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What to Do

(paulgraham.com)
274 points npalli | 2 comments | 29 Mar 25 12:24 UTC | HN request time: 0.404s | source
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Madmallard ◴[29 Mar 25 13:16 UTC] No.43515289[source]▶
I personally don't think technology for the most part is good for society. It makes nature boring and predictable and life less interesting as a whole if this is true, but I don't think we even understand the degree to which technology is just ruining life for the future. We don't have adaptations to deal with anything and adaptations take tens of thousands of years if not way more to occur. The romantic thought is that technology can help us solve the problems that come up as a result of itself, but I'm less optimistic there just because of how things have been going. It seems like human nature and us not being good at understanding large complex systems as a species results in the malignant actors and developments taking root and metastasizing over time.

- global warming - antibiotic resistance - environmental contamination - food quality diminishing - explosive increase in chronic disease, especially in young people - extinction of most other species - fertility problems - declining birth rates - poly-pharmacy becoming normal - now things related to energy consumption with AI and cryptocurrency - huge decline in social behaviors across the population

Just seems like for every new advancement we're making new chronic issues that are barely incentivized at all for being managed and alleviated

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1. georgemcbay ◴[29 Mar 25 13:37 UTC] No.43515436[source]▶
The wheel is technology, metallurgy is technology, irrigation is technology.

Technology is vital to a functioning society.

There's certainly more debate to be had whether various bits of modern technology are net positive or net negative, but even still I personally believe modern technology is mostly neutral to very good for humanity in a vacuum and it is other forces like modern capitalism that bend it toward being harmful.

eg. Social media is very clearly having a net negative impact on modern society, but I don't believe that would still be true if it wasn't driven by algorithms created to maximize ad revenue above all other concerns.

And obviously there is some inherent coupling of modern technology and capitalism that isn't avoidable, but I don't think capitalism on its own is wholly bad, its the slavish cult-like worship of it as the only way to do things that causes it to be so destructive.

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2. fatherzine ◴[31 Mar 25 04:51 UTC] No.43531203[source]▶
life is a game of balance in the sweet band between uninhabitable extremes. technology obeys the same law. both too little, and too much, are deadly.