<story><title>Can we survive technology? (1955) [pdf]</title><url>https://drive.google.com/file/d/10_IKsz0GdgyLlO9-MAtpTPQ7vnfpN8Ng/view?usp=drivesdk</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ArtWomb</author><text>The one theme many of the prognosticators of the post Cold War boom failed to see was the democratization of tech. &amp;quot;A computer on every desk&amp;quot; has become an internet node in every pocket. Part of the fear wasn&amp;#x27;t just of a high priesthood that controlled knowledge, language and thought itself as everyday work and modern life became more machine-like. But of a New Religion: where Science becomes the last true God.&lt;p&gt;One measure of the progress of a civilization is efficiency with which ideas can be communicated. And the crux of what von Neumann perceives as danger is &amp;quot;runaway&amp;quot; technology. We attempt to solve one problem, like controlling the weather, by introducing remedies according to our current state of the art capabilities. And accidentally introduce cataclysms that cannot be reversed.&lt;p&gt;Now that capability is accelerating, the same fears arise anew. But it&amp;#x27;s a different world today. Tech is not developed in secret large scale government run labs of yore. Its too pricey. The culture has shifted as well. From ICBMs to private space enterprises. And it&amp;#x27;s that cultural feedback loop, that civilizing progress as ideas are shared instantly about the globe, that very few were able to foresee.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>acituan</author><text>&amp;gt; failed to see was the democratization of tech. &amp;quot;A computer on every desk&amp;quot; has become an internet node in every pocket.&lt;p&gt;I find it harmful to equate mere proliferation with &lt;i&gt;democratic participation&lt;/i&gt;. Sure, you have many terminals, but most of the information processing is still lopsided towards the centralized &amp;quot;server&amp;quot;. When recommendation algorithms shove content down people&amp;#x27;s throats, only &lt;i&gt;consequential participation&lt;/i&gt; expected from them is to engage with the ads, and they can&amp;#x27;t talk back to ads. The rest is almost as &amp;quot;democratic&amp;quot; as watching TV.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; One measure of the progress of a civilization is efficiency with which ideas can be communicated.&lt;p&gt;And it is a bad measure.&lt;p&gt;A psychotic person&amp;#x27;s mind also communicates tons of ideas back and forth, in fact too &amp;quot;efficiently&amp;quot;. Propaganda posters from an airplane also communicates very efficiently. The idea that mere communication makes progress is what we&amp;#x27;ve been thought by the engagement-maximization culture.&lt;p&gt;Real measure of progress is the extent those ideas converge towards &lt;i&gt;the truth&lt;/i&gt;. How they can form a pattern of &lt;i&gt;meaning&lt;/i&gt; that increasingly conforms to the &lt;i&gt;reality&lt;/i&gt;. Current tech cares about none of those, and no wonder there is a crisis of meaning making and acceleration from departure from reality, just like a psychotic person.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Now that capability is accelerating, the same fears arise anew. But it&amp;#x27;s a different world today. Tech is not developed in secret large scale government run labs of yore.&lt;p&gt;It is just developed in secret by large scale internet companies now. For most of the tech most of the people have the most screen time with, what content is recommended why, what data is processed how etc are the biggest secrets.</text></comment>
<story><title>Can we survive technology? (1955) [pdf]</title><url>https://drive.google.com/file/d/10_IKsz0GdgyLlO9-MAtpTPQ7vnfpN8Ng/view?usp=drivesdk</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ArtWomb</author><text>The one theme many of the prognosticators of the post Cold War boom failed to see was the democratization of tech. &amp;quot;A computer on every desk&amp;quot; has become an internet node in every pocket. Part of the fear wasn&amp;#x27;t just of a high priesthood that controlled knowledge, language and thought itself as everyday work and modern life became more machine-like. But of a New Religion: where Science becomes the last true God.&lt;p&gt;One measure of the progress of a civilization is efficiency with which ideas can be communicated. And the crux of what von Neumann perceives as danger is &amp;quot;runaway&amp;quot; technology. We attempt to solve one problem, like controlling the weather, by introducing remedies according to our current state of the art capabilities. And accidentally introduce cataclysms that cannot be reversed.&lt;p&gt;Now that capability is accelerating, the same fears arise anew. But it&amp;#x27;s a different world today. Tech is not developed in secret large scale government run labs of yore. Its too pricey. The culture has shifted as well. From ICBMs to private space enterprises. And it&amp;#x27;s that cultural feedback loop, that civilizing progress as ideas are shared instantly about the globe, that very few were able to foresee.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nicoffeine</author><text>&amp;gt; Tech is not developed in secret large scale government run labs of yore.&lt;p&gt;Real technology (advancement of science vs software+marketing) is still very much developed by governments, because they are the only entities willing to spend billions on possible dead ends. Fusion reactors, CERN, nuclear technology, and those are the ones we know about because we&amp;#x27;re allowed to know. The US alone spends about 80-90 billion per year on &amp;quot;Special Access Programs.&amp;quot; [1]&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; From ICBMs to private space enterprises.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;China is building more than 100 new missile silos in its western desert, analysts say&amp;quot; [1]&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m also trying to be an optimist about the future, but part of that is understanding where we actually are. Technology is still firmly in the control of governments and a handful of corporations.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.thedrive.com&amp;#x2F;the-war-zone&amp;#x2F;29092&amp;#x2F;special-access-programs-and-the-pentagons-ecosystem-of-secrecy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.thedrive.com&amp;#x2F;the-war-zone&amp;#x2F;29092&amp;#x2F;special-access-p...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;national-security&amp;#x2F;china-nuclear-missile-silos&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;30&amp;#x2F;0fa8debc-d9c2-11eb-bb9e-70fda8c37057_story.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;national-security&amp;#x2F;china-nucle...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>