Comment by catigula
Comment by catigula 15 days ago
[flagged]
Comment by catigula 15 days ago
[flagged]
>> People are starving to death ...
> The only solution to those people starving to death is to kill the people that benefit from them starving to death.
There are solutions other than "to kill the people that benefit", such as what have existed for many years, including but not limited to:
- Efforts such as the recently emasculated USAID[0].
- Humanitarian NGO's[1] such as the World Central Kitchen[2]
and the Red Cross[3].
- The will of those who could help to help those in need[4].
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_Inter...
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-governmental_organization
2 - https://wck.org/
3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Red_Cross_and_Re...
> People are starving to death and the world's brightest engineers are ...
This is a political will, empathy, and leadership problem. Not an engineering problem.
>>> People are starving to death and the world's brightest engineers are ...
>> This is a political will, empathy, and leadership problem. Not an engineering problem.
> Those problems might be more tractable if all of our best and brightest were working on them.
The ability to produce enough food for those in need already exists, so that problem is theoretically solved. Granted, logistics engineering[0] is a real thing and would benefit from "our best and brightest."
What is lacking most recently, based on empirical observation, is a commitment to benefiting those in need without expectation of remuneration. Or, in other words, empathetic acts of kindness.
Which is a "people problem" (a.k.a. the trio I previously identified).
Famine in the modern world is almost entirely caused by dysfunctional governments and/or armed conflicts. Engineers have basically nothing to do with either of those.
This sort of "there are bad things in the world, therefore focusing on anything else is bad" thinking is generally misguided.
Famine is mostly political but engineers (not all of them) definitely have to do with it. If you’re building powerful AI for corporations that are then involved with the political entities that caused the famine, then you can’t claim to basically have nothing to do with it.
You can disagree all you want but the exact wording used in original comment that I responded to was
> Engineers have basically nothing to do with either of those.
The logic here is “If A is actively working to develop capabilities for B, which B offers up to C who then uses it to do D, then A cannot claim to have nothing to do with D.”
The only solution to those people starving to death is to kill the people that benefit from them starving to death. It's a solved problem, the solution isn't palatable. No one is starving to death because of a lack of engineering prowess.