Dude, you broke the future (transcript)

Dude, you broke the future (transcript)(antipope.org)

31 points by nod 8 years ago | 14 comments

nod 8 years ago |

Corporations are optimization processes. Advertising is an optimization process. Social networks are. Smartphone addiction. Political polarization. Television, mobile games, and most forms of entertainment.

This prevalence, and the fact that it's not EVIL doing it but just amoral goal-directed processes, seems to me to be the key to recognizing, fighting back, and fixing society.

We have to figure out some way to fight for our human values, against these optimization processes. I don't think Stross has (or claims to have) a strong answer there... any ideas?

uoaei 8 years ago | |

As with any optimization process, the objective function is of prime importance.

If the only motivator is profit and money, with no feedback loops or sidecars including a factor accounting for human comfort and dignity, you are literally fighting an uphill battle in the space of the objective function.

The answer, I strongly believe, lies in making money somehow account for the human costs associated with conducting business. In whatever economy we operate, if having more money implies you will be treated better than those without, you will see what we are seeing today. If, instead, treating society better means you have more money (which makes life marginally, but not hugely, better than your fellow humans), you will see an incentivization toward social good.

zipwitch 8 years ago | |

I seem to recall another popular science-fiction author who had a very strong answer. He called it the Butlerian Jihad. Whether or not it's a good answer is another question entirely.

ythn 8 years ago | |

It's almost like we need community-level organizations for people to participate in weekly dedicated to helping people become more selfless, humble, and generally more loving humans so that their actions can then be an influence to everyone around them for feedback effect. Fix society at the community level, and higher levels will follow.

nod 8 years ago | | |

Haha... (at the cleverness of your description of church/religion)

Secular church is definitely one approach, one option to try to fight fire with fire. I've seen compelling analysis tying the increase in intense political tribalization to filling the void left by the general decline in societal religiosity.

Every cause wants to be a cult. (To quote, I think, eyudkowsky)

nod 8 years ago |

Meta note: I'm submitting this again, and don't think of this as a dupe, because I think the transcript/blog form is much more engaging than a video (and by accounts on the video thread, the transcript may be the better form here even if one likes videos).

Previous discussion on video: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16032643

detaro 8 years ago | |

note that the authors own submission was marked as a dupe of the video: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16051337

dang 8 years ago | | |

Ok, since people seem determined to resubmit it we'll mark this one as the dupe and revive that one.

Rhapso 8 years ago |

I think a way to look at it is this: The singularity happened, likely sometime in the 90s. It was, what any singularity is, the point where what came before it is not useful to predict what came after.

It is no surprise that the event defined by our inability to predict past it did not work out in the way we imagined.

ghostbrainalpha 8 years ago | |

By that definition there would be MANY singularities throughout history. Pretty much anything that caused a paradigm shift would fit, for example "the printing press", "the atom bomb", or "the internet".

It is definitely an interesting way of looking at things, but I think waters down the "singular" part of the singularity too much.

AnimalMuppet 8 years ago | | |

Well, the printing press was a singularity in the availability of information. The atom bomb was a singularity in defense and war. The Singularity is supposed to be a singularity in everything, or at least in enough of them that we can become gods (immortal, all-knowing and close enough to all-powerful).

And this discussion prompts a new thought: What are the military applications of The Singularity? (Don't bother saying that we're all going to live in peace and harmony after it happens. We won't.)