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serapath【ツ】☮7d ago
The enemy of the people is complications. The enemy works towards unnecessary complications - instead of simplifying rules, removing lines of code, removing outdated laws, simplifying the stack, streamlining workflows, you name it, they pile on wherever they can - its more convenient, its easier in the short term, and so on... its tempting. why do complications do that? ...because it makes things unmanageable for anyone else other than large organisations with the need to centrally manage and coordinate - that central position is where the complication leaderd position themselves to direct others in the name of managing "complications" - a powerful position where everyone is divided while the chief complicators are free to take for themselves - after all they do the important job of keeping the complications working whoch would fall apart without them and that wpuld make so many suffer... Wherever they go, this is their modus operandi.
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Replies (10)

Floppy PNG7d ago
Complexity is a great lens to consider almost every modern issue with, agreed. I'm also agreed with the money/power behind complexity. I'm not so sure I'd use the us vs. them framing. Most seem quite comfortable within modernity, even those who raise the rebel flag of their form of freedom or simplicity. I'm also not sure that those that monetize it (for instance, operating the most sophisticated supply chain end-to-end) think they are doing evil in return for money and power, they see it more as being efficient. We *generally* don't account well for energy, minerals, and negative externalities. My take is that we arrived here in classic whack-a-mole of technology (we fix one thing, make it more efficient, and now we have three problems, etc.).
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serapath【ツ】☮7d ago
hmm. there is of course necessary complexity inherent in whatever we make the subject, but then there are unnecessary complications too. in "us" vs. "them" i am thinking of a mindset or an attitude (often not evil on purpose), where in any given situation somebody might opt for a lazy easy way to solve a problem, piling on technical debt and complications which is a centralizing force as long as it doesnt kill the thing just yet
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Floppy PNG7d ago
"where in any given situation somebody might opt for a lazy easy way to solve a problem, piling on technical debt and complications which is a centralizing force as long as it doesnt kill the thing just yet" Good wording. The catch is how deep you go down in analysis on that. You crack that open a bit and start peering down, it goes down a long ways and crosses many more domains than most account for or think about. We are barely able to cognitively function as humans at this level of complexity (to your point).
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serapath【ツ】☮7d ago
i dont know. its maybe a bit od "epimetheus" vs. "prometheus", where one just does and thinks/learns later but at least makes some visible progress quickly, while the other wants to think it through upfront but takes forever until anything can happen at all. now i just think a bit of both or whatever is one's tendency is okay, but we need actually do something at some point and cant wait forever and then learn and reflect again ... or we need to stop and think to revise at some point and cant be doing forever without ever reflecting at all. So both models are just slightly different versions of a cyclic execution model anyway. The point is, whether one wants to leverage in order to optimize towards centralization and power consolidation or not. ...and this is where motivations to keep thins complicated ON PURPUSE might enter the picture 🙂
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Floppy PNG7d ago
Is this in line? https://consilienceproject.org/development-in-progress/
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serapath【ツ】☮6d ago
Whoever is the author is really bad in structuring their content to make allow summary first and then drill into details as needed. Its just a big wall of text. So what i get from it is tech/science/markets aim for "improving life", "solve problems" and "lead to abundance", but externalities happen (environmental costs, social damage, long term risks). I guess the article just describes life? We can either end life or continue to live how we currently do or return to previous states, or we try to progress with the best of our understanding and ability and fix unintended side effects as soon as we notice them to "solve problems" even better. ...it's unclear to me. It talks about loads of problems in great diversity and focuses on the negative side of everything - and feels like it focuses on nostalgia and talks from a level of privilege that might have been lost over time and so the author sounds sad about it i guess? ...and always talks about considering the entire system, yeah we should. many try, but its hard. Imho Bitcoin is one example and we'll probably see many more systemic solutions than in the past that might overcome a lot of those issues we currently have. It really continues to find downsides for every upside - sometimes questionable if related at all and questions science methods, but never talks about a proposal of how to do it even better. Every downside is trying to be addressed by the methods we use and it is easy to regress to worse methods if we drop science and other approaches, but its hard to do it better - so there semes to be a lack of proposals, but the article complains about possibly the best methodology we have that even tries to address everything pointed out as negative consequencs, but some problems are difficult to address - and humans can only do what they can do following the best methodologies they have, so unless a better proposal can be made its ridiculous to complain about the best method we have. For example, saying something like: 1. account for all stakeholders 2. evaluate long-term consequences 3. internalize negative externalities 4. consider ripple effects across systems. is what everyone would agree with, but having a planet with billions of people and complex constallation begs the question how can we improve it while we aren't an omnipontent infallible god-like creature? ...arguably we are doing quite well and the question is what change could improve the status quo towards these goals? ...that's not easy, but it must be proposed and discussed, because otherwise the article just says what everyone knows and agrees with anyway. We are many and we are trapped in all kind of network effects, prisoner dilemmas, non-existing schelling points, nash equilibriums, etc... and overcoming them is difficult. Arguing about we need: better problem-solving methods, ethical design processes, strong regulation, and a deeper understanding of human and ecological interdependence. ...is running against open doors. Thats what everyone is striving for all the time, so maybe the author should focus more on proposing particular improvements to inspire adoption instead of telling the obvious :-) The author maybe deals more with their own issues or their social environment, because billions of people live very diverse, some spend a lot of time touching grass, interacting with nature, working out, studying and avoiding the many issues the author mentions as issues of the modern humans lifestyle. In fact, apps like tiktok and instagram provide endless inspiration of how to exercise better and eat healthier, its just a question of whether a particular person feeds itself with that or with something else. Unhealthy livestyle choices were possible in all of human history and is nothing new. They towards the end propose "Yellow Teaming" or some sort of problem solving framework, but dont talk about why anyone would adopt it or if a group of experts (determined how) should magically get ultimate powers to go through this process and define and then force it onto everyone else potentially against the consent of other people. The best experts are still humans who can make mistakes and can also have misaligned incentives. Things are a bit more complex and in that regard the article feels naive. We clearly need government regulation, but what or how should future governments look like? The system we had up to this point in history led us to where we are and our existing governments have the largest budgets any government in history ever had, so just maybe we need radically different governments - forms led by the people by giving them tools so they can partcipate in the process in every day life instead of yielding and outsourcing all power to a tiny minority of people with questionable motives and effectiveness surrounded by plenty of scandals. In general, being too risk averse and pre-cautionous over long periods of time can itself be a huge risk. The many ideas/philosophies for a bette rfuture that are expressed in this articles are something that should be promoted by the author and offered to people - organise workshops to show them how, offer a serivce to do it for them... there are plenty of ways that involve consent and keeping many stake holders involved the way they need to be involved. The current "progress ideology" is essentially not a progress ideology, but it is called "Fiat money" and the broken incentives it sets that forces everyone to grind the planet to crap or end up broke and fall through the cracks of the system. It is a gigantic "prisoner dilemma" we are all trapped in and bitcoin could be THE solution to escape this trap and end the reality that forces people into what is here described as "progress ideology" but should be labeled "prisoners dilemma" instead. I think the final message of the author, even though positive, is missing the point entirely, because everyone agrees with that, but thats not how one escapes a prisoners dilemma - which is called Fiat Money. Anyway, given how endlessly long that linked article was - my answer is relatively short and its questionable who even asked for this answer or what the author even wanted to say. I wont read yet another uselessly long article without a more targeted discussion of what do we even want to talk about and why - whats the question or supposed outcome?
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Floppy PNG6d ago
I'll take that as not in line.
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serapath【ツ】☮5d ago
i dont see any connection between your shared article and what i said before you posted it. And my feedback was mainly about the article being lots of words about everything that we can all agree on, but they dont really help. Imhonunclear what you want to say by posting it.
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Floppy PNG5d ago
I simply looked at your points on the thread and saw a match with the paper as far as how we think about progress. Examples from our thread: ---------------- "where in any given situation somebody might opt for a lazy easy way to solve a problem, piling on technical debt and complications which is a centralizing force as long as it doesnt kill the thing just yet" "its maybe a bit od "epimetheus" vs. "prometheus", where one just does and thinks/learns later but at least makes some visible progress quickly, while the other wants to think it through upfront but takes forever until anything can happen at all. now i just think a bit of both or whatever is one's tendency is okay, but we need actually do something at some point and cant wait forever and then learn and reflect again ... or we need to stop and think to revise at some point and cant be doing forever without ever reflecting at all. So both models are just slightly different versions of a cyclic execution model anyway. The point is, whether one wants to leverage in order to optimize towards centralization and power consolidation or not. ...and this is where motivations to keep thins complicated ON PURPUSE might enter the picture " --------------------- I get it that there are other topics in our thread, like power, complexity, and centralization. I just wanted to see if your ideas around progress were in line with the article, and responded with the paper directly against a comment with that very keyword.
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serapath【ツ】☮4d ago
i dont see what that paper has to do woth my expressed thoughts. some think first and do later. some do first and think later. over time both are a cyclic execution model. The problem i tried to point at is when somebody does use: act first, think later, to introduce urgency and push towards artificial complications ON PURPOSE, because it leads to complicated systems which require centralized management to coordinate ppl to keep it working. This is a deliberate attack to capture an organization.
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