Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

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I always find these sorts of essays curious, here is a guy who is eating lamb and noting that the fork is an old invention. Except that the lamb he is eating is probably from New Zealand, a country that is mesopotamian ancestors couldn't even imagine existed, much less imagine trading with. He might as well remark that his sperm is using the same sort of gamete structure that was fashionable in the neolithic period. That isn't the point.

The future is going to be new, and different, and it is hard to predict. Your phone (for some definition of phone) can give you answer to nearly any fact based question you can imagine. Right now, in under 500 mSec. The future doesn't look different when its entered into gradually, it looks hugely different when it is punctuated.

So if Taleb really wanted to 'check' on his futurist mantra, he should pick a number, 10 years, 25 years, 50 years. And then 'spend a day' in that time by removing everything in his possessions, environment, and activities that were not created or possible at that previous time.

I would predict that its a matter of opinion as to whether the future is or is not 'cool', most people would agree that the past sucks. :-)

I think you're missing the point, but also I admit I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say. So please forgive me if I get it wrong.

The point is not that the future will be like the past, or that things which exist now simply should not. It's that in Taleb's future, technologists will have recognized that technology should eliminate bullshit (think about the toilet and sewers, some of the best technology that could ever exist!) and make it easier to live a life full of the basic good parts of being human: companionship/sex, food, discovery and knowledge. So the smartphone is not incongruous with his vision of the future at all. It enables you to seek all of those things, and adds relatively little in terms of shitty things (I mean, you have to pay for it and keep it charged, but beyond that it doesn't add a lot hardship.)

When he talks about the lack of literacy in technology circles, I believe he's thinking of literature as a tool for looking at human motivations. So, his theory is that if technologists were to read literature (or were of a mindset to be already interested in literature), they would recognize these motivations, and it would provide a path for changing their focus from stupid social widgets to something that will actually create the future.

But his claim, as stated by his title, was that the "The future will not be cool." If the author is allowed to reach this conclusion by saying "all present and future gadgets are just boring solutions to ancient problems" then his claim is true but basically tautological.

And yet it's primarily ideas from literature (from the "niche and isolated genre of science fiction") which Taleb rails against. But since he apparently doesn't like sci fi, I guess it doesn't count. I don't think Shakespeare helped put a rover on Mars though.

It's unfortunate that Taleb had to resort to name-calling and condescension. I like literature too, but that doesn't mean anyone who doesn't is an autistic neomaniac.

I find the most interesting thing about WW2 museums are the displays of everyday items. Why? Because there are never (or almost never) any plastic items. There is lots of metal, wood, and some ivory, but no plastic. It wasn't that long ago that people didn't have plastic.

The author seems to think science is 100% computers and space travel; if he is only listening to pop-futurists, this is perhaps understandable. But if you consider the more humble applications of technology, you really see the changes technology brings to our lives. Refrigeration is another good example, and I bet the author has not been to a hospital in a while if he thinks that the way we do medicine hasn't drastically changed since ancient times.

Edit, I should also point out that the main sources of entertainment in the US (TV/Internet/Radio) are all less than 100 years old.

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