[TeMPOraL]

Maybe we're getting our technocracy after all. Increasingly, it's people like Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, et al. - ones with enough resources to liberate themselves from the yoke of the greedy algorithm our economy is, and at the same time with enough understanding to know and care about important issues - that are shaping the future of mankind.

[tsotha]

>Increasingly, it's people like Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, et al. - ones with enough resources to liberate themselves from the yoke of the greedy algorithm our economy is...

Eh, what? SpaceX is profitable.

And you can't get away from basing your space program on the economy, either because it determines your tax base or (potentially) because companies do space things for profit.

[TeMPOraL]

Let me clarify what I meant. Sure, SpaceX is profitable. It has to be. But Elon right now seems to be using the economy to pursue his own goals with Tesla and SpaceX, but those goals are not dictated by what is profitable. He had to amass some capital and then basically force the economy to accept his visions. Tesla Motors pretty much created the market for electric cars that don't suck. SpaceX and Tesla were not economically viable concepts at the beginning.

The thought I wanted to express is that our economic system is an optimization process that shapes (and is shaped by, in a feedback loop) the progress of technology. It's the economy that decided we won't be having moon bases or jetpacks anytime soon, even though we could. It's the force that decides that a random photosharing app is worth more than feeding the poor or curing cancer.

Current economy as an optimization process was aligned with human values pretty well so far (though not perfectly; government regulations are one of the tools we use to try and fix that alignment). But as a greedy process (in the CS sense of the word), it often gets stuck in local optimas. That's where Elons, Brins, etc. come in - they have enough cash and vision to force us out of the local optimum and help find a better one.

[th0br0]

Wonderful comparisons; I might have to steal them from you at some point. Thanks!

[TeMPOraL]

You might enjoy reading [0] - one of my favourite articles that dwells upon economic/game-theoretical concepts I addressed in my comment. It's rather long and somewhat specific, but IMO well worth the time to read.

[0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

[gress]

In your view, what important issues do these people who are shaping the future of mankind know and care about?

[TeMPOraL]

Climate change, ensuring continous access to energy, making humanity an interplanetary species, giving everyone access to all knowledge of mankind, life extension, fighting disease and death. Stuff like that - things we all care about, but don't really do anything about them because they're not short-term profitable.

I don't mean to pass moral judgement here. I only observe that some of the most important problems we have don't yield themselves well to capitalism (which is sort of obvious - the ones that were important but compatibile with greedy optimization are the ones we already solved).