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Lead in petrol, alcohol, heart disease, smoking, radiation... it's as if the medical profession hadn't made the connections before they had computers to mess with. Indeed it's seems that more use is made of computers to "prove" that there isn't a causality when one is obvious than to prove causality. Just because something isn't statistically significant doesn't mean there isn't a link it's just that the statistician has chosen a siginificance level to suit their ends.
Nuclear industry, car industry, tabaco industry, big pharma, drink industry, oil industry, war mongers, politicians... using and abusing algorithms to their evil ends.
Make a model based on assumptions to produce the result you want.
Global warming in response to CO2 emissions has been obvious to anyone who's thought about it for over a hundred years (and it's been in th escientific literature since then) but the climatic sceptics abused algorithms to claim it wasn't a thing and poured scorn on climate researchers clamining their results weren't statistically significant.
I was thinking this on the drive home yesterday.
We are (well, were) focusing on everything from the point of view of a consumer. We weren't giving any thought to the 'back end' as it were, and the advances there are massive.
As Edukator says, we are still feeling the fall-out from the Industrial Revolution era. Mistakes were made for sure, mistakes that will take some time to rectify. Mistakes that in some cases we're still making. But can we honestly say we'd be better off if it hadn't happened? Maybe if you'd rather live in a hippie commune in a field and grow your own yogurt but, hey, you probably could still do that.
And we're seeing it again now, history will refer to this period as the Technological Revolution I'm sure. We all know who the Luddites actually were, I presume? It feels fairly fitting a moniker here today for those taking to tech like a duck to petrol.
People fear change, it's human nature. The DNA quote earlier is spot on, the next generation will have never known any different.
My gran used to say "we never had three TV channels when I was younger" (probably didn't have a TV for most of it). I had to wait until they'd gone out to tune the TV into channel 4, they wouldn't let me near it "in case I broke it." They came home, I said "look, it just started working!" and they were like "see, I told you to leave it alone!" Fast forward to today, tell your grandkids you had to rush home from school to catch your TV programme or you'd miss the start and that was that, they'd look at you like you lived in a cave.
and the advances there are massive.
Both my paternal grandparents came from families that were witness to both massive numbers of children (8 and 10 respectively) caused by no access to any serious family planning and medical help of any kind, multiple child deaths, illness that were un-curable, and early death. Both were born into East End slums, and were lucky to escape them. In comparison to just a few generations ago, we live in unimaginable luxury that was only available to the very privileged.
I think one of the worst things for the modern day is the constant exposure to absolutely everything.
It's a double edged sword, years ago to learn something new you'd have to go to the library and read a book about it, now it's literally at your fingertips from the comfort of the sofa which is great. However now you see peoples algorithmically generated content on social media which was originally designed to connect us, but is now designed to keep our attention and the kind of stuff everyone is exposed to is just low grade content for the most part.
When I was younger we had one friend in our group who was really well off, we're talking 3x extravagant holidays a year, massive house, whenever something new came out and he wanted it he got it, he never got pocket money but just had to ask if he wanted something, his parents didn't blink an eye getting him a couple of grand yamaha drum kit for christmas and a full set of zildjian cymbals to go with it because he wanted to learn to play the drums and literally 2 months later when we were all getting into mountain biking they bought him a brand new kona stinky, whilst we were all riding around on built up 2nd hand bikes or saracens from halfords or waiting for our birthdays to get new upgrades on existing hand me down bikes, but all this was fine, we were clearly jealous but we knew out of our group of 10 he was the only one who was "rich".
Nowadays on social media you see people flexing what they have absolutely everywhere and it's almost like a luxurious lifestyle is a god given right, there's a bunch of young lads at my work with financed Mercedes and Audis, financed stone island and CP company garb, credit cards left right and center and up to their eyeballs in debt because there is so much pressure on the young these days to be successful and rich, they can't understand how I'm 3 to 4 positions their senior but drive a battered old qashqai and they constantly ask me why I'm driving that when I can clearly afford XYZ and they just can't wrap my head around it when I say it just gets me from A to B I'm not bothered, it's usually followed up with things like "don't you want to look good in a nice car though?" or "aren't you worried your neighbours might think you're not successful?"
Lot of youngsters these days seem to be completely driven by having an image that shows off success, and truth be told the only place I can think of this coming from is social media, plenty of tiktoks I've seen about the hustle culture and "buy my course to show you how to get rich", "Dropshipping earns me 10k a month" etc.
Not all younguns are like this granted, but there appears to be a lot more now than when I was in my early 20s.
Just feels like in a way the internet has turned into a bit of a monster in how it controls peoples narratives.
You think the younguns are bad, polluting power is roughly proportional to spending power and we oldies very much have the upper hand. Check out threads on van life/capervan life, the annual ski thread (Whislter or Italy?), motorbikes, track day/hooligan cars, exotic holiday destinations and even not so exotic (by today's standards), alibaba, heating bills, trail dogs.
Junior makes a modest living as a ski instuctor and DJ producer. Winter in the mountains, the rest of the year in a rented flat in Berlin. No car (I lend him ours if ever he needs on), walks, bikes, trains and flies for work when there are oceans in the way - if he declines another act will do it. He doesn't need a car to look good and neither his nor our neighbours give a shit.
Sure people have signed up the social media influencer nonsense (see the Binky and Colin Firth threads on here) but no generation has a monopoly and IME it's the end of career/just retired most sold out to the latest expensive fad.
Edit: an ageing family member was recently sooooooooo disappointed when the heli-hike in New Zealand was cancelled due to the weather, I know I shouldn't ever look at Facebook but sometimes I'm weak.
I sometimes imagine explaining the apps available to me on my iPhone to my 1980/90s self. I honestly wouldn’t have believed myself.
Check out threads on van life/capervan life, the annual ski thread (Whislter or Italy?), motorbikes, track day/hooligan cars, exotic holiday destinations and even not so exotic (by today’s standards), alibaba, heating bills, trail dogs.
I can assure you that whilst these threads pop up, that is not the norm for most people on here nor in the UK generally.
Lot of youngsters these days seem to be completely driven by having an image that shows off success, and truth be told the only place I can think of this coming from is social media
That has ALWAYS been the case. Now there might be more competition than before, maybe, but I'm not sure. One of the biggest differences is that in the past, a lot of people 'knew their station in life' and that was what they expected from it. Now, after 40 years of being told that we can be whatever we want to be, people have decided that they want to actually follow their dreams and do the things they want to do. And not necessarily to impress other people. If I went heli skiing in New Zealand it wouldn't be to impress anyone on Instagram, it would be because I actually wanted to go heli skiing in New Zealand. If I bought an expensive new bike it would not be to impress anyone I know, it would be because expensive bikes are cool in themselves.
Don't be too quick to judge, in case you judge wrongly.
No algorithms required
Complaining about algorithms is like complaining about formulae, theories, or sentences.
I sometimes imagine explaining the apps available to me on my iPhone to my 1980/90s self. I honestly wouldn’t have believed myself.
"It's like closing time at the Dog & Duck but you don't need to have your mate tell them you fancy them first"
I used the vocabulary being used. Perhaps I should have said "computer binary crunching to the detriment of humanity".
Some people really wouldn't do the stuff they do without a audience. French media became aware of this in the late 80s early 90s when they were accused of financing and encouraging what turned out to be fatal stunts.
Junior used to compete in ski cross but gave up at Sochi time when the courses had got so big that falls/crashes were going to be life changing/threatenting, and were for some, junior got away with a shoulder injury on a jump longer than a swimming pool in Val Tho'. We ended up winding the bindings up so tight to stop skis coming off on take offs and landings there was almost no protection for the knees or ankles in the case of a fall. I was inspired by ski cross in the Shaun Palmer X-Games period when it was quite entertaining enough for me but not media/sponsors apparently. The courses got stupid big.
On the Loudenvielle thread I noted some pertinent comments about DH courses getting faster and bigger to please the media people, and that tight technical sections had gone - just like in ski cross. I gave up rallying when Toivonen was killed, it had just got out of hand.
Give people an audience and they'll take the most stupid risks whether a sponsored athlete or some kid down the jump gully in Swinley. A stunt is no harder to do 2m up than 1m up but if you want to impress it's tempting to do it 2m up or more. We saw a guy fall and break both ankles on Downhill Racer on Frogatt, would he have done it with no audience?
Some people really wouldn’t do the stuff they do without a audience
Yeah, some. But don't assume everyone.
And yeah pretty much anything "to the detriment of humanity" is detrimental to humanity.