Comment by pc_edwin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pc_edwin | Hacker News Reader

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Its not that your claims are false, they appear to be mostly correct. My original point was that its a net positive despite those negatives.

It comes down to Chesterton's Fence which basically suggests we shouldn't get rid of something until we have some idea of why it was put there to start with.

It used to be really ugly. Exploitation, slavery, tyranny and worse were the norm. The only business in town was survival where both the price and churn was high. Señor Dang wont let me truly express myself here so I suggest you do your own research because its really hard put in short polite words how bad things used to be.

Compounding entropy is the default for human affairs. Everything you see around is so precious and fickle, all of it was hard fought and won over generations.

While we should strive to continually improve our bargain with nature, the ideas you and your kin share will bring about the end of modern civilisation as we know it.

You guys don't just want to make incremental change, you want root control over the system to rm -rf inequality, poverty, racism, xenophobia.. When in reality these are crucial underpinnings of civilisation.

There is no equality between me and Usain bolt. John Carmack has probably forgotten more about programming then I know. This is where it ties back to Chestertons Fence, you can't just rm -rf stuff you don't understand.

John Carmack talents are exploitive and is making feel very not equal (Victim™). The NBA is the most racist organisation in America for hiring 73% blacks whilst only 13% of America is black. The nation state experiment (borders) is by definition xenophobic.

The biggest perpetuator of systemic poverty and inequality is collectivism. Its inflation. Its embedded growth obligations. Its byzantine regulations. I suggest you look into the Cantillon effect, IMF & World Bank Expolitation by Alex Gladstein etc.

> we shouldn't get rid of something until we have some idea of why it was put there to start with

Right, Chesterton's Fence doesn't mean we shouldn't change, but that we should understand before doing so. And we do understand, which is why there's a push for change.

> I suggest you do your own research

I did, I know. I also know that these things could be back again, and soon.

> so precious and fickle, all of it was hard fought and won over generations

“When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is, your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

> the ideas you and your kin share will bring about the end of modern civilisation as we know it

We're already over the edge, and instead of trying to slow down our fall, we're accelerating even faster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_overshoot

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272418379_The_Traje...

> inequality, poverty, racism, xenophobia.. When in reality these are crucial underpinnings of civilisation

These aren't necessary components for a society to thrive and progress. It's crucial to differentiate between describing what has often occurred in history and prescribing what ought to be or what is ethically right for the future.

> You guys don't just want to make incremental change, you want root control over the system

> The biggest perpetuator of systemic poverty and inequality is collectivism. Its inflation. Its embedded growth obligations. Its byzantine regulations. I suggest you look into the Cantillon effect, IMF & World Bank Expolitation by Alex Gladstein etc.

Do you really believe these kinds of problems can be solved by incremental change?

I live and breathe that Steve Jobs quote. The difference between that and what you guys have in mind is the difference between Falcon 9 and the vaccine mandates.

You want root access (sudo, rm -rf). You want to re-organise society (bueno) from the top-down (no bueno). You want to steal from Peter and give to David.

This is not ok even if your diagnosis was correct but its not. We are not zooming towards apocalypse nor do we live in a world with never seen levels of suffering, exploitation and destitution.

For the first time in our history we have the leverage to effect change at a planetary scale. You have to realise this is really weird, we were under natures tyranny just like chimpanzees (like yesterday). It will naturally take a second for us to adjust to this new reality as caretakers of the planet.

That said we are already adjusting and most of these predictions/articles are just apocalypse porn. If you take the UNs worse predictions, we are taking about a lot of oceanfront property, a bunch islands and low lying nations going under water over the span of a century from now.

Thats not apocalypse, its a trade off where the alternative is not a green utopia but rather Mad Max (tech isnt ready, infra isn't ready, would have to force people through communism a.k.a root access = Mad Max).

Inequality is a fundamental pillar of life itself. The guy that fills up grocery store shelves should be worth 300-400 times less than Elon Musk (IMO even less). Without win/win games that value the best players, modern civilisation = dead.

A nation (natality) is a people with a shared values within defined borders. By definition, you have to be xenophobic to those who are antithetical to those values and borders. If you are not, then by default they win (at your expense). I gotta be careful here because Señor Dang wont like the "targeted" examples I wanna give (use your imagination).

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