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I love the tension between the "OMG Robots will do everything, even write code!" and "Technological progress has essentially ground to a standstill" camps. It'

I love the tension between the "OMG Robots will do everything, even write code!" and "Technological progress has essentially ground to a standstill" camps. It's refreshing to see something from the standstill camp; thanks to self driving cars the former has been enjoying its day in the sun. Especially so since it fits with a nice cultural narrative about the haves and the have-nots; the theory being that all the robots will take all the jobs and leave only a small elite to live in hyper-luxury (see: Elysium). It's nice to see the counterpoint. There was a time (ca. 2008) where oil price rises were predicted to continue to $500/bbl or more by, er, well now. There was this crisis of resources, of which the technology to extract them had peaked... (speaking of, how can we ignore fracking?). Anyway the bubble burst and the narrative changed. Google's self-driving car gained a lot of hype and suddenly people were worried about automation again (think of all the drivers!).

jameswilsterman 12y ago
I don't think these camps are mutually exclusive. For example, I believe that Thiel is right about the past 40 years, but we are starting to get back on track again (thanks in part to Larry Page) and the next 40 years will be much more broadly innovative.
michaelochurch 12y ago
Robots will do everything, even write code! They're called compilers. Programmers still have jobs. There was a time (ca. 2008) where oil price rises were predicted to continue to $500/bbl or more by, er, well now. Peak oil. We've been at/around 85 million barrels per day for about ten years. It seems to be more of a plateau, not exponential decline. However, prices are going up and so is environmental harm in getting the stuff, and those trends show no sign of slowing. We still have to get off the shit. We just have more time than the doomsayers (always a minority even in "peak oil"-aware circles) thought. Whether we have 10 or 150 years before an oil-powered economy becomes unsustainable, it's not good for the planet to be belching all that carbon into the atmosphere.

jameswilsterman 12y ago

I don't think these camps are mutually exclusive. For example, I believe that Thiel is right about the past 40 years, but we are starting to get back on track again (thanks in part to Larry Page) and the next 40 years will be much more broadly innovative.

michaelochurch 12y ago

Robots will do everything, even write code! They're called compilers. Programmers still have jobs. There was a time (ca. 2008) where oil price rises were predicted to continue to $500/bbl or more by, er, well now. Peak oil. We've been at/around 85 million barrels per day for about ten years. It seems to be more of a plateau, not exponential decline. However, prices are going up and so is environmental harm in getting the stuff, and those trends show no sign of slowing. We still have to get off the shit. We just have more time than the doomsayers (always a minority even in "peak oil"-aware circles) thought. Whether we have 10 or 150 years before an oil-powered economy becomes unsustainable, it's not good for the planet to be belching all that carbon into the atmosphere.