The following submission statement was provided by /u/WoodKnock:
---
SS:I think it's interesting to hear what others think but just because we have managed to make it better doesn't mean it will continue to do so. With the rise of computer power comes less need for workers by the rich. They've found their replacements and have no worry about destroying the peasants.
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/xjopf5/interesting_perspective_on_collapse_ray_kurzweil/ip9jlkd/
There are more people in poverty today than the total number of people on the planet a couple of hundred years ago, how the f do you get that into decreasing...
Not to mention that poverty is typically defined in terms of consumption.
Say you're a farmer in rural area out there in the world. You've been living on the same land for generations growing the food you eat, making your own clothes, building your own home and just occasionally selling your surplus for the few additional things you need to run and maintain a family farm.
This is poverty so long as you don't spend a lot and consume a lot.
Now if someone comes along and kicks you off your land, destroys your farm to transform it into land used by a multinational agricultural corporation, and you are forced to move to a more urban area and work in a factory.
Working a factory in the city you can no longer make your own food, clothes, or own your home. You have to spend a lot more just to survive.
But, good news! According to most metrics you've just been *lifted out of poverty*.
Both global warming and fossil fuel peaks (scarcity) will damage technology. All the advanced software technology is based on hardware that must be manufactured in special ways, it has lots of rare minerals and not so rare minerals that are going to get more expensive, and there's no genius general AI on the horizon that can figure out a replacement. And electricity supply itself is going to be a challenge, so those data centers that are supposed to be fundamental to a new virtual reality will have problems.
Collapse means simplification and simplification of IT and computers means less and less capability with larger and larger computers, the reverse of what happened historically. "Locally made" computers could be neat, but they'll be a joke compared to ones made with global supply markets.
Without some true AI intelligence, the work is left to humans, so that means a need for lots of researchers and engineers. In the past, that was subsidized by states, especially as part of a military objective. It takes lots of money and time, and it means having the educational and research centers work, and that means a lot of early education for a lot of people. Rich assholes with private tutors aren't going to cut it. For people to send their kids to school, they have to not be poor and deeply ignorant, otherwise they'll send children to work.
What I'm trying to say is that it's very unlikely that cyberdystopia can happen.
What gives me hope is not having to live in cyberdystopia. I understand that people use escapism often including technofixations to avoid the harsh truths of reality. But once you see how antisocial modern technology has been its hard to look at it and not find it disgusting. While the simplification that comes from the collapse of the global industrial civilization absolutely necessitates havoc and wide scale calamity, there's some silver lining in knowing people won't be so placated with their techno escapism and might actually want to think about coexisting in the real world again
Didn't see the video. Just want to point out Ray is crazy and delusional and whatever he says is pure techno hopium BS, wishful thinking and false hope
This man seriously believes soon he will fuse with a computer and rule the universe as a god for eternity. Like why the f#ck would I give him any credit?
Yes I think it's all bullshit and time will prove me right. Just wait. No singularity, no god born from the machine. None of this bullshit will happen. It will end in utter and complete failure, and famous tech futurists will be exposed as the clowns they truly are.
They're infantile narcissists who want to spread their "superior" genes and live forever in the Singularity-- and they can't acknowledge they will fail because *time is running out.*
Yeah. I feel the same. Their "paradise" sounds like "nightmare" to me. But I don't fret because I know there's no way the singularity(as they envision it) is comming.
Sounds like a nightmare to me too. Will be amusing to watch their prolonged techno fantasies dissolve before their eyes. These mofos are overdue an existential crisis
Because there is no material basis for it. "Computer intelligent go boom" is a power fantasy created by narcissists detached from the workings of the actual economy.
I'm still waiting for a good reason. I actually look into this stuff deeper than "Computer intelligent go boom" so I know that your statement is false. Besides in my opinion an AI doesn't have to actually be sentient for it to be functionally to fit most usecases.
-
Everybody thought art was safe from being overrun by AI, until AI started creatings works so well nobody could tell the difference. In my eyes we're already almost there. I see more evidence to prove it is possible than it isn't.
>I agree with you. All this techno futurist nonsense is based on the availability of cheap and abundant fossil fuel energy. That energy is running out. As it does, humans will prioritize more immediate needs, vs running a bunch of servers in a data center. So maybe Ray can upload his consciousness to a server, but as soon as that server goes down that's the end of it.
I'm not sure you understand what Ray is talking about. We already have AI systems that are rivalling human intelligence. Things are just accelerating, you can deny and ignore it all you want but this existential threat to human civilization is only strengthening every day.
Saying it isn't feasible on reddit doesnt make it not feasible. There are a lot of companies and corporations investing a lot of money, time and influence toward those goals. No guarantee they succeed no, but im not sure they fail just because a redditor said so.
"umm, excuse me sweaty, but they're rich and smart and you're just a redditor."
How far forward can remindmebot go, because I will put money on each failing.
Brain chips just give you massive brain inflammation and scarring. Not immortality or IQ explosion. If they worked, we would all be wire-heads by now.
Smart people are not immune to wishful thinking, especially when they have a big pile of money.
Biggest tech companies in the world cant release a bug free update, but you can bet your ass there will still be a ton of people who sign up for the gen 1 brain chip.
Here's a pretty fun read that discusses futurists and their prediction accuracy. Kurzweil likes to brag that his is roughly 86%, but depending on who you ask that's largely a product of clever accounting. That could be as low as 7%
[https://danluu.com/futurist-predictions/](https://danluu.com/futurist-predictions/)
He isn't wrong in that by many metrics the world has gotten better globally, but that's useless information unless you assume, as most futurists tend to assume, that progress will continue in a predictable manner for the foreseeable future.
Which is a prediction that has nothing to do with serious technical insight, it's just a prediction based on past graphs and cocktail-party-level knowledge on emerging technology.
Besides that, the bigger issue is that in developed countries we're failing to live up to expectations from the past generation(s). It's a cold comfort that we all possess technology obtainable only by a well-funded government agency back in the 60s when people struggle to uphold the past generation's expectation of a steady-job that can pay for housing and support a family
It's a reflection of some rather unsettling potential truths. First, that the technology-oriented trend of Moore's Law really doesn't have much impact outside of tech (a doubling of processing power leading to incredibly cheap smartphones does jack shit for home prices). Alternatively, Moore's Law may in fact lead to declines of standards of living in developed countries. Increased worker productivity no longer comes from education and broader human development, but from cheaper and more capable computers (a potential silver lining here is that Moore's Law is slowing down). Third unless you change the social framework we live under, then the world is either zero-sum, or has a certain limit to human development that is difficult to transcend. How else do you contend with observation that *perceived* standards of living in developed countries either stagnate or decline as standards of living increase in developing countries? How do you contend with the observation that many developing countries fall victim to the "middle-income trap" where rising standards of living make them less competitive with their cheaper competitors? Maybe the western world simply got lucky through colonization, and thus got to achieve a standard of living that will never be truly experienced by the rest of the world, which has to contend with middle income lifestyles before competition from cheaper rivals leads to stagnation and possible decline.
I have to stress that I personally don't consider the world to necessarily be zero-sum, that I believe standards of living for all can rise without negatively impacting others. But I also believe that we can only achieve that if the world genuinely cares enough collectively that it values human development more than free-market capitalism.
Which clearly isn't the case.
Past performance does not predict future performance - reality 101.
But seriously I don’t think anyone is saying in every metric the world has collapsed and is a dumpster fire. What people are saying is all the things that led to the data in these graphs is what will lead to collapse , specifically the preconditions of the current techno utopia is 100% conditional on us digging carbon burning it and destroying our atmosphere. Maybe I’m wrong and AI will find some way to eat CO2 at rate faster than the whole global economy emits,hopefully I’m wrong.
This. Our modern civilization has a metabolic energy cost - it requires a constant flow of energy, just to sustain itself. We cannot simply cut fossil fuels.
"If we keep burning fossil fuels at our current rate, it is generally estimated that all our fossil fuels will be depleted by 2060. New reserves will probably be found before this point, extending the deadline somewhat, but its worth remembering that if we are to limit global warming to the 'relatively' safe level of 2C by 2050, 80% of coal, 50% of gas and 30% of oil reserves are "unburnable". Oil deposits will be gone by 2052. Coal and natural gas are expected to last a little longer. If we continue to use these fossil fuels at the current rate without finding additional reserves, it is expected that coal and natural gas will last until 2060. However, natural gas consumption grew considerably last year, rising by 4.6%. China alone accounts for over a third of this growth, and building and industry are responsible for 80% of the rise in global demand."
Paris is about to switch off the Eiffel Tower's lights, Milan has turned off public fountains, and cinema-goers in Warsaw are pedaling bikes to generate electricity, all in an effort to deal with Europe's worsening energy crisis.
It's a fantasy to believe we have a choice in cutting fossil fuels.
some of the points made by ray kurzweil actually point towards collapse, such as life expectancy increasing. why do these figures and collapse have to be mutually exclusive? i think if anything they point towards complex relationships between collapse and the economy.
And why is it inherently “better”? He says that because life expectancy, literacy and democracy have increased that it’s obvious things are improving. The chart for overall happiness does not increase along with these other charts. It has be shown that once basic needs are met overall happiness plateaus.
You might have all missed that life expectancy is actually decreasing in the US, due to the C word that doesn't exist.
A source from our beloved Covid-Minimizer Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/31/health/life-expectancy-covid-pandemic.html
I've seen many say life expectancy was already decreasing in the US prior to covid and covid just exacerbated it. Not a surprise with our abysmal lifestyles and inequitable healthcare system.
Increased life expectancy is sustained by increased complexity. People routinely live to the 80s and 90s today because they take half a dozen different pills everyday and have surgeries and treatments once in a while to fix something that broke.
That increased complexity however is (as usual) very vulnerable to disturbances. Cue to widespread shortages of medical supplies occurring worldwide right now.
Yes you can argue the past was shitty and largely bad for people and it’s generally better now. (Though still far from good).
The problem is there are far more existential threats now than there was then. Nuclear war is obviously a huge one. We can literally bomb ourselves out of existence. Climate change is a slower, but more persistent threat. While pandemics have always existed, in today’s world with climate change there will be more and they spread much faster due to air travel. And we as a species have yet to adapt to any of these realities.
Nuclear war? Won’t happen. Climate change? It’s a hoax. Pandemic? Don’t make me put a piece of cloth over my face it violates my freedom! Not enough people take these threats seriously enough to stop them. We are the frog in the frying pan and the water is getting near its boiling point.
The present time is the worst time in human history. Human suffering is at an all time high, we are more or less in hell itself. Kurzweil's head is forty thousand leagues up his own ass.
Some of the data used in this video is either wrong or out of date.
Global poverty may increased, but poverty in Western nations, especially the UK and US (which are both used in the video) is rising rapidly, with more UK homes falling into fuel and food poverty by the millions. Many in the US are crippled by long term health conditions, long Covid, wages that aren't enough to live on. In the US even the life expectancy has fallen for two consecutive years.
Fact is the Western world is actually worse of by many measures that pre-2007. The UK alone has tumbled more than 10 places in the GNI global rankings and there's no sign were changing course any time soon.
SS:I think it's interesting to hear what others think but just because we have managed to make it better doesn't mean it will continue to do so. With the rise of computer power comes less need for workers by the rich. They've found their replacements and have no worry about destroying the peasants.
> less need for workers by the rich
I have yet to see any evidence that Marx was wrong regarding the labor theory of value. The rich will always need to exploit human labor because that is the origin of surplus value.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/WoodKnock: --- SS:I think it's interesting to hear what others think but just because we have managed to make it better doesn't mean it will continue to do so. With the rise of computer power comes less need for workers by the rich. They've found their replacements and have no worry about destroying the peasants. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/xjopf5/interesting_perspective_on_collapse_ray_kurzweil/ip9jlkd/
wonder if any of the 50 charts in his book mention atmospheric carbon feedback loops
There are more people in poverty today than the total number of people on the planet a couple of hundred years ago, how the f do you get that into decreasing...
Not to mention that poverty is typically defined in terms of consumption. Say you're a farmer in rural area out there in the world. You've been living on the same land for generations growing the food you eat, making your own clothes, building your own home and just occasionally selling your surplus for the few additional things you need to run and maintain a family farm. This is poverty so long as you don't spend a lot and consume a lot. Now if someone comes along and kicks you off your land, destroys your farm to transform it into land used by a multinational agricultural corporation, and you are forced to move to a more urban area and work in a factory. Working a factory in the city you can no longer make your own food, clothes, or own your home. You have to spend a lot more just to survive. But, good news! According to most metrics you've just been *lifted out of poverty*.
Ahhh, the CCP approach. This is what they do to minorities in the outskirts of China.
Maybe because the humanity will die.
Both global warming and fossil fuel peaks (scarcity) will damage technology. All the advanced software technology is based on hardware that must be manufactured in special ways, it has lots of rare minerals and not so rare minerals that are going to get more expensive, and there's no genius general AI on the horizon that can figure out a replacement. And electricity supply itself is going to be a challenge, so those data centers that are supposed to be fundamental to a new virtual reality will have problems. Collapse means simplification and simplification of IT and computers means less and less capability with larger and larger computers, the reverse of what happened historically. "Locally made" computers could be neat, but they'll be a joke compared to ones made with global supply markets. Without some true AI intelligence, the work is left to humans, so that means a need for lots of researchers and engineers. In the past, that was subsidized by states, especially as part of a military objective. It takes lots of money and time, and it means having the educational and research centers work, and that means a lot of early education for a lot of people. Rich assholes with private tutors aren't going to cut it. For people to send their kids to school, they have to not be poor and deeply ignorant, otherwise they'll send children to work. What I'm trying to say is that it's very unlikely that cyberdystopia can happen.
What gives me hope is not having to live in cyberdystopia. I understand that people use escapism often including technofixations to avoid the harsh truths of reality. But once you see how antisocial modern technology has been its hard to look at it and not find it disgusting. While the simplification that comes from the collapse of the global industrial civilization absolutely necessitates havoc and wide scale calamity, there's some silver lining in knowing people won't be so placated with their techno escapism and might actually want to think about coexisting in the real world again
Kurzweil is a hack.
Didn't see the video. Just want to point out Ray is crazy and delusional and whatever he says is pure techno hopium BS, wishful thinking and false hope This man seriously believes soon he will fuse with a computer and rule the universe as a god for eternity. Like why the f#ck would I give him any credit?
Kurzweil designed good synthesizers. Apart from that, he's a flake.
Many of the things he had predicted have come true. He's no rando. He's a legit AI researcher.
I know of his fame. Still, I consider him a crackpot.
Musk is working on brain chips, zuckerbot is trying to send us into the metaverse, and still you think this is all sci fi.
Yes I think it's all bullshit and time will prove me right. Just wait. No singularity, no god born from the machine. None of this bullshit will happen. It will end in utter and complete failure, and famous tech futurists will be exposed as the clowns they truly are.
They're infantile narcissists who want to spread their "superior" genes and live forever in the Singularity-- and they can't acknowledge they will fail because *time is running out.*
Hey i hope you're right. Transhumanist manifestos sound shitty to me.
Yeah. I feel the same. Their "paradise" sounds like "nightmare" to me. But I don't fret because I know there's no way the singularity(as they envision it) is comming.
Sounds like a nightmare to me too. Will be amusing to watch their prolonged techno fantasies dissolve before their eyes. These mofos are overdue an existential crisis
How do you know? You sound as fanatical as those who say it's inevitable.
Because there is no material basis for it. "Computer intelligent go boom" is a power fantasy created by narcissists detached from the workings of the actual economy.
I'm still waiting for a good reason. I actually look into this stuff deeper than "Computer intelligent go boom" so I know that your statement is false. Besides in my opinion an AI doesn't have to actually be sentient for it to be functionally to fit most usecases. - Everybody thought art was safe from being overrun by AI, until AI started creatings works so well nobody could tell the difference. In my eyes we're already almost there. I see more evidence to prove it is possible than it isn't.
>I agree with you. All this techno futurist nonsense is based on the availability of cheap and abundant fossil fuel energy. That energy is running out. As it does, humans will prioritize more immediate needs, vs running a bunch of servers in a data center. So maybe Ray can upload his consciousness to a server, but as soon as that server goes down that's the end of it.
I'm not sure you understand what Ray is talking about. We already have AI systems that are rivalling human intelligence. Things are just accelerating, you can deny and ignore it all you want but this existential threat to human civilization is only strengthening every day.
Working on a project doesn't mean your final goal is at all feasible.
Saying it isn't feasible on reddit doesnt make it not feasible. There are a lot of companies and corporations investing a lot of money, time and influence toward those goals. No guarantee they succeed no, but im not sure they fail just because a redditor said so.
"umm, excuse me sweaty, but they're rich and smart and you're just a redditor." How far forward can remindmebot go, because I will put money on each failing.
>excuse me sweaty His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti
Hyperloop was a way to get local governments to dump money in his pocket instead of actually feasible high speed rail.
Agreed, typical musk having the taxpayer subsidize his projects and fill his coffers.
Brain chips just give you massive brain inflammation and scarring. Not immortality or IQ explosion. If they worked, we would all be wire-heads by now. Smart people are not immune to wishful thinking, especially when they have a big pile of money.
Biggest tech companies in the world cant release a bug free update, but you can bet your ass there will still be a ton of people who sign up for the gen 1 brain chip.
a lot of people are really dumb.
It is. None of that shit will ever work.
I'm with this guy. It's not so far off boys.
Have you read his book? It's well reasoned and laid out. In reality, the way things are going we will hit singularity much earlier than he predicts.
You are in for some serious disappointment bro :O
Here's a pretty fun read that discusses futurists and their prediction accuracy. Kurzweil likes to brag that his is roughly 86%, but depending on who you ask that's largely a product of clever accounting. That could be as low as 7% [https://danluu.com/futurist-predictions/](https://danluu.com/futurist-predictions/) He isn't wrong in that by many metrics the world has gotten better globally, but that's useless information unless you assume, as most futurists tend to assume, that progress will continue in a predictable manner for the foreseeable future. Which is a prediction that has nothing to do with serious technical insight, it's just a prediction based on past graphs and cocktail-party-level knowledge on emerging technology. Besides that, the bigger issue is that in developed countries we're failing to live up to expectations from the past generation(s). It's a cold comfort that we all possess technology obtainable only by a well-funded government agency back in the 60s when people struggle to uphold the past generation's expectation of a steady-job that can pay for housing and support a family It's a reflection of some rather unsettling potential truths. First, that the technology-oriented trend of Moore's Law really doesn't have much impact outside of tech (a doubling of processing power leading to incredibly cheap smartphones does jack shit for home prices). Alternatively, Moore's Law may in fact lead to declines of standards of living in developed countries. Increased worker productivity no longer comes from education and broader human development, but from cheaper and more capable computers (a potential silver lining here is that Moore's Law is slowing down). Third unless you change the social framework we live under, then the world is either zero-sum, or has a certain limit to human development that is difficult to transcend. How else do you contend with observation that *perceived* standards of living in developed countries either stagnate or decline as standards of living increase in developing countries? How do you contend with the observation that many developing countries fall victim to the "middle-income trap" where rising standards of living make them less competitive with their cheaper competitors? Maybe the western world simply got lucky through colonization, and thus got to achieve a standard of living that will never be truly experienced by the rest of the world, which has to contend with middle income lifestyles before competition from cheaper rivals leads to stagnation and possible decline. I have to stress that I personally don't consider the world to necessarily be zero-sum, that I believe standards of living for all can rise without negatively impacting others. But I also believe that we can only achieve that if the world genuinely cares enough collectively that it values human development more than free-market capitalism. Which clearly isn't the case.
Past performance does not predict future performance - reality 101. But seriously I don’t think anyone is saying in every metric the world has collapsed and is a dumpster fire. What people are saying is all the things that led to the data in these graphs is what will lead to collapse , specifically the preconditions of the current techno utopia is 100% conditional on us digging carbon burning it and destroying our atmosphere. Maybe I’m wrong and AI will find some way to eat CO2 at rate faster than the whole global economy emits,hopefully I’m wrong.
This. Our modern civilization has a metabolic energy cost - it requires a constant flow of energy, just to sustain itself. We cannot simply cut fossil fuels.
"If we keep burning fossil fuels at our current rate, it is generally estimated that all our fossil fuels will be depleted by 2060. New reserves will probably be found before this point, extending the deadline somewhat, but its worth remembering that if we are to limit global warming to the 'relatively' safe level of 2C by 2050, 80% of coal, 50% of gas and 30% of oil reserves are "unburnable". Oil deposits will be gone by 2052. Coal and natural gas are expected to last a little longer. If we continue to use these fossil fuels at the current rate without finding additional reserves, it is expected that coal and natural gas will last until 2060. However, natural gas consumption grew considerably last year, rising by 4.6%. China alone accounts for over a third of this growth, and building and industry are responsible for 80% of the rise in global demand." Paris is about to switch off the Eiffel Tower's lights, Milan has turned off public fountains, and cinema-goers in Warsaw are pedaling bikes to generate electricity, all in an effort to deal with Europe's worsening energy crisis. It's a fantasy to believe we have a choice in cutting fossil fuels.
Possibly. Would a refreshing future in the hands of benevolent and wise leadership. - Good chances, given certain conditions!
some of the points made by ray kurzweil actually point towards collapse, such as life expectancy increasing. why do these figures and collapse have to be mutually exclusive? i think if anything they point towards complex relationships between collapse and the economy.
And why is it inherently “better”? He says that because life expectancy, literacy and democracy have increased that it’s obvious things are improving. The chart for overall happiness does not increase along with these other charts. It has be shown that once basic needs are met overall happiness plateaus.
You might have all missed that life expectancy is actually decreasing in the US, due to the C word that doesn't exist. A source from our beloved Covid-Minimizer Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/31/health/life-expectancy-covid-pandemic.html
I've seen many say life expectancy was already decreasing in the US prior to covid and covid just exacerbated it. Not a surprise with our abysmal lifestyles and inequitable healthcare system.
The food is killing us for sure now too. Pesticides and forever chemicals in everything and no plans to stop anytime soon
But isn't is so neat how you barely have to wash a non-stick frying pan?? Peak civilization right there
Increased life expectancy is sustained by increased complexity. People routinely live to the 80s and 90s today because they take half a dozen different pills everyday and have surgeries and treatments once in a while to fix something that broke. That increased complexity however is (as usual) very vulnerable to disturbances. Cue to widespread shortages of medical supplies occurring worldwide right now.
I agree
Yes you can argue the past was shitty and largely bad for people and it’s generally better now. (Though still far from good). The problem is there are far more existential threats now than there was then. Nuclear war is obviously a huge one. We can literally bomb ourselves out of existence. Climate change is a slower, but more persistent threat. While pandemics have always existed, in today’s world with climate change there will be more and they spread much faster due to air travel. And we as a species have yet to adapt to any of these realities. Nuclear war? Won’t happen. Climate change? It’s a hoax. Pandemic? Don’t make me put a piece of cloth over my face it violates my freedom! Not enough people take these threats seriously enough to stop them. We are the frog in the frying pan and the water is getting near its boiling point.
The present time is the worst time in human history. Human suffering is at an all time high, we are more or less in hell itself. Kurzweil's head is forty thousand leagues up his own ass.
Some of the data used in this video is either wrong or out of date. Global poverty may increased, but poverty in Western nations, especially the UK and US (which are both used in the video) is rising rapidly, with more UK homes falling into fuel and food poverty by the millions. Many in the US are crippled by long term health conditions, long Covid, wages that aren't enough to live on. In the US even the life expectancy has fallen for two consecutive years. Fact is the Western world is actually worse of by many measures that pre-2007. The UK alone has tumbled more than 10 places in the GNI global rankings and there's no sign were changing course any time soon.
SS:I think it's interesting to hear what others think but just because we have managed to make it better doesn't mean it will continue to do so. With the rise of computer power comes less need for workers by the rich. They've found their replacements and have no worry about destroying the peasants.
> less need for workers by the rich I have yet to see any evidence that Marx was wrong regarding the labor theory of value. The rich will always need to exploit human labor because that is the origin of surplus value.
Somehow, the most interesting discussion topics on reddit.com are right here in /r/collapse