars, how many copies of a book can you make in those each of years? I think the author is right in that there are physical constraints on what types of things are possible, so any improvements will only be of degree. Once you have weapons that harness nuclear reactions, there aren't a lot of other fundamental forces left to harness. Likewise once you have devices that can reproduce sights and sounds (the two senses used for communication) all you can really do is make those devices cheaper and bigger (or smaller). The author didn't express that very well, choosing instead to cherry pick specific inventions and present opinions as facts.

nate_meurer 17y ago
Yes! Excellent, excellent point. The industrial revolution put a whole raft of the "easiest" inventions within a century's reach. Internal combustion, electricity, telegraphy, etc., these were waiting for just a few pieces of basic core technology (like coke-fired smelting)) to fall into place before they could erupt into mass deployment. It makes perfect sense that refinement of existing technology would overtake invention of new ones. I don't see how it could be otherwise given the physical constraints you speak of; how many radical new sources of energy can we come up with, aside from fusion?