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Comment by jspaetzel | Hacker News Reader

All of this is just pessimistic complaining. Flip this and be optimistic and you'll find life isn't all that bad. Think about the last hundred years...

* Rich people are still rich and poor people have access to more food, medicine, and opportunity then any time in human history.

* Families have and always should lookout for themselves first. That's the way things work and should work.

* Society is able to support more art then ever before.

* We have computers... HOW are you complaining about one super amazing piece of technology that didn't exist 5 years ago compared to another piece of incredible technology. Seriously? Be more amazed with how far this stuff has come in such a short time.

And like... We're not even in world war 3. Life is pretty good on planet earth, idk where you've been but come on back down.

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Perhaps the continual raising awareness of problems is a key part of progress.

No, technical progress is key part of progress. Most innovators are not driven by the constant complaints of other people.

If you keep complaining about the lack of water though a pipeline will eventually be built.

No, if you collect money to pay for it it will be built. Or if the inventors themselves want the water and build it for themselves.

If you don't recognize the problem i doubt you ll collect any money for it

I didn't say anything about not recognizing problems.

You did because you stated there is no utility in communicating needs via complaint. I think you are digging a hole and instead of realizing how deep you have dug, you just keep going hoping to find yourself on the winning side of this silly semantic debate.

I think the "complaint fraction" is digging the hole, not me.

Maybe you could point out some inventors/innovators who were driven by complaints?

You literally did.

No I literally didn't. This is ridiculous.

You have never in your life been motivated to help someone else with needs you didnt have?

Complaints and needs are different things.

no they arent

A lot of (most?) innovation is driven by problems that need solving. It's a lot easier to start a company if there is already a large audience that really wants a problem solved and are willing to pay for the solution.

Having an amazing novel idea and then convincing people not having it in their life is a problem is way harder

Yes of course - problems, needs, not complaints.

what is the difference? isn't a complaint essentially just stating that you have a problem

"Complain" sometimes takes on the nuance of unproductive whining (repeatedly bringing up problems that others in the situation cannot fix), entitled attitude (why aren't things such and such: everyone around me should accommodate to me), excessive focus on minor things (I hate this whole situation that I can't change, and I can make that constantly known by harping on minor aspects) and such.

complaining is talking about needs. i dont understand your distinction

> No, technical progress is key part of progress.

If nothing is rooted in people's / society's / community's / government's wants and needs, then what incentives are left for progress?

> Most innovators are not driven by the constant complaints of other people.

I think you may be conflating inventors with innovators. Inventors, like innovators, are a product of their time. The leaps and bounds come from invention. And invention follows necessity, as an old saying goes.

I wasn't talking about needs, I was talking about complaints.

Innovators/Inventors are driven by their needs, not by other people's complaints. Unless they need to stop their spouses complaining or something like that.

>Innovators/Inventors are driven by their needs, not by other people's complaints.

A need is the solution to a complaint, no?

Complaints may be communicating needs, so if you remove complaint then you stop the flow of communication about needs.

You can complain, all I said is that innovators are not driven by complaints.

Not sure if people complained about horses a lot before the automobile came along.

They sure did complain about slow transit. Of course, the key isn't listening to customer's solutions but to their problems, and then inventing on their behalf. This is what Amazon calls "customer obsession".

Jeff Bezos on learned helplessness, innovation, making decisions with data and despite data (2005): https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/WhnDvvNS8zQ

So protesting is useless, and necessity is not the mother of invention?

Protesting is mostly useless.

>> * Rich people are still rich and poor people have access to more food, medicine, and opportunity then any time in human history.

Back in the day slaves had to transport ice from mountains so that the king could have his chilled wine every evening, whereas today most people in the West have fridges at home.

This does not mean that those who have fridges should just put aside their feelings of malaise and adopt an optimistic outlook, because at the end of the day that malaise is a result of one's wealth and power relative to others who occupy the same time and space.

Yep, agreed. For instance, you have more bandwidth and CPU power today than in the 90s but the number of rent seekers you and walled gardens you have to use are much bigger. So the topology has changed.

Sounds great, nobody should ever have anything nicer then anyone else. Please try to create that and get back with me about how it goes.

> Families have and always should lookout for themselves first. That's the way things work and should work.

You're assuming this axiomatically, at first blush this is simply nepotism which is typically a term w/ negative connotations.

It outright states meritocracy is wrong...

Most of the time "parents caring for children" is considered a good thing. It only is an issue when there's societal pressure to do otherwise, which is also a good thing.

Yea live is good on Earth with a massive climate catastrophe rolling in. But sure, the technocrats just believe some Silicon Valley tech is gonna fix it.

Before antibiotics, birth control and ICEs there was germ theory, virtuous celibacy and steam engines. Pointing out and analyzing issues in the world is part of innovation.

Some expectations are pessimistic, some are optimistic.

Societies, over time, have gone up and gone down. So sometimes an optimistic perspective has proven right and sometimes a pessimistic perspective has proven right.

The article has a decent argument why a pessimistic approach is plausible. Your examples don't anything particular specific and so they don't really give a case that an optimistic perspective is appropriate. I mean, optimism might appropriate but "change your view to see the good" is just kind of manipulative (something very common now, a reason for pessimism, sadly).

Than anytime in human history is such a dumb way to characterize it. I mean, do we really expect the world to go backwards? It has happened in the past for sure, but regressions have not been a thing in the modern world for quite a while. So “than anytime in human history” has, is and will likely be true and that makes the characterization pointless.

Also "at least we're not in WW3, life is good!" is such a crap argument I can't even.

A guy writes a blog post on important issues to focus on and what this guy comes up with is: "shut up, be happy".

I think the author invited this though. Half the article is a well thought out discussion of important problems. There is some nuanced thinking about markets and capitalism that addressed both the pros and cons.

But the article started and ended with completely unsupported claims about how the world is going to hell and "we all feel it".

The commenter you're responding to merely pointed out that, no we don't all feel it, most people actually have things very good these days. And that doesn't mean there aren't still major issues that we should be working hard on.

Well, we are living through one right now. Empty shelves and stores that close early and restaurants out of business and schools that are hardly teaching our kids.

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