Bill Gates: Why I Decided to Edit an Issue of TIME
time.comHuman race has evolved from that sub-atomic particle of star dust since eons and reached this point where we are typing this comment. Obviously this cannot happen without the necessary checks and balances throughout history and it will be this way going into the future. So no need to spell doom, though the cautious gene in us still keeps vigil.
Just because the world is a better place than it was 50 years ago does not mean it is a better place than it was 2 years ago.
And even if it were a better place in some aggregate measure than 2 years ago doesn't mean that it's better for most people than it was 2 years ago, and even if it is better for most people, it doesn't mean it's better for most people in some particular country, say THE USA, and even if it's better for most people in your country, it doesn't mean it's better for you.
Two things have always been true about human beings. One, the world is always getting better. Two, the people living at that time think it`s getting worse.
Penn Jillette
I thought things always getting better is a relatively recent phenomenon. Things didn't get better for hundreds of years for the native Americans when Columbus came to America. Or after the fall of the roman empire was Europe as good the next few hundred years? Maybe there has been a general trend up but if the trend can drop drastically for the few years you're living in does the general trend up make a difference?
I think it’s meant to be figurative more than literal.
Is that a euphemism for "I think it’s wrong"?
You won't even defend the quote you posted from it's most obvious criticism?
To everyone in this thread: please step back and ask yourself why you're continuing to comment. Are you looking to be understood? To understand? To prove or show that someone else wrong? If it's not one of the first two, please just stop. If it is one (or both! which is what it should be) of the first two, take another step back and ask yourself what's the most constructive way of accomplishing that goal. Right now you're all just talking past each other, commenting at each other rather than with each other. It doesn't matter how any one else is commenting or how wrong they are: you can only change how you yourself do.
I like the quality of discussion on HN. I think we should discourage things like posting pithy quotes from comedians. Especially if you won't even stand behind the point you're trying to make.
And yes, I would like my perspective to be understood.
I'm glad that you're hoping to be understood. I think it's equally important (perhaps moreso) to also to seek to understand. Steelman† your opponent: interpret what they're saying in the most charitable way. Straw manning or taking pot shots with short questions rarely indicates that you're also seeking to understand or are engaging in good faith. Who knows? They may actually have an important point, perhaps not yet fully formed, and aren't expressing it well. And if others are doing the same, they may help you better express your own perspective.
I'm familiar with the concept. I try to apply it. Especially when I think the person is arguing in good faith. Which I try to assume.
I understand their point, because they're just repeating the title of a blog post that hit the front page a while back. There was some good faith discussion in that thread between people who disagreed. They didn't start by throwing out a pithy quote and then refusing to respond to someone who presents a valid counter example (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16086244).
I get that you have a pet project in attempting to create civil discussion - that's nice and very commendable. But...
Please apply your own formula to the post you're replying to. Are you understanding what he's telling you, or just trying to tone police?
What happens when your conversation partner is not actually interested in having a discussion, and simply posits a position then abandons it immediately? Is it fruitful to create a position for them? Is that a fair burden for a responder to bear to batter down weak, fallacious, but amply spread falsities?
I do my best to apply my own formula: after all, if I don't think it's worthwhile to do, it would be disingenuous for me to recommend others to do it. I think I do understand where they're coming from, which is why I built upon that in my follow-up comment.
Re-reading my comments above, one thing I think that could be improved is the use of "you": it's colloquial to use it to refer to a person in general as opposed to the person you're currently responding to, and that can be misread (perhaps even unconsciously), particularly when discussions get heated.
Do you have other recommendations as to how this might be better conveyed? What indications do you have that I'm misreading 'chickenfries? I recognize that whether I actually am misreading them (which is always a possibility) and whether or not you read me as misreading them are distinct, and it's my responsibility to do my best to reduce the likelihood of mismatch.
As for your last paragraph, ff you've determined your conversation partner is not actually interested in having a discussion, in my opinion it's best to just let the matter drop, which is what I recommended in my initial comment. You're right, I don't think it's fruitful to create a position for them. Continuing the discussion at that point just adds noise and arguably degrades the forum. FWIW, I'll take my own advice here if I decide that my contributions to this thread are contributing more heat than light.
>in my opinion it's best to just let the matter drop
Sure, because you're focused on the quality of conversation. That's what you're optimizing for. For others, who are interested in the quality of available information, posting a quick rebuttal to signal to other readers that the post in question has issues may be preferable.
I see plenty of misleading and dangerous musings about law on the forum from people who don't know better and frankly don't care to know better; your advice would be to walk away. Mine is to signal to individual that there is clear and present danger in treating the post's content as factual.
You view that response as creating noise. I don't.
I agree that it's important to point out things that are actually harmful. That quick rebuttal needs to include more than a snarky snipe, an insult, or a statement that "No, you're wrong." If that's all that's being added, you may as well just downvote, which is, among other things, an indication that the comment isn't a worthwhile contribution.
To be useful and more than noise, it needs to actually rebut the point in line or pointing to additional resources. HN is pretty good on that point: the community is large enough that it's going to get addressed well. Quality of conversation and quality of information needn't be at odds, and both are addressed in the guidelines.
And there are enough versions of ‘better’ for both assessments to be right.
The viewpoint that things are getting better is usually reserved for those that were pretty lucky in the birth lottery to begin with.
> So why does it feel like the world is in decline
Because our environment is on the decline. Our oceans are full of plastic, our forests are converted to farmland for cattle, pollution from electronics is rising, and our global climate is changing for the worse.
Even optimistic areas like health care are being confounded by obesity and malnutrition. It’s great that global health care and poverty rates are improving. But in some of our own countries things are getting worse. There’s a growing income inequality and an obesity epidemic. My generation may be the first in a while to have a lower life expectancy than my parents’. Many of my friends are feeling hopeless because their university degrees are buying them 20 hours a week at minimum wage (which has not adjusted for inflation too well) while the cost of housing sky rockets.
On the other hand, by most measures, pollution in the US hit a low in the 60's and has greatly improved since then. It's even improved quite a bit since 1990 [1]. Even CO2 emissions are on the decline since 2008. (Not nearly enough, but still.)
In the Eastern US the low point for forest cover was in 1872 [2]. In the western US a major problem is too much ground cover resulting in worse forest fires. (Which is not to say that forests are healthy - the pine beetle epidemic is devastating.)
I'm not going to say things are great, but whether they're better or worse depends on where you look and what you compare against.
[1] https://gispub.epa.gov/air/trendsreport/2017/#air_pollution
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_the_United_...
Health care is also confounded by climate change and global warming as flu season strikes earlier and more viciously: https://globalbiodefense.com/2013/01/31/global-warming-and-t...
Just like starfish are being laid low by a virus normally kept at bay by lower ocean temperatures (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/scient...), I expect there to be higher rates of unexpected disease in human populations as well.
Yet, you write this on a Computer, which wouldnt be possible without those fossil fuels that pushed us through the industrial revolution and onto the technical revolution and gave us those plastics.
I think it’s crazy to assume we won’t find answers to the problems you bring up and take a sky is falling attitude when you look at the track record of human progress. Even though your friends are struggling to find jobs, they’re likely living better than John D. Rockefeller did. Doesn’t excuse the problem, but don’t take these things for granted.
Many of your comments in this thread have broken the HN guidelines by being flamebait or outright flamewar. It's one thing to express a considered point of view and another to get into ideological mud wrestling. Please don't post like this again.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: it looks from your recent history like you've primarily been using HN for ideological battle. That destroys what this site is supposed to be for, so we ban accounts that do it. Please don't do it. That is also in the site guidelines.
My comment is in line with the Bill Gates article and wasn’t meant to incite the response it got. Bill Gates wasn't trolling when he wrote the article and neither was I. The fact that the post and my comment got flagged says something about HN ideology and/or me expressing myself poorly.
The crux of the article was that people, the media, etc always focus on things getting worse while the data shows they’re getting better. I agree with that. In the future, I will be more careful in expressing myself so as not to arouse resentment. I’ll also stop posting about BTC.
they’re likely living better than John D. Rockefeller did
This may be true in material terms but it assumes that material wellbeing is all that counts.
The reason this comment triggered such a strong reaction is that it dismisses the emotional distress that goes along with being at the bottom of the socioeconomic pile.
Factors like student debt, medical costs and the general costs of living in many places put many people into profound distress, that can turn into unbearable chronic misery, for which air conditioning seems like small consolation.
I agree with your overall point, and I am one of those that is able to take an optimistic view of the future and trust that problems that seem like existential threats now can be resolved in time.
But I'd urge you to be sensitive enough to anticipate the kinds of reactions you'll trigger when you make a claim like this, even if it's true by the narrow definition you've chosen.
Sure, I can appreciate how insensitive that sounded. It was a bad way to come off and that truly wasn’t my intention.
I would really like to see you say that with a straight face to someone stuck in a minimum wage jobs who can’t afford healthcare. Seriously. This optimism about the long term does nothing for someone who is suffering in the short and medium term.
That comparison to Rockafeller is nonsense. Go ask someone working at McDonald’s if they’d trade places with one of the richest men ever.
Health insurance, minimum wages, fast food even... This is but a sampling of the human progress I mentioned parsed out of a single misguided post you made. There are people in the world far worse off than your friend making minimum wage.
You take these things for granted because you live in a rich enough society that enables you to do so.
You really assume too much about me. I'm one generation removed from 3rd world farmers.
You're convinced that anyone who has a problem with their standard of living in America has no perspective, when really you're the one who can't see the perspective of the lower class of someone living in one of the richest countries in the world. Seriously, you're making these arguments on the internet, on a forum where everyone is presumed to be working in technology and therefore not starving, how about you go volunteer at a shelter in your city like I do and tell those people "cheer up! I bet you wouldn't want to switch places with John Rockefeller!"
I know you won't though.
>they’re likely living better than John D. Rockefeller did
When you make absurd conclusions, you should examine your premises.
On a material basis, not absurd at all. I mean, air conditioning is pretty damn amazing as is electric power (which was non existant for much of Rockefeller’s life). The Haber process for nitrogen based fertilizer, the list goes on and on.
It is absurd. Obscenely absurd.
Rockefeller could literally pay an army of people to fan him with palm leaves, make sorbet from the ol' ice house and make him fresh iced tea as he walked around town if he wanted.
What the fuck does Rockefeller care if the carrying capacity of agricultural land increases due to the Haber process if his personal consumption would remain the five-star best-in-class ingredients for every meal he ever has if he so chooses. He doesn't care about the mean's position. He is the tail.
The existence of air conditioning and the Haber process doesn't make the life of the working poor better than his.
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Trump got 62,979,636 votes. That's 46% of voters, but 24% of the population eligible to vote (and 20% of the total population).
No, less than a third of eligible voters voted for the racist con-man. The majority of Americans voted against him or not at all.
Not that that actually matters.
You sound unhappy, which is confusing to me, because you just listed a bunch of great challenges to work on.
Working on challenges tends to remove feelings of hopelessness.
Would you say this to someone who told you they had cancer? Or lost their job?
“I‘m surprised your not happy about hardship?”
Do you actually look at something like obesity, or addiction and say “ah, what a great PROBLEM to work on.”