The thing is why that this feels so good future is; it is a system with no constraints. A bit like Star Trek universe in Roddenberry's imagination. This kind of utopia can only be achieved with all honest actors, but in reality systems are usually designed around bad actors.
Even with all morally good actors locally, there is no guarantees for external forces. Thinking it hypothetically, even with global coordination ( all good actors ) there is not a proven path that would lead us to better place from any starting point from past.
It's probably more predictive to model actors as being neither good nor bad but constrained by various collective dilemmas, such as prisoners dilemma, the security spiral, tragedy of the commons, race dynamics, collective action or first mover problems, information asymmetries, the commitment problem, among others. Those are the hardest problems to solve because they're pathologies that result from the global, largely amoral structure rather than consequences of the individual exercise of morality.
In the AI case, each firm is in an arms race, and nobody can slow down without effectively collapsing due to positive gross margins only being viable with a frontier model that attracts marginal demand. An appeal to morality might have an impact but more effective action would be to address the structure that the AI companies are situated in that causes this dynamic in the first place. In practice, thats going to be a global agreement to slow down, and global regulations.
This sort of rationalization of evil is a core of technocratic support for Trumpism, I find, and has parallels to the evangelical prosperity gospel. Choice tenets:
- Fuck you, got mine
- If I don’t do it, someone else will
- Might makes right
- Greed is good
It’s always cloaked in a veil of realism, but it’s just the classic 14-year-old-boy-just-got-introduced-to-the-prisoners-dilemma situation. There’s nothing philosophically interesting about it.
Ironically, these are often the same people denouncing multiculturalism, yet the culture they strive for is completely morally bankrupt.
And it's funny because the "realism" has been proven wrong over and over and over again for millennia. People do all sorts of selfless and generous things all the time! The entire premise is trivially disprovable by just going and asking a neighbor for some help with something.
That's not to say we should be naive about greed or malice existing or being powerful motivators (especially the former), but it is obviously not true that they're the only forces at play and therefore you are "just doing the logical thing" by succumbing to them. It's just the more destructive version of the same naiveté.
Seems you and I have together struck a nerve. Maybe our sentiments would have been better received in an alternate subthread, but it’s all I could think about while reading the parent / cousin comments.
I haven’t read the full Magnifica Humanitas yet, but I would be pleasantly surprised if he touched on not just dehumanization of the other, but dehumanization of the self. Expanding on your thought, succumbing to those forces under the guise of just doing the logical thing is in a way self-dehumanization - to believe you are only capable of the “logical” thing instead of the moral thing.
This was not my point at all. Maybe I could explained better, but main criticism I have is: you can bundle together objectives ( which are inherently good ) and create an utopia. But those cannot always be achievable.
Everything in life in trade-offs. Simple example is speed/quality/cost. I can tell easily:
- services should be cheap
- services should be fast
- services should be high quality
Now I created an utopia. Obviously this is amazing to listener. They agree. But is it achievable?
It is not saying greed is good or might makes right. But system means you need to construct from this ideals best outcome ( which comes at some trade offs)
To get from here to Roddenberry's communism, according to Roddenberry's lore, we passed through the Eugenics Wars, the Second Civil War, and then fifty years of World War Three and the 'post-atomic horror' before coming to our senses.
I started with c64 but stuck there with basic ( extension port was broken unfortunately could not dive into assembly there )
Then I got from someone an old 286, ( hdd was not working ) spent most of my time on "debug" command. Then I got a book for x86 assembly and DOS (interrupts etc). ( Which was kind of hard on non-english speaking country ) I still somehow recall some pages from memory :)
Dived into cracking/cheats, made even money on password recovery. How long those x86 knowledge carried me was unbelievable when I look back.
I might be misunderstanding, but this seems very wrong. your method on the first entry:
10011011010100101100001101010000
year = 101 00 (20? year should be 25 or 2025)
month = 1001 (9, but month is Nov)
day = 1001 (9, not enough bits to encode large days)
hour = 01 1 or 01 11 (3, 7, or 14 reversed, should be 11)
no minute field
I think it is more for overstays. Years ago when I asked about my stayed days ( I was traveling a lot ) , border guard took passport and tried to count then gave up
> whitelist/blacklist phones depending on extensions available
That would be, I believe, fine. Those are capabilities-based restrictions.
From my point of view, the issue would be if the same phone worked with the same technology over the same mobile network when connected via a carrier A but the same phone on the same network refused to work with the same technology when connected via a carrier B.
> From my point of view, the issue would be if the same phone worked with the same technology over the same mobile network when connected via a carrier A but the same phone on the same network refused to work with the same technology when connected via a carrier B.
But thats the whole point of carrier profiles ( If I didn't understand wrong. )
Eventually it is the carrier who decides what you can do. ( this can also may be related to deals they made with manufacturers )
I think in this case, it is just missing carrier profile. ( which is like a config file )
Clearly the logical threshold is when a single private corporation becomes the gatekeeper to your life. The internet itself is decentralized so that's fine. Mobile phones as a concept is also fine.
Almost. Having access to the internet requires a device, or public computer if available. A just society would at least maintain ability to interact with all government services through in-person and through post office. Universal access.
At least in some countries you can use a public computer at a library or other government-provided institution. I agree that it ideally shouldn't be required though.
This seems to be percieved as an explicit intended loophole. I've seen contests where they say "for free entry, go to website..." followed with "internet access can be obtained at libraries".
Obviously, the idea of "you don't have to pay to participate" has a strong legal footing, but I have to wonder if they can find a way to pivot that to "I don't have to acquire an Android/iOS device". Maybe they would develop a kiosk-mode version of the OS that will run apps tethered to a placeholder library account.
I hope people can see what I am saying here, but this is just what the Affordable Health Care Act was in the United States. The government forced up to buy health insurance from private companies, and no one saw a problem with that.
So having health care was dependent on a private third party.
I don't think it's an issue to require Internet to participate in society, just like it wouldn't be an issue to require a mobile phone if you can use any phone (including a Linux phone or degoogled Android).
The problem is that now you need a phone with Apple or Google software running it.
I meant a bit like: Let's say you have 2 mobile phone operators in your country ( duopoly ) we are ok that for example using SMS for banking interaction ( second factor etc )
I think this is a process; and somehow slowly people accepting those levels, and in a society it becomes normal ( to have whatsapp for friend group, to have facebook for family photos etc etc ) and you are being left out eventually if you are outside of those norms.
So it is not so different for bank to require something like google provided software.
I think if we accept that market concentration for essential services cannot alawys be avoided, there must be an obligation for these companies to provide those services to everyone.
The difficult part is how to guarantee this right without opening the floodgates for all sorts of scammers and organised criminals.
We need some sort of due process proportional in cost to the effects of account terminations (or rejections) on people's lives.
In the UK some utilities do have a legal duty to supply.
I'm not familiar with the details though, so I have no idea what happens if someone is accused of having violated their terms of service. I think there are different rules for different utilities.
Ofc they share the blame, but it is not solving the problem.
You can say for example: loan sharks are bad for society; so government gives anyone 0 percent credit. You just removed one problem, created another.
Just and sustaining system with individual morality is destined to fail. Only option is social regulation. Which is at government level.
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