Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

maybe zuck's the same as me, we see things they'll never see

the most problematic words there are "us" and "forever".

As far as I know a cure for aging actually is pretty far-fetched, as recent studies indicate our DNA has built-in limits that restrict indefinite cell replication (there was some article in Discover about this recently, not sure if its online). And "forever" is obviously substantively different from "limited life-extending". If he'd said "how can we make people live longer" that's slightly more reasonable.

The "us" part involves, as noted, the ethics of life extension, which are v v thorny and imo come out v strongly against even considering this.

xp

those are philosophically relevant questions but Hawking asked about *big questions in science*

from a scientific perspective all of these are so hand-wavingly vague as to not be questions about science at all

http://reformedoutfitters.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Born-to-Die.png

outic

see jmm's reply

they're definitely q's other scientists already explore

this doesn't automatically make them good questions! I find these sort of "hmm how can we fundamentally change the nature of existence" questions really irritating. "Curing all diseases", for ex. Really? Why is this even desirable? It would be disastrous for our ecology for a species as wantonly destructive and stupid as ours to (somehow, magically) make itself impervious to factors that regulate every population of organisms on the planet. Like, gee what could possibly go wrong there. To say nothing of its inherent infeasibility - it would violate basic laws of biology about how things like DNA and RNA work, disease is *built in* to how organisms function, compete, interact, and impact each other. The practical and ethical problems presented by this question are mind-boggling. But the question stems from this childlike "disease bad! I wish there was no disease!" framing that is just embarrassing.

those are philosophically relevant questions but Hawking asked about *big questions in science*

from a scientific perspective all of these are so hand-wavingly vague as to not be questions about science at all

I agree w this

dammit

shakey does it bum you out that people think that is a c at the end of your name

it bums me out

ancient greek is a bitch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAOsRlfhvLc

outic

those questions are extreme and most likely knowingly unreachable but they are asked because on the way to this hypothetical goal you find out things that you would have never had you not tried

it's like what jmm said. scientists speak a very different language among themselves and is why they're not very good at marketing and getting their ideas to the lay. zuck is on the other extreme and just says things in a silly way but that resonate with a lot of people that lack any scientific understanding but it helps peak people's interest

I like this idea:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nccryZOcrUg

those questions are extreme and most likely knowingly unreachable but they are asked because on the way to this hypothetical goal you find out things that you would have never had you not tried

fair point yeah I get that

I like Gates's idea. Can we retroactively apply it to software, say the kind that eliminated, deskilled, or rendered precarious uncounted secretarial and number-crunching jobs?

it's just irritating to see zuck (and his audience) take them at what is apparently face value, with this v basic "gee yes I would *love* to live forever!" framing

xp

ancient greek is a bitch

nb: that's the modern greek alphabet, too

it helps pique their interest too

bunch of brain surgeons itt

― Mordy, Friday, February 17, 2017 12:15 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, if zuck is interested i would be more than happy to try my hand at surgically operating on his brain before he has a go at elected office

for obvious reasons, high tech hundred-billionaires are not the most reflective people in the universe.

imo the main impediment to living forever is psychological. however, zuckerberg's mind (and perhaps thiel's) have adapted to the possibility of infinite lifespans

but what will you have time left to do every day as your 'this day in history' timeline reminders engulf you with the advancing eons

guys the problem with that zuck post is not the bong rip science questions!

they're fine!

it's the next bit when he says "i bet there's a master equation for human community"

ya that's the creepy one as i noted yo

i feel ya cake

pssh, everyone knows the family and genetic correlation coefficient applied to the friendship/community multiplier is a decent predictor of the number of close friends

if only we could write an equation for.... love

Tagline for The Social Network 2

Wait which element is that again? Xp

I don't get what's wrong with Zuckerberg's response. If anyone should rightfully be concerned with "monkeysphere" type questions it's the guy who runs Facebook! How many people are we biologically capable of actually being "friends" with, for example, is a worthwhile and not creepy question. Fields of psych and econ entirely predicated on being able to describe human behavior using numbers

Yeah nobody said his quest for Dunbar's Number was the problem. It's the childishness / alchemist nature of his priorities. Understand the world better? Sure, but only as a means to living forever without disease and becoming the smartest and fastest!

the answer isn't necessarily wrong, it's just written as if he's pandering to an audience badly. if you're speaking with the intention of an audience understanding your answer, it's probably better to phrase the answer in a relatable way ("I want to know why people age differently so we can learn how to help everyone have a healthy, long life") as opposed to revealing your own weird thoughts on mortality ("Can we just... not die? You guys know Peter Thiel is researching injecting himself with young blood, something like that maybe")

I mean, these could just be awkward responses. But the fact we're reading so much into this in order to guess what his true intentions are is an indicator of it being awkward communication. Maybe it's just a random jotted-down facebook comment!

Zuck completely not getting his audience is a recurring theme. Hmm. Maybe if there was an equation

http://i.imgur.com/jGoBwCk.jpg

He believes that deep down humans are computers. If only we had a computer big enough to model them, and alllllll of the data on what they do, then we could predict/control human behavior. It's old-school creepy engineer-dude (or midcentury systems-thinking socal science counterintelligence dude) thinking imho, crossed with big-data privacy-hoovering ambitions. At least that's what I read in it.

the entirety of existence is either a computer or a system capable of being modeled by a computer

*extreme brow furrowing*

Zuck completely not getting his audience is a recurring theme. Hmm. Maybe if there was an equation

hmmmm wonder how the guy who built the most popular social app in the world does not get his audience. maybe he gets his audience too well.

you don't have to know anything about the nuances of human interaction, or even what constitutes good or bad interaction if your number one goal is engagement and traffic

I mean, twitter's content-blind policies were "free speech" in rhetoric, but in reality they were just content-blind

I mean, arguably Robert Moses knew his audience "too well" too

In what sense is the audience for anything Mark Zuckerberg says not "everyone"?

no it's absurd. he's clearly a social interaction savant and we're just social interaction rockists. one day that dude will be president - i don't know if he'll invent a formula to figure it out or just code up his campaign in a two night democracy jam.

you know that all of the actual moderation of flagged material on facebook is done by people making relatively low wages, who aren't even in the same country as the content's origin, right?

it's not like he and the programmers have amazing algorithms, there is literally a group of people in Mexico working for facebook reviewing flagged content for North America

i'm not sure what we're discussing right now, mh

I'd idealistically hope that people can distinguish between design and algorithmic choices that facilitate *more* interaction and content and those that facilitate useful or efficient interaction

every content thread that's addictive because it's half people going "lol, libtard cucks" on facebook followed by a bunch of people earnestly arguing and in-fighting in poorly-threaded conversations... that's a lot of ad impressions

Yeah c'mon Mordy... you can luck into a product that catches on like wildfire without having some kind of super genius insight into human nature. For example, the reasons the inventor think it's got a shot at being moderately successful (''Harvard people love keeping in touch with other alumni from time to time!'') may not be congruent with the reasons why it actually becomes a ginormous success. (See Wiebe Bijker on the development of the safety bicycle.)

Also, in Facebook's case specifically, I suspect many of the most popular and click-sucking features, the ones that have really bound the thing into people's life patterns and sense of self etc., were not necessarily Zuck creations. Meanwhile he just had good timing: Friendster had basically passed and Myspace was adrift just as an explosion in the smartphone market and other contextual X-factors opened the door for SOME more straightforward version of social-networking to take off. Etc.

Anyway, this whole thread is kinda about people who are really successful at enriching themselves through techno-products, whose values/perceptions/ideologies are nonetheless out of step with how many/most people think. Being successful at social networking software doesn't mean you have a keener sense of human society (let alone the deep structure of the human mind) than your average philosopher, truck driver, or ILXor, or even than someone else that hits on a formula that scratches some collective itch at a particular point in time. It's like assuming James Cameron has a particular genius sense of what our humanity means to us based on the success his films about human-nonhuman interaction have found with audiences. Like, idk, maybe, but it'd have to be argued for - there's no self-evident authority on the topic.

You seem to be implying Zuckerberg is successful because he understands the *content* of communication in a way that is beneficial and gives him insight. I'm arguing he, and I'm speaking broadly with him as a stand-in for facebook, understands the *structure* of human communication and how to construct applications, algorithms, and site design in a way that makes people interact *more* without caring about the quality of interaction.

sorry, that was xp to Mordy

you can luck into a product that catches on like wildfire without having some kind of super genius insight into human nature

i think this is kinda silly but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

the creator of the oreo understands humans better than any politician who has ever lived: every politician has detractors, but the oreo is universally beloved

the joy of eating oreo's has to do w/ the taste. the joy of using facebook has to do w/ interacting w/ other ppl.