Ask HN: Is human technology advancing faster than human wisdom sustainable? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is human technology advancing faster than human wisdom sustainable?

7 pointsoatmeal14 comments

I think it is easy to argue human technology has advanced far faster than human wisdom. We can make vaccines, land on the moon, and use particle accelerators, but struggle to achieve peace, handle overfishing of the oceans, or just get enough exercise to be healthy. Our technology is often used to our detriment, whether it be used to create more powerful weapons to kill each other, or just to take advantage of our brain's reward system so we spend more time doomscrolling and clicking ads.

It seems with already having potential extinction events likely only averted by the individual actions of Stanislov Petrov and Vasili Arkhipov, humans have already created technology far past what our wisdom allows us to safely use. Even at our current level of technology we are at substantial risk. With new technology such as AI being more difficult to understand, are we doomed to eventually end our own existence?

Yes, in a way, more than one, though things are not quite as you expect them.

The human capacity for wisdom is great. It is the lies we tell ourselves which hobble minds and distort the significance of any thing abstracted beyond the account of one’s direct senses.

There are a whole heap of lies. One for instance is your frequent use of the word “we.”

Can you do those things?

No.

Someone can. Not you. That you may confer your own confidence through such a figment of an association is striking.

Consider that civilization dies and is reborn and must recreate itself every so many generations. We now have much records, only what lives of civilization is that embodied by those taking upon themselves its reinvention.

Wisdom is not some far off future technology, it is the determination not to be a damned idiot fool at every intersection of consequence. When you think feel or believe you are not capable of being the damned idiot fool, you are too corrupt and full of treacherous lies to be wise enough for anything.

The fragment of civilization represented by you is only that which you have cultivated (embodied or actualized) of those representations.

The whole problem is that wisdom is controlled by greed.

But what if, in the future, the brains of current world leaders are examined and they find the cause of their actions is saturation of microplastics? So destroying the planet wasn't their fault, but just like lead and the Romans, they got crazy from pollution itself?

Greed is a great motivator for many. Some want peace of mind. Some simply want 'more'.

The key mindset is "I'll go make me some more money, and someone else will fix the symptoms later - and hey I'm doing you all a favor because fixing the thing will also generate money for you!!"

One of my all time favourite relevant cartoons!!! (shareholder value) https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995

I think our education system as abysmal. We don't teach people why things work the way they do for the most part. We spend far too much time on getting formal things "just right" like grammar, spelling, the details of arithmetic, etc... and not enough about all the things we've learned through history, and why they are useful.

With education as poorly executed as it is, no wonder we're too ignorant and lack wisdom to run things for the benefit of all.

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