Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Why are techies as a group so apocalyptic? I think the world 100 years from now will be a fairer, more just, more humane place than it is now. 100 years ago, women still couldn't vote in the US and the country was legally segregated instead of just segregated in practice. 100 years ago, child labor was at its peak in the US, food safety was non-existstant, charlatans ran rampant in the practice of medicine, and cities were thick with the pollution of the industrial revolution. We live in a better world today than has ever existed for the greatest number of people. Why should we believe that it will be society, that has improved itself so, that will be its own undoing?

View on HN

Because they are people, and people as a group are apocalyptic.

Four to five decades back, everyone grew up convinced that atomic war was inevitable. That was the zeitgeist, but wrong. Nuclear war is a great stride forward in that it's the only methodology of war yet invented that is both aggressively pursued by leaders and presents those leaders with a dire and immediate threat of death if used. (As opposed to, say, war by assassination, which only satisfies one of those criteria). So the incentives were aligned against what popular sentiment said was inevitable.

Then all of that determined, grim sentiment sloshed over into the ready and waiting environmentalist hair-shirt death cult after the collapse of the USSR.

As someone who advocates for engineered human longevity, I see a lot of this. Most people, the majority, don't have a positive view of the future. At present that is largely informed by what in a sane world would be extreme environmentalist views, but in this world are middle of the road environmentalist views - most people are convinced that the world is falling apart, that there are too many people, that no-one should be allowed to extend human life, that all resources are running out, and in short that Malthus was right.

This view of the end of the world will no more come to pass than nuclear war did. All the incentives are aligned against Malthusian limits of any sort, and always have been. Hopefully one doesn't have to explain why that's the case to the present audience.

I agree with you, but I also think that being a cynic/skeptic allows you to appear more intelligent, and that is why people (perhaps unconsciously) find flaws in an idea.

By finding flaws, you're almost saying you've outwitted the idea proposer.

I think you're right. Historically apocalyptic ideas have always been popular. Neal Stephenson had a good point when he compared the Apocalypse of John to the singularity.

"I can never get past the structural similarities between the singularity prediction and the apocalypse of St. John the Divine. This is not the place to parse it out, but the key thing they have in common is the idea of a rapture, in which some chosen humans will be taken up and made one with the infinite while others will be left behind. " http://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-r...

If Stephenson is right, the idea of the singularity could be considered another modern apocalyptic idea.

I haven't studied it closely but I suspect similar arguments could be made about ancient sightings of gods/angels/demons vs modern encounters with aliens/UFOs.

These things are connected in that they are expressions of universal human characteristics or desires or something.

Your views on environmentalism are interesting. Do you have data about most people being convinced "that no-one should be allowed to extend human life", or "that Malthus was right"? If we're going anecdote vs. anecdote, I really don't see what you're talking about - I hear very little about longevity or exponential population growth being the problem.

What you mention that I do hear a lot about is that resources are running out. This concept seems almost a tautology to me - if resources are finite, and we are using them without replacing them, then they are running out. This says nothing of how quickly they are running out, which is why people are doing lots of research on this problem.

Your point about incentives is actually exactly why the possibility of resource shortage frightens me more than nuclear war - the people of the world and their leaders are currently incentivized to trade off long-term resource scarcity for short-term economic growth, and there are currently many economies in need of growth.

I don't see a flaw in Malthus' argument (population grows exponentially, food production does not). The green revolution mostly pushed it back a couple of decades (except for people here and there who actually did starve to death) through modernizing worldwide agriculture and massive use of petroleum as fertilizer and pesticide, but it can't be repeated--oil probably already peaked and we don't have even more advanced farming techniques held in reserve. The incentives are right but they only help if some feasible solution exists; I'm not aware of any short of inventing nanotech or invent cold fusion (scaling fission is too slow because we have to mine all our fuel) or an extremely authoritarian yet effective sterilization campaign (which would make China's look like Disneyland).

The progress you mention did not happen on its own, it took decades of struggle against powerful forces of exploitation and oppression to achieve. Those forces still exist, but their maneuverings and their goals are more well hidden from the public eye. They're no longer out there publicly saying that blacks are an inferior race, they're silently investigating neuro-marketing techniques to help them more effectively shape public opinion. Since their aims and means are no longer transparent to the public, comics like this are needed to illustrate what could happen if we continue to allow those in power to placate us with pleasure and pimp our instincts for profit.

> Why should we believe that it will be society, that has improved itself so, that will be its own undoing?

Because we learn lessons from history.

Every "empire" that has improved humanity's standard of living throughout the centuries has met the same result, and it's no accident. There are such clear patterns throughout history that anyone who has taken the time to study it can make some pretty reasonable predictions about the world tomorrow.

For starters, the past 100 years included two world wars, and countless others - costing the lives of countless millions. If we continue the historical trend - this century will see at least a billion killed in wars. Is it worth it for the progress, or better standard of living people 'might' have in 100 years time - only for them to repeat the mistakes over again.

While today, the greatest number of people might have the highest standard of living that they've ever had - it must be realized that it's no coincidence that this is not shared between everyone. The developed world enjoys a high standard of living today largely because it has taken advantage of countries which don't have the same standard. We've raped and pillaged nations, and supported countries which still engage in slavery - for our own economic benefit.

Technology could bring a high standard of living for everyone on the planet - but not with our current capitalist system, which uses technology to transfer more wealth from the poor to the rich. Consider the ongoing trend to replace manual labour with robotics to get an idea - human labour is becoming obsolete, yet there is nothing to replace it. Humans still need to "earn" to eat, yet they can no longer earn - and they don't own any land - thus, we are becoming enslaved to those who do own land, and those who have the robotics to manufacture goods.

And lets not forget that our political systems are becoming more and more irrelevant. We are still using systems from hundreds of years ago, which didn't account for an idea like the internet - where people can communicate so effectively, that voting on people to represent you elsewhere is unnecessary. The increasing police state is a reaction by those in power to try and remain relevant, but their obsolescence is about due.

> the past 100 years included two world wars, and countless others - costing the lives of countless millions. If we continue the historical trend - this century will see at least a billion killed in wars.

You could just as easily say we had two world wars start within 30 years of each other in the early 1900's but it's been over 70 years since the last one started. If we continue the historical trend, this century will see no more than a few million killed in wars. You can always cherry-pick. Look up Steven Pinker, who is convinced that global violence is the lowest it's ever been...

> not with our current capitalist system, which uses technology to transfer more wealth from the poor to the rich.

There's an enormous growing middle class in Asia and Africa that begs to differ. Some think the rising global demand for oil will lead to collapse; I don't, but the main reason that demand is rising so much is because hundreds of millions around the world are now rich enough to own cars.

> You could just as easily say, 1900-1950 had two world wars and hundreds(?) of millions of death, 1950-2000 had zero world wars and many fewer deaths. If we continue the historical trend, this century will see no more than a few million killed in wars. You can always cherry-pick. Look up Steven Pinker, who is convinced that global violence is the lowest it's ever been...

While deaths in wars post 1950 might be much smaller, it's still far from insignificant. Are we content that millions of lives are disposable?

It's possibly worth pointing out that of the post 1950 wars, a significant portion of them have been perpetrated by the US and it's allies, who have not yet been held to account for their crimes.

> There's an enormous growing middle class in Asia and Africa that begs to differ...

Don't just look what's happening, but ask why. The growing middle class in Asia is due to the demand created by our outsourcing of manufacturing to there, along with the growing Asian based industries. They're given more opportunities to work. Not coincidentally, this coincides with the growing unemployment and poverty in the US and Europe. It's more economical to hire Asian labour than western labour.

But with the improvements in the physical and cognitive capabilities of computers/robots, it won't be long before that huge demand that brought work to Asia is replaced by machines. Where then are those Asians going to find employment?

> Are we content that millions of lives are disposable?

Red herring. Can't we be discontented with imperfection while still rejoicing in the progress of hundreds of millions of fewer people being killed by war?

> The growing middle class in Asia is due to the demand created by our outsourcing of manufacturing to there.

There are definitely connections, but if it was a zero-sum game with US and Europe, I would expect global oil demand (for instance) to stay the same and just shift, not greatly increase as it has. This suggests a real increase in wealth; capitalism is not zero-sum. However, I don't know what the future of robots means for it all...

This is a great post. I would love for some country to be founded on a direct representation concept and just let people directly vote for what they want instead of voting for a person who will tell you want you want to hear and then go do what gives them the most money/power. I can't see a way for it to happen though.

As technology gets more powerful, the oops factor comes into play. Oops, I dropped a flask in my lab: 1 million people dead. Oops, the SCRAM system for a reactor that's out of control, it had a software bug: 10 million people dead.

Technical people understand how fragile modern systems are. As life gets more complicated, innocent mistakes can turn a country into a desert. Malicious intent raises the body count even higher.

Also as technology advances, people in power can use them for their benefit, rather than the benefit of the world as a whole.

You make it sound like there's a societal cruise control that magically improves our quality of living. I'm glad the activists of history didn't share your sentiment.

rayiner is in no way discounting the important role of activists. Accurately examining history is, I believe, a celebration of those brave men and women.

If you pay attention to the self-congratulatory subtext of such complaints, it becomes clear that it's not really anything to do with being apocalyptic. No one is concerned that they personally are descending into a vapid, consumption-oriented existence -- it's always about how stupid and hopeless all those other people are.

You mean like you just did? I don't think that about e.g. Huxley at all. I think he was genuinely worried about his fellow man and wanted to make them aware.

Those were social problems solved by activists. Sorry if this doesn't jive with your techno triumphalism, but the technology makers were the ones who brought us child labor, crappy mass processed food, and smog. Since you mentioned segregation, you might want to read the MLK speech you haven't heard about, Beyond Vietnam : http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documen.... "When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered." Unfortunately, the people who give a damn and are pointing out the problems wtih say, government surveliance, are being drowned out by people like you. So I'm not optimistic.

I personally believe that the fact of being "apocalyptic" help people shaping a better world.

Thinking that something might not be right in the future is a rather good incentive to try to make it better.

I'm not arguing that the world is not evolving in a better way, but, for example, the awareness risen by Orwell and Huxley might play a part in the fact that some people are trying to make a better future.

I don't think it's a characteristic of a particular group of people you call, "techies." I think the disease of cynicism has well spread to all demographics and levels in society. There have been humans predicting the end of the world ever since we were able to weave tales. The method of the apocalypse always seems to change but the idea that we are doomed does not.

The irrational thing about it is that despite generations of these prophets fore-telling us of the end-times humanity has continued to survive and in the last few hundred years it might have even improved. I suspect that even if we ushered in an era of ever-lasting peace and solved all of our problems that these cynics would just find another story to tell.

>100 years ago, women still couldn't vote in the US and the country was legally segregated instead of just segregated in practice. 100 years ago, child labor was at its peak in the US, food safety was non-existstant, charlatans ran rampant in the practice of medicine, and cities were thick with the pollution of the industrial revolution.

Well, today women can vote but it doesn't matter who you vote anymore, the country is segregated in practice which is as worse as being legally segregated (and hypocritical to top), the labour movement is gone and burried, children are burdened by overprotective parents, money-grabbers ran rampant in the practice of medicine (including Big Pharma), the environment is severely damaged with the pollution of the industrial revolution, we have the capacity to kill everyone several times over with nukes (and bio weapons), neo-colonialism runs rampant, drones and similar technology pretty much ensure a future dictatorship of the most technologically advanced, mass surveillance was never as widespread as now, torture became en vogue again and somehow killing and or adducting citizens of sovereign states is now an acceptable practice even for western democracies, huge corporations control the worldwide food chain (Monsanto) and even invest in the water supply, while others patent DNA.

(I didn't even got into the economic depression that will be long-term, the wars for water of the future, or the possibility of peak oil).

>We live in a better world today than has ever existed for the greatest number of people

No. We just have better technology. Nothing special about our ethics or practices.

I'm on my phone and can't reply to the substance of your post, and for that I apologize, but your comments demonstrate a stark ignorance of history. Overbearing parents (what does that even mean?) is as bad as child labor? Sure.

I don't think it's just technology. We are a more just and humane people than we have ever been. Now, it might be the product of prosperity, it is easier to be fair when you're not at the edge of survival, but I don't think that changes the fact that we are better regardless.

>but your comments demonstrate a stark ignorance of history. Overbearing parents (what does that even mean?) is as bad as child labor? Sure.

Perhaps it's this view that shows a "stark ignorance of history"? Who said "child labor" was widespread in the past?

Child labour with today's sense got widespread only in industrial societies. Working in the fields with your parents, as teenagers used to do in pre-industrial societies, is not "child labour" in the Nike-sweatshop or victorian England way.

I can assure you that even 40-50 years ago, kids used to play far more out in the open, and for far more than they do today, e.g:

http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2003-08-22/174046/

>We are a more just and humane people than we have ever been.

The "more just and humane" is just a thin veneer when you have enough money not to care for smaller things. As soon as interests come into play people are even worse than they were.

Nixon got the shaft for Watergate. Today, under Bush and Obama we see far worse crimes, covering the whole of the population, and nobody gets the blame. I see far more hypocrisy and money-grabbing than in the past, and more isolated and a-political existence. Where are mass movements like the civil rights movement, the labour movement, the sixties peace and counter-culture movements, and such today?

There really are bad guys and they want you to submit to their will. Pretending it isn't so only helps them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com