- Monitoring of power consumption for illegal computer usage? Check.
- Superintelligent AIs under tight supervision? Check.
- Bootlegged neural nets passed around on torrenting networks? Check.
- Poverty and homelessness running rampant? Check.
Folks, we're officially living in a cyberpunk dystopia.
“But Web3 sucks”
Hold. The beer.
Compared to what, exactly? because over the last 50 years, there have been dramatic improvements[1].
[1]: https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-evolution-of-global-p...
It's true - there's room to do better. So, so much better. But discarding the progress of the last 50 years is so unbelievably counter-productive.
San Francisco is ground-zero for the coming cyberpunk dystopia.
It’s just that there is this uncomfortable moment that you can accidentally get turned into a paper-clip, if you get that one-off error or a sign wrong. But otherwise it doesn’t look like a bad future. Particularly, if it is compared to an alternative where, well, you just die in one boring way or another.
EDIT:
To those who are illiterate, notice that I said 'small improvement' rather than 'downright worse'
While AI can be massively negative sum game for the world.
I did go past… where was it… Kawangware? I think?
I've never felt so much like a parodic stereotype of my own background[0] in my life as I did that day.
But that, in broad brushstrokes rather than details, is what most people's lives used to look like 200 or so years ago, basically everywhere.
50 years? 1973; back then, even the UK broadly didn't have double glazed windows, cavity wall or roof insulation, even in good middle-class homes. That was only a decade after we stopped calling Kenya a colony.
[0] British
How does this not justify what the above person stated, poverty is running rampant? More than 600 million people are still in extreme poverty. A record 100 million are displaced due to conflict in their countries. So I have to ask what exactly is unbelievably counter-productive here? I would argue that placating ourselves is.
[1:14] https://social.desa.un.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/...
But you can looks for yourself. Most people int he US today are far better off than most people were in the 1950s and 1960s. Median household income is up, life expectancy is up, educational attainment is up, percentage of income spent on food/housing/debt is all down, and on and on. Are there losers in the current social arrangement, of course but they represent a smaller fraction of society.
Is your life hollow?
Do you have a legal, valid roof over your head?
Are you a man?
I think you are the one who's disconnected. Ask your average crackhead on the block if they're happy, and then compare the answer to your average college dropout stocking groceries. People who haven't seen both sides tend to think happiness is made by Maslow's hierarchy of needs or is a linear function of material wealth - it's not. It seems like a joke, but this post https://www.reddit.com/r/drugscirclejerk/comments/8iyp0c/i_f... describes exactly what I mean. I genuinely believe some homeless people are more happy than some working-class people.
Case in point, you just spouted more metrics to me that have to do with the well being of the economy not the well being of the average person. I do not care about your numbers, because time and again they have been played. We should consider the idea that if we can take steps forward, we can also take steps backward.
And while we're at it I should ask - have you ever had to deal with a dead-end job with subpar pay? Were you ever forced to work in abusive environments? If so, then you can agree with me that it's a terrible state to be in - not the same as being homeless definitely but still terrible.
And if not, then why are you talking about things you don't know about? Do you really think economic metrics are a viable substitute for this lack of knowledge?
--
Setbacks, yes. But If I can read a graph (pg 15 of your link), the set back of a global pandemic in 2020 took us to 2015 levels. and we're looking to recover to our per-pandemic levels in 2024.
We might be getting into personal perspectives here... but that seems like a reasonably proportionate setback.
> There's nothing cyberpunk about this. Just good old fashioned bad governance, done in the traditional manner.
On the contrary, "good old fashioned bad governance" is an important feature of cyberpunk
And I have know some addicts, including some who were periodically homeless who would swear to you that they were happy that way, and maybe they were in those moments. But it never lasts, and I think anyone who has spent time around addicts would know that.
> Case in point, you just spouted more metrics to me that have to do with the well being of the economy not the well being of the average person.
Rising median household income is very relevant to the average person. Decline in the amount the average American spends on food, clothing, and debt is also very relevant. And I think increasing lifespans are quite relevant to the average person as well.
> And while we're at it I should ask - have you ever had to deal with a dead-end job with subpar pay?
I waited tables in a country club, worked in a cafe for a few years, and I worked at a terrible rental car company for awhile. I once saw my assistant manager throw someone through a plate glass window while shouting a slur I wouldn't type. In fact while I worked at the cafe my alcoholic friend's junkie boyfriend was living alternatively in a park and in a storage unit. He said he preferred that to my "shitty job" and responsibilities, but he looked pretty fucking miserable from where I sat then and now. I also know a lot of people living in pretty abject rural poverty, and can say for certain that they struggle less than their parents did in similar situations.
So I guess I'm coming to this with a lot of economic information, some personal experience, and just understanding that its plenty fucking stupid to say being homeless is better than have a home and a job.
There's been a 20x increase in diabetes over the past 70 years. Suicide rates are the highest since WWII, and on par with Great Depression rates. Let's not mention climate change and inequality because that's cliche.
These are things that we do measure. What about the percentage of one's time spent in a car? Spent sitting down? Spent in anxiety? Every thing you point out is a justification for an overscaled system IMO.
> I waited tables in a country club, worked in a cafe for a few years, and I worked at a terrible rental car company for awhile. I once saw my assistant manager throw someone through a plate glass window while shouting a slur I wouldn't type.
Then you should know that if you worked those jobs forever, you'd feel pretty shitty. Both you and the beggar could be staring at the same logos all day, seeing the same people, even be living on the same street, all while worrying that you might be next. Like I said - perhaps we can practice reading this time - it's not worse, it's just better by a much smaller amount than the typical SV techbro probably imagines.
If you think that then you've never had any serious interactions with the working poor, the homeless, or the addicted. It's miles better. No one is saying things are perfect, but Americans have a much higher material quality of life on average than at any point in the past.
I get it, you're some high and mighty doomer who wants to talk down to everyone and spew some over wrought jeremiad, good for you.
However, this assertion is the dumbest shit I've ever read.
> Both you and the beggar could be staring at the same logos all day, seeing the same people, even be living on the same street, all while worrying that you might be next. Like I said - perhaps we can practice reading this time - it's not worse, it's just better by a much smaller amount than the typical SV techbro probably imagines.
I can't imagine thinking that homelessness in the US vs low income work also in the US aren't wolds apart in life quality. You can look at any metric of disease, rates of violent crime victimization, life expectancy, and on and on and see that just being homeless makes you life demonstrably far worse than any alternative. Your position is totally divorced from data and clearly from any person insight.
Lmao there you go again. You can look at at anywhere but outside. You can cite anything but experience. Yes, my position is divorced from data, because fuck the data, it's not telling the whole story. I find it interesting for example that you're on the hype train when it comes to median income and whatever, but mentions of obesity and suicide rates are doomerism. You literally choose which statistics to interpret.
Here's what's happening. You think that once you're not homeless, you're suddenly not dealing with the same issues that you once were. If you stop and think about what these issues are, it's pretty clear that low SES people and homeless people share a lot in common. Here they are:
Mental health
Physical health
Physical safety (lesser)
Food security (lesser)
General unpleasantness (potentially lesser)
Spiritual health (potentially greater)
It's not crazy to think - again, unless you've made it and the only contact you have with the trenches is through metrics - that people with shitty jobs can have shitty lives. And personally, I'm not interested in quantifying how much shittier because that's inhumane. If someone is living a shit life, you have no right to tell them they're living better than someone else and wave their problems away while you have none. It's basic empathy really.