There are so many things I can write about this, but I’ll keep it short:
Technological solutions to societal problems is one of the shortest paths to hell.
So, no, thanks.
Technological solutions to societal problems is one of the shortest paths to hell.
So, no, thanks.
This is an unjustified blanket opinion. Sometimes, societal problems can be solved by technological progress. I think you simply lack imagination if you cannot think of any societal problem that would be solved by better technology.
I work at a datacenter. We provide compute resources to researchers, and while our datacenter is not small or low energy, one of our systems have Green500 certification and we try to do things as efficient as possible.
When I look at our racks, some of them are DLC BTW, and imagine each of them can pack a MW system now, I shudder. Not because of us, but what AI datacenters gonna do with that energy density and how much heat will these systems put out.
Even though you do have less greenhouse gases to trap the heat, you will be pumping more of that heat into the atmosphere, seas and oceans, warming everything up.
You're removing one aspect of climate change but not all aspects of it, still affecting the climate and ecosystems.
Also, for example, we still can't fly passenger and cargo planes with electricity for now, so you won't be able to remove all greenhouse gases, yet.
Look at the data [0]. Yes, energy production and heating is the biggest contributor, and even if you manage to remove it completely with the transportation sector via electrification, half of the emissions are still there.
The amount of heat pumped out by humans this way is so miniscule compared to natural flows that this is a complete non-issue on a global scale, and will be for a very long time.
Sincerely though, can you explain?
"There's a bunch of us now and barter isn't cutting it anymore" is a technical problem, not a societal one. You can solve it with coinage and banks or whatever.
"The internet used to be fun and useful but now it sucks" is a societal problem, not a technical one. You can't solve it with a federated twitter clone or yet another secure messaging protocol or whatever.
People bullying other people is not a technical problem. People driving dangerously is not a technical problem. People shoplifting is not a technical problem. All of them have different reasons deep down, and preventing the symptom doesn't solve the problem.
When you effectively prevent bullying, the bully might damage something else or may do self-harm to soothe their demons. Same for people driving dangerously or have to shoplift to survive.
When you cure the root problem, which is generally harder BTW, the problem you're technically trying to prevent disappears, too.
Hope this helps.
Complete bullshit. This problem can be completely solved by a technical, not societal solution: actually working self-driving cars. Once they are available, all your imperfect societal solutions to the problem are not needed anymore.
I don't believe many understands the complexity of a self-driving car. It's not like programming a couple of agents with simulated sensors on a computer.
For example, how do you ensure everyone on the road has a self-driving car? We've sufficiently developed electric cars, but they're not nearly the majority.
Just to further support your point, sufficiently developed electric cars' batteries still doesn't have the energy density of fossil fuels, so they can't replace any and every use case.
For example, can we carry or generate the energy these cars requires to move unimpeded like ICE vehicles yet? Or, did we improve the procedures and materials so these cars can be extinguished faster, more reliably and securely then their previous generation counterparts? Or did battery recycling methods became cheap and efficient enough yet, so we can reuse these batteries and at least not increase mining on our planet? Etc. Etc.
I'm not against renewables or electric cars, but even in their current form, we need to solve many problems to make them more practical and even less impactful when compared to their ICE counterparts.
We are highly adoptable, highly social creatures whose behavior is greatly impacted by our environment, which includes the people around us, the culture in which we live, and the things that technology enables (or prevents) in that environment.
I just think there’s no bright line at all between societal and technical problems, they’re just labels we apply based on our internal views of how they should be solved.
A great event has happened a couple of days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49045159 (Google may soon restrict on-device ADB).
So, people rushed to propose technical solutions to this. I noted that on-device ADB was the primary vector for sideloading applications and touted as the "ultimate solution" to Google's tightening of Android ecosystem.
Now, the ADB door is closing, yet people are proposing technical solutions, but the problem is not technical in nature. Google's mindset and agenda is restricting Android step by step, and the trend will continue.
At every step, Android power users adapt, will find new technical workarounds and comfort themselves, but the problem is not technical in nature. No technical solution can stop Google from closing this doors because decisions are managerial and rooting from human-nature.
So this is a great example to what I pointed out. Technical solutions can't solve societal problems. The problem is not restricting ADB. The problem is Google's desire to restrict and close-down Android ecosystem. You can't solve it with a patch, but maybe relieve symptoms for a short amount of time.
If one considers this solving, then it's just deluding yourself.