Comment by techblueberry

Comment by techblueberry 4 days ago

3 replies

> At the same time, what's the alternative? Progress happens.

I actually wonder if solving this problem - this feeling of powerlessness in the face of progress is an interesting problem to solve in our time. Plenty of people have figured this out. The Amish, people move to islands and other countries to not be part of modern progress.

"Making up jobs to keep people employed isn't a viable solution to me. " Why not? I mean Keynes argued something like: if the Treasury filled old bottles with banknotes, buried them in disused coal mines, filled the mines with rubbish, and then left it to private enterprise to dig them up again, there would be no more unemployment and the real income of the community would probably become a good deal larger than it actually was."

But it really does feel sometimes like. Why do we feel this powerlessness to progress? Why can't we architect the world we want to have? I have really been wondering. Lots of religious groups want to revert some progress. Maybe these whole network cities folks have a point. Maybe we can have a city like pegged to the like technical and architectural standards of the victorian era.

circlefavshape 3 days ago

> Why can't we architect the world we want to have? Side effects. Society is not planned, it evolves

_dark_matter_ 3 days ago

You want Victorian healthcare? Or privacy? No air conditioning? Dirty air? Horse shit everywhere? No different, people stink, can't shower, and it takes hours of labor to wash clothes without a washing machine?

  • techblueberry 3 days ago

    No, it’s 2026, we can create a hybrid, that’s the point! The ability to choose our destiny!

    Also - Horse shit doesn’t sound that bad. People stink in 2026 too.

    But I do think, I dunno if inflection point is precisely the right concept, there will plenty of future developments I’ll be glad , but I think less and less of a percentage of our innovation is positive for general human happiness.

    Big tech ceos even often talk about this sort of longtermist perspective where today’s human happiness doesnt matter, just progress toward an unknown future.