[wernst]

I agree, but I'm reminded of this quote from Ernest Hemingway: “How did you go bankrupt?” “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

Massive change due to tech is always just waiting to happen. Here's to hoping it just changes society without destroying it.

[rramadass]

>“How did you go bankrupt?” “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

Great quote! Gradually and unknowingly you approach a tipping point until some factor pushes you over the edge like the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back".

I believe Sale was/is broadly right. Some of Nassim Taleb's ideas also play into this viz. our inability to predict the future and the catastrophic effect of non-linear and "black swan" events. It is not "Technology" that is the problem but our stewardship of it. We simply are not taking a holistic system view of it which is absolutely necessary when our system (i.e. our planet) is "closed".

[jb_gericke]

Actually the global poverty line has been on a steady decline over the last three decades (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty). We have made untold advances in the medical sciences (hello MRNA vaccines), we are rapidly divorcing ourselves from our reliance on fossil fuels, and we are living in a time when there is an unprecedented level of awareness for basal human rights (well, primarily in the West and North America). I feel Sale is incredibly naive in thinking agrarian or subsistence based societies were the pinnacle of human comfort. Back breaking labour, very long working hours, poor health care and for the most part, endentured servitude to those who own the land/mills/factories you toil away in? A very reductive and simplistic way of thinking, ala 'Lets go back to the good ol days where the world made sense to me...' It's ridiculous.

[Daho0n]

It's not that simple. Sure "the good old days" wasn't that good, but that doesn't mean he was completely wrong.

>We have made untold advances in the medical sciences

Out of reach of a lot of humanity and for those that can access it it is not without risks (just look at the medical devices debacle in the US). It also isn't as good as we often seem to believe. For example the US is number 7 in Deaths by heart attack but it is still double the amount of deaths as number 1[0].

>we are rapidly divorcing ourselves from our reliance on fossil fuels

Acording to EIA[1] "The share of U.S. total energy consumption that originated from fossil fuels has fallen from its peak of 94% in 1966 to 80% in 2018". 80% is not "divorcing ourselves from our reliance on fossil fuels". It will be at least ten years before we see another 10% down in the US.

>we are living in a time when there is an unprecedented level of awareness for basal human rights

Yet human rights, press freedom and economic freedom are all on a downswing in the US[2][3][4].

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_o...

1: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41353

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index

4: https://ourworldindata.org/human-rights

[simonh]

The US is just one country and we're talking about the future of humanity as a whole. Here in the UK we've eliminated more than half our carbon emissions from energy generation, and generally the US is lagging far behind a lot of other countries. Covid aside, economic and health improvement trends globally have been incredibly positive. Since 1995 about a billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty. That doesn't look much like a collapse to me.

[Daho0n]

>Since 1995 about a billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty

That is a great soundbite for the news but is it actually as great as it sounds? If we take it as fact that "one billion humans have been lifted out of extreme poverty" what about how many are in extreme poverty? Note that how many is outside extreme poverty doesn't say anything about the amount in extreme poverty, just that more are now above it. The world population grew by 1.6 billion between 1990 and 2010 according to the UN. So on one side we have the "one billion have been lifted out of extreme poverty" but on the other we have "1.6 billion more humans" with the greatest growth in poverty stricken countries like Nigeria. I don't know the numbers but I don't believe that the "about a billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty" is the whole truth since AFAIK the amount in extreme poverty have grown.

EDIT: Looking up the numbers it hasn't "grown" but "extreme poverty" is seen as "statically less than 1.9 international dollars per day". Is it a lift to $3 or $30? $3 is still living in squalor and destitution if you ask most people in the West I'm sure. IMO extreme poverty haven't declined outside statistics.

[prepend]

> what about how many are in extreme poverty?

This is a simple and knowable answer. And it doesn’t change the facts the sound bite is based on. Extreme poverty is lower now as a percentage. There are fewer born into extreme poverty now, etc.

You can also pick other cutoffs and they are improving as well. Obviously the goal is to raise people higher than $3/day, but this is just an existing measure that’s getting better.

It’s frustrating to me when people nitpick unimportant details as if they were significant.

I don’t think anyone who established the extreme poverty cutoff thinks that it is the end goal, or that $3/day is as good as $30/day. So everyone agrees that 10x is better. But there are measures for extreme poverty because it’s a problem and needs to be addressed differently to get people from $.01/day to $3/day differently than interventions for $3 to $30 (and $30 to $100).

Pinker’s book, Angels of our Better Nature, goes into this quite a bit. And there’s a lot of global health primary sources to also help answer your questions.

[ben_w]

The relevant graphs are: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Global-inequality...

From: https://ourworldindata.org/global-economic-inequality

And I think you’re underestimating the marginal utility of going from $1.90 to $3 — both would suck for someone with a baseline of Western expenses, but it is the difference between a literal hand-to-mouth life of subsistence farming in a shack, versus a family that all works being able to collectively afford to rent a basic concrete flat with terrible plumbing on an unpaved street (citation: my ex took me to Nairobi a few years ago, we met one of her local friends, the friend’s flat was about $800/year to rent, $800/year is the increased income from two people going from $1.9 to $3 per day).

[simonh]

You're right to call that out. There are one billion fewer people in extreme poverty now than there were then. A bit over 500 million compared to over 1.5 billion, even taking into account the increase in the worlds population. Most of this increase has been in Asia where hundreds of millions of people have risen into the urban middle class. Industrial wages in China have increased almost 10x in the last 2 decades, and industrial employment has ballooned.

The situation in Africa isn't so good, but has substantially improved. Of course the cost of this has been stagnant wage growth and anaemic employment in the developed world, as hundreds of thousands of people in China and South East Asia joined the global labour pool.

[ben_w]

Regarding energy: the trend in PV is an exponential with a roughly 2.25 year doubling time, and while I make no claims about how long that exponential will continue for, that trend would reach about 10-17 TW by 2030 if continued.

[slumpt_]

100% this.

Too many folks gulped Pinker’s nonsense without further inspection because it suited their priors.

[QuesnayJr]

I feel like equally as many people rejected Pinker because it violated their priors.

I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other -- I guess my prior is that I am skeptical of broad narratives one way or the other and I think Pinker is prone to facile generalizations -- but most of the rebuttals I've seen to Pinker seem offended by the idea of progress, rather than taking his arguments seriously.

[ajmadesc]

The irony of this comment is you say

> The global poverty line has been on steady decline

That's about right. We measure poverty as less than $2 per day. It's an arbitrary number. It would need to be $7.50 to prevent malnutrition and lower than 50% mortality. If we use the 7.50 mark the number of people in poverty has increased dramatically since the 80s.

[prepend]

> If we use the 7.50 mark the number of people in poverty has increased dramatically since the 80s.

This seems surprising to me. What do you think is the best source for me to learn about this metric? I found a lot of info on the methodology behind $1.9/day [0] but couldn’t find much by looking for the $7.50/day mark and how it has changed over time.

I found this guardian article referencing $7.4/day [1] but the link they give to Peter Edward on an ethical poverty line doesn’t work. When I search for Edward’s concept I find papers from him [2] but they seem to reference $2/day.

Edit: I was able to find a gapminder analysis [3]. They break income into four groups, less than $2, less than $8, less than $32, more. The shift in poverty is still positive so I’m not sure what measure is being used to show 1B more under $7.5/day. This may be due to demographic trends where that group is growing faster. It is important to consider the overall proportion, not just absolute number, as well as the alternative of where they would have been (ie, a billion under $7.50 is better than a billion under $1.9).

But it’s hard to discuss without source data and methods.

[0] http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/methodology.aspx [1] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals... [2] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/014365905004327... [3] https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2020;;&ch...

[adamcstephens]

https://www.jasonhickel.org/the-divide

The author addresses this question, along with how the UN has continually shifted the goal posts to reinforce the narrative that poverty has been reduced.

[prepend]

Thanks for replying, I’ll check out this book and learn about how it’s measuring poverty. The concept seems about inequality though, that is different (although important) than poverty.

This quote mixes the two concepts “ Since 1960, the income gap between the North and South has roughly tripled in size. Today 4.3 billion people, 60 per cent of the world's population, live on less than $5 per day.” and doesn’t provide context on whether the percent of the worlds population living in less than $5/day is better or worse than in 1960.

[nearbuy]

That doesn't sound right. Do you have a source for that?

What does 50% mortality mean here?

[rramadass]

I think you have missed the point. Please see my response to "lamontcg" in this thread for some rebuttal.

Note that it is not just Sale (though of course he is quite extremist in his views) who has pointed to the deleterious effects of our Technology, Social systems etc. which may lead to "Collapse" of our Civilization; you also have Nassim Taleb, Jacques Ellul, Michael Ruppert espousing similar arguments in different contexts.

All that you mention are "local effects" having their own unforeseen long-term negatives, due to self-limiting feedback loops, for example (without making any moral/judgemental/ethical calls);

>global poverty line has been on a steady decline over the last three decades

Debatable and for a certain definition of "poverty". Inequality has only been increasing and if i am unable to afford stuff even though i make more today then i did a few years ago, that is not "alleviation of poverty". Even if we accept your argument we now have the problem of increased middle class population leading to rampant consumerism and pressure on both social and natural resources.

>untold advances in the medical sciences

True but the other side is also adapting itself to work around our efforts eg; "Superbugs". We also don't know what the long-term effects of genetic engineering would be. There is also the problem that advanced medicine leads to longer lives and thus more pressure on social safety nets and healthcare.

>we are rapidly divorcing ourselves from our reliance on fossil fuels

Wishful thinking; we have a long way to go and given our propensity for short-term fixes we may very well run out of time.

>when there is an unprecedented level of awareness for basal human rights

Awareness does not necessarily lead to Usage/Implementation.

The above is not to say that "good old days" were "very good" and we should blindly roll back our scientific and technological use. On the contrary just like we have realized that Atomic warfare is unlike anything ever experienced by mankind and hence has to be prevented and dealt with in a whole different way than we have ever handled our "differences", so should our use of Science/Technology towards the betterment of our Societies, Other Species, Natural Resources and ultimately the whole Planet.

[rocqua]

> Debatable and for a certain definition of "poverty". Inequality has only been increasing and if i am unable to afford stuff even though i make more today then i did a few years ago, that is not "alleviation of poverty". Even if we accept your argument we now have the problem of increased middle class population leading to rampant consumerism and pressure on both social and natural resources.

Taken globally, and looking at purchasing power. Things have been massively improving for the very poorest. Because developing countries are doing just that, developing.

Inequality and poverty are two distinct things. Poverty is having lack of access to things you need. Inequality is becoming a big issue, and poverty is far from being solved. There certainly are opportunities to solve both problems. But the depth of poverty for a lot of humans has lessened the last few years, and that is undeniably a good thing.

[SirHound]

And just imagine all the tribal wars. Talk about forgetting your history

[natmaka]

I was under the impression that in a distant past tribal wars ceased at the first blood, serious wound or at worse first victim, and didn't induce a major risk for non-combattants.

Modern politics and weaponry changed transmuted tribal wars into contemporary wars, some with systematic massive massacres and such.

If true it may mean that most 'classic' tribal wars were way less damaging than WW1 or WW2. In any case it seems hard to imagine how even some extreme tribal war may be more damaging than a total nuclear war.

[prepend]

> I was under the impression that in a distant past tribal wars ceased at the first blood, serious wound or at worse first victim, and didn't induce a major risk for non-combattants.

Not sure where this comes from. Tribal wars frequently ended in genocide, mass destruction, etc. The book Sapiens covers some of the evidence for how Neanderthals were exterminated.

I agree though that total nuclear war would be way worse than all the tribal wars in history. Although, interestingly, it seems like threat of nuclear war has prevented lots of wars. There have been no wars between major powers since nuclear wars. Maybe the closest was the Korean War, but China wasn’t a nuclear power back then.

[natmaka]

Which non-modern tribal war ended in genocide or mass destruction?

AFAIK Neanderthals went extinct due to climatic change and disease.

Moreover tribes are everywhere defined by a complex and dynamic system of relationships. Neanderthals where another human species, or at least subspecies, and as far as I understand we cannot be sure that such relationships were established or even possible with another human species.

The threat of nuclear war ("MAD") may have prevented wars between major powers, but it didn't prevent many proxy wars, some of them quite destructive, and assuming that the net effect was positive is only an opinion (probably not shared by many in Africa and Asia).

[stavros_]

Back breaking labour, very long working hours, poor health care and for the most part, endentured servitude to those who own the land/mills/factories you toil away in?

All of these things are more true now than they were in the average subsistence based society. Amazon warehouse workers have a worse deal than serfs, and a much much worse deal than hunter gatherers.

Oh and this

we are rapidly divorcing ourselves from our reliance on fossil fuels

Isn't just wrong, it's laughable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment

If you want a really long read - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31850765-energy-and-civi...

The tl;dr is that renewables cannot provide equivalent levels of surplus energy to fossil fuels, cannot offer the same reliability as fossil fuels, cannot perform the same functions as fossil fuels (e.g. shipping). Not now, not ever. Not possible.

[ben_w]

Your own link puts the EROI of renewables in the same range as conventional oil (wind slightly better, PV slightly worse), and way better than shale or sand oil.

And of course you can make liquid fuels by cracking water and then doing chemistry to add carbon (which can be from atmospheric CO2). This is what Musk has planned for Mars, the process is from 1897: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction

Further chemistry can turn that into long chain hydrocarbons, from what I remember of school.

[glenstein]

>All of these things are more true now than they were in the average subsistence based society

I don't think that's accurate at all. For one, we no longer have prevalence of childhood leukemia that we used to have. You could run down a long list of similar examples related to health.

For another, we have robust labor standards in most of the world which we didn't didn't used to have. Warehouse workers do indeed have appalling work conditions measured by modern standards, and we should be incensed by those. But I think any serious consideration of what, say, dust bowl Texas was like prior to rural electrification, or what an experience of hunter-gatherer life would be like for a person who actually wanted to go out and try it, I think it would be nuts to say such conditions are preferable.

As others have mentioned, your own link to EROI doesn't appear to make the point that you think it does.

[imtringued]

>Isn't just wrong, it's laughable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment

Conventional oil reserves are declining so this article merely proves that renewables are superior.

[slumpt_]

Society is great...

...if you’re a well compensated tech worker having gourmet lunch delivered by benefit-less contractors paid slave wages.

[dash2]

“Amazon warehouse workers have a worse deal than serfs“

Could you back this claim up? I don’t find it at all plausible.

[lamontcg]

Yeah we're just likely to cruise along operating as "ABoringDystopia" until we hit some kind of fairly hard stop.

I don't know what that is going to look like though so I'm not taking any concrete bets. I certainly don't know what comes after.

[rramadass]

Jacques Ellul also has a lot to say on the effects of Technology on Society.

I think the following factors, broadly speaking; will be our (i.e. Civilization as we know it today) downfall;

  * Environmental Disaster as a consequence of rampant consumerism. The planet simply cannot sustain it. Our current "Renewables/Recyclables/Carbon Credit etc." policies are a joke. We have forgotten that our planet is a closed system with finite resources.

  * Our "Baser" Instincts - We will always subvert any and all technological advances towards the pursuit of power, wealth, and greed and exclude "others" (i.e. those not belonging to our group) thus increasing the "inequalities" in our society.

  * Non-linear "catastrophic" effects of many of our social systems - As Nassim Taleb points out in his books, many of our systems are non-linear in their effects and inherently fragile. Thus our ability to predict the long-term future is non-existent.

  * The rise of mono-culture biological and social systems. Evolution has always proceeded as a loosely coupled federation of highly cohesive units eg. Madagascar/Australia vs. Asia/Europe, small self-sustaining villages/kingdoms bartering amongst themselves vs. megapolises with huge populations and pegged to a "common currency". This makes the entire system fragile to local shocks.

  * Adaptation and Evolution of other species against our measures towards controlling them eg. "Superbugs".

[TeMPOraL]

I mostly agree with the points, except for:

> Evolution has always proceeded as a loosely coupled federation of highly cohesive units

No, it did not. Evolution does what it does, things that are good enough at surviving survive. For instance, multicellular organisms, and in particular large animals, are "megapolises with huge populations and pegged to a 'common currency'". Fragility is a more nuanced topic too, large coupled systems are vulnerable to internal problems, but they can also withstand external forces that would kill the equivalently populous "loosely coupled federation". All in all, evolution is probably not the best thing to draw lessons about organization from, because a) any system of organization you can think of is likely already effectively used in some organisms, somewhere, and b) evolution doesn't care about well-being of individual cells, but we care about the well-being of individual humans. That last constraint means we can't just do thing the way evolution does, which is throwing crap at the wall and seeing what sticks.

[vagrantJin]

Yes. Nassim Taleb is essential reading.