> One of the sad things about tech is that nobody really looks at history.
First, while I often write much of the same sentiment about techno-optimism and history, you should remember that you're literally in the den of Silicon Valley startup hackers. It's not going to be an easily heard message here, because the site specifically appeals to people who dream of inspiring exactly these essays.
> The sooner we realise that its not a technical problem to be solved, but a human one, we might stand a chance.
Second... you're falling victim to the same trap, but simply preferring some kind of social or political technology instead of a mechanical or digital one.
What history mostly affirms is that prosperity and ruin come and go, and that nothing we engineer last for all that long, let alone forever. There's no point in dreading it, whatever kind of technology you favor or fear.
The bigger concern is that some of the acheivements of modernity have made the human future far more brittle than it has been in what may be hundreds of thousands of years. Global homogenization around elaborate technologies -- whether mechanical, digital, social, political or otherwise -- sets us up in a very "all or nothing" existential space, where ruin, when it eventually arrives, is just as global. Meanwhile, the purge of diverse, locally practiced, traditional wisdom about how to get by in un-modern environments steals the species of its essential fallback strategy.
“Meanwhile, the purge of diverse, locally practiced, traditional wisdom about how to get by in un-modern environments steals the species of its essential fallback strategy“
While potentially true, that same wisdom was developed in a world that itself no longer exists. Review accounts of natural wildlife and ecological bounty from even 100 years ago, and it’s clear how degraded our natural world has become in such a very short time.
> Global homogenization around elaborate technologies -- whether mechanical, digital, social, political or otherwise -- sets us up in a very "all or nothing" existential space, where ruin, when it eventually arrives, is just as global.
What is the minimum population size needed in order to have, say, computer chips? Or even a ball-point pen? I'd imagine those are a bit higher that what's needed to have pencils, which I've heard is enough that someone wrote a book about it.
> Meanwhile, the purge of diverse, locally practiced, traditional wisdom about how to get by in un-modern environments steals the species of its essential fallback strategy.
Is it really a "purge" if individuals are just not choosing to waste time learning things they have no use for?
First, while I often write much of the same sentiment about techno-optimism and history, you should remember that you're literally in the den of Silicon Valley startup hackers. It's not going to be an easily heard message here, because the site specifically appeals to people who dream of inspiring exactly these essays.
> The sooner we realise that its not a technical problem to be solved, but a human one, we might stand a chance.
Second... you're falling victim to the same trap, but simply preferring some kind of social or political technology instead of a mechanical or digital one.
What history mostly affirms is that prosperity and ruin come and go, and that nothing we engineer last for all that long, let alone forever. There's no point in dreading it, whatever kind of technology you favor or fear.
The bigger concern is that some of the acheivements of modernity have made the human future far more brittle than it has been in what may be hundreds of thousands of years. Global homogenization around elaborate technologies -- whether mechanical, digital, social, political or otherwise -- sets us up in a very "all or nothing" existential space, where ruin, when it eventually arrives, is just as global. Meanwhile, the purge of diverse, locally practiced, traditional wisdom about how to get by in un-modern environments steals the species of its essential fallback strategy.