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Comment by rafaelbeirigo | Hacker News Reader

This is a byproduct of every revolution.

Most revolutions have historically resulted in a lot of death and little change for the better if any. Frequently the outcome is worse than before.

Forest fires are immensely destructive, but they clear the way for new growth in their wake. The same has been said for recessions and the economy, and I think there's at least some comparison to be made for revolutions and societies.

Awesome, please post this from inside a forest fire and tell us your feelings then.

definitely borrowing this

Nah this revolution the billionaires who control the Ai and automated means of production will voluntarily give their money to the little guy instead of needing widespread unrest and riots beforehand like the other times

Right you are. Nature can be violent, but prefers gradual change. Abrupt change shocks ecosystems and always comes with unintended consequences.

What is your short list of changes that have resulted in life and betterment?

Are we only talking about technological revolutions here or are you talking about peasants uprising in China 1000 years ago?

Ask the person I responded to. They said "all revolutions"

The Copernican Revolution (discovery earth was not at the center of the solar system) initially had worse empirical calculations because they didn't know planets traveled in ellipses.

The moments after the revolution might be worse, but in the long term, we got better.

We can pick the best and worst examples all day, but it’s not very productive IMO.

It could be if it actually lets us calibrate our credence of your original claim that most revolutions have resulted in a lot of death for little benefit. If the worst examples are much worse than the best examples, or vice versa, then we can plausibly conclude whether you are at least directionally correct.

You don’t take the single best and single worst examples of a thing that has occurred thousands of times to determine if the results are more positive or negative on average.

That depends entirely on the specifics. If the worst revolution killed 20 people and the best led to the Enlightenment, scientific progress, vaccines, etc., you absolutely can judge your claim's merits, even if there were 10,000 examples of those bad revolutions and only 1 example of a good revolution.

Do you think this is a productive exercise and we are going to A) answer this and/or B) glean anything from it? This back and forth feels does not feel productive, unless we want to playfully and in good faith game out how this could maybe be done.

> The Copernican Revolution

Let's not forget this characterisation appeared only centuries later, and without concensus.

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