The fear of technology is the fear of man's capability to misuse it. It's got nothing to do with economic or political preference and all to do with the fact that Machiavellian people exist in all societies.
I think this is naive. I really wish that all bad in the world came from machiavellian people and no one else. But there is a lot of good people (or at least not outright evil people) doing bad things, either through incompetence, ignorance, mistakes, etc. I think questioning the direction technology takes with capitalist incentives (profits over people) is really important. You can't dismiss those concerns by saying "technology is only bad when people are bad".
Bad in and of itself isn't a universal constant or pillar, morality is relative.
Not sure if you've read The Prince, but Machiavelli never suggested "evil" intent, just that as a good ruler you must embrace all strategies to achieve your goal, the ruler may not think of themselves as "bad", but should accept doing questionable things to advance whatever agenda they feel is "right". And what is "right" all depends on your perspective, doesn't it?
There's no moral absolutes, just majorities that ascribe to a similar set of red lines.
Capitalism creates machines that put profit and shareholder value above all else and creates some pretty twisted motivations of what is "right".
Historical Communism puts the will and power of the state over the welfare of the people as what is "right". We all know how well that turned out.
I'd rather say it's potentially naive to think that ideas such as "good" and "bad" are absolutes.
I'll rephrase my point so we can steer clear of the pedantic discussion about machiavellianism and "good" or "bad":
There's a lot of people doing things they consider bad without actually wanting to do them. Thinking that all consequences of technology are intended is missing half the picture, as it dismisses the fact that there will be unintended and unwanted consequences. It is a naive take that does not allow space for discussing how to predict, detect and avoid those unintended consequences.
> It is a naive take that does not allow space for discussing how to predict, detect and avoid those unintended consequences.
(I think you might want to reconsider using "naive", it's belittling and RealStorm of r/iamverysmart.)
Its not about the misuse of technology, it gets created without a Hobbesian leviathan, there is no universal overseer that knows when something is invented and can therefore pull the breaks on whether progress should be stopped. Nor can the invention of said technologies' uses be predicted, especially when it comes to fundamental research.
An example: Maxwell created his famous equations in 1860, they would become foundational in enabling radio broadcasting in 1890. Radio in and of itself has enabled all kinds of amazing communications breakthroughs to make humanity richer. But it also enabled true modern warfare as it expanded the capability of nations to orchestrate massive military engagements across multiple theatres.
Should we have stopped Hertz and Marconi? Where would this debate be held? Who enforces the outcomes of these debates in the modern geopolitical space we live in today? There's a simple practical problem with the whole situation.
Once the genie is out, it's unstoppable - see nukes, once the US used one, the race was on to invent it independently.
Perhaps your issue is down to me using "misuse" as that implies a correct one exists. Let's just say that a "correct" one (or many) exists in the eyes of the original inventor or creator. It takes the imagination and motivations of others to re-apply that knowledge.
One could go so far to say that all technology in and of itself is dangerous.
You started this thread by saying that the fear of technology does not have to do with the political and economic system but with Machiavellian people, and now that “incorrect” uses are the problems of other people. But I’m not talking about that. I’m not talking about someone using radio for warfare or nuclear energy for destruction. Those are included when I said “I wish all bad things happened because of bad people”: those are things that I consider bad and have been done on purpose. Consequences of using the atomic bomb were clear, intended and understood.
The problem comes when someone uses technology for some purpose but some unintended consequences happen. For example, judicial systems using AI to predict recidivism and adjust sentences. It’s a system created to improve the situation (people with low chance of recidivism receive lighter sentences as the goal of rehabilitation is accomplished earlier) but, if the system picks up certain biases or incorrect proxy measures, can make mistakes and put certain people way too long in prison, which decreases their opportunities to redo their lives after prison. An unintended consequence of the system is that it might actually increase recidivism or discriminate and condemn people. It’s not “misuse” of AI, it’s unwanted consequences.
And in that context it is warranted to ask what are the incentives of the economic system and how will they affect technology. In a capitalist society, the incentives make people focus on profits, and people wellbeing is not necessarily important in that context. In a non-capitalist society you wouldn’t have to worry about, for example, insurance companies using AI to predict car crash probabilities and stopping people (sometimes wrongly) from getting insurance and being able to drive a car.
That’s what I mean when I say that reducing bad outcomes (however you want to define “bad”) to people wanting to have those outcomes does not help at all. Because then you stop worrying about all the people with good intentions that do something with unwanted consequences. For example, if you don’t talk about the unwanted effects of AI and how to avoid them, you will have data scientists creating models and not worrying about indirect effects. Most of the time you won’t need to “stop progress” but just be mindful of a bunch of extra things.
And, of course, ignoring the system in which technology is developed and used blinds you to a whole class of problems created by the incentives of the system (capitalism or whatever).
The conclusion of this article is basically "I don't understand how to use common sense and data at the same time, so I'll hark back to old-timey "gut instinct" and good-ol-fashioned selection bias hidden by my own lack of self-understanding to validate my ignorance, oh and here's some BS about lockdown policies."
What a joke, all of these posts have the same conclusions: don't deal in absolutes.
Go's GC is excellent btw, a massive benefit is also that you don't need the whole Java VM to run your app.
For pure performance, go write something in C or Rust. In fact for folks that are obsessed with performance rolling your own is the only option. Which is probably why the DO team went down this path.
For most use cases the benefit of working in your dev teams context / language of choice outweighs performance considerations.
And at Tyk the go plugins are native, you can slow down the GC activity to really boost performance if you have RAM to spare. Speed isn't an issue.
Ultimately it comes down to what you are trying to accomplish. What's best for your dev team? How can you innovate faster? How can you get this done cost effectively.
Performance comparisons are a dick measuring contest that are rarely relevant to the problem you are trying to solve.
Going to jump on the shilling thread here and recommend Tyk.
Tyk is an open source API Gateway written in Go, it's also the most extensible OSS API gateway as it doesn't force you to learn Lua (Go, Python and Lua plugins are supported in-process) to extend it. In fact DO could have written their auth logic in rails with Tyk's gRPC plugin support.
It also has the same performance curve as OpenResty these days as it's been around for over 5 years and used in critical high-performance infrastructure projects.
From customers that have performance tested us against Kong and NGinX during competitive tender (where we also won the business). Unfortunately those aren't public.
There's a decent blog post my head of research did a while ago:
This is the same issue that faces newspapers, publishers and TV stations. At some point the scale of reach and influence come into conflict with public policy and governance.
Newspapers are horribly regulated and most TV stations can say what they like within reason - especially in the US where being fair and balanced is no longer a requirement to run a news service.
This jurisdictional problem affects all media and isn't just limited to social platforms.
The difference with TV and Newspapers is that they can have their licenses revoked. So there is a degree of power wielded by the government over what is acceptable locally.
In contrast, social media infringes on sovereign power by existing and influencing on a global scale without being regulated on a local one. A great example is name suppression during trials, it might be illegal for a newspaper in France to publish a name, but that doesn't stop one in the UK from doing it, and because the paper has a website, that foreign paper inadvertently breaks local law in France because anyone can look it up, but it can't be held accountable.
Sovereignty and global digital media do not intersect well without an interface - and that just doesn't exist.
Expect more balkanisation of the Internet in the future as govts take back some control over media within their borders.
And no, I'm not advocating for dictator-like suppression of free-speech, but a mechanism of accountability for foreign firms breaking local laws.
It's a shame that the real-world example has to be Trump, if this had happened to Malala, or Thunberg, or the Pope, the advocacy for oversight and accountability would be a lot easier to digest.
Citizenship is hard, residency takes forever and must be applied to from outside, and buying a place if you aren't either of the above is now quite difficult.
NZ is pretty tight about who they let in, similar to Australia. There's a high bar for an experience/expertise based visa and its limited to certain industries (digital graphics for example - movies are a big deal in the South Island). The only thing it's easy to bring in are seasonal workers from the Pacific islands to pick fruit / work the vineyards.
Otherwise it's sponsorship, marriage, or family.
Residency (not citizenship) needs to be applied to while outside the country, and the application can take up to a year to be processed (you get a dedicated case worker, you need medical checks, xrays and all kinds of evidence - I needed to submit photos of my wife and I to prove our relationship was legit as well as a bunch of tax records and existing residency proof - it was a lot - also, very expensive!), citizenship requires several years of actual residency.
The NZ passport is like the UK one and they can compel you to relinquish existing citizenship if you naturalise.
I don't think that will happen with Gaben, Covid has stranded many temporary visa holders here without work or without access to benefits so there's a large policy question about what to do with those that are stranded.
But anyone hoping to just emigrate over here because we seem to have our shit together (we don't) is delusional.
A big reason that they are so careful about handing out permanent residency is that permanent residents (not temporary visa holders), can vote in parliamentary elections. Which is awesome - no taxation without representation - but gets the local right riled up because any govt can boost their voter count by opening immigration up, which means in general, there's downward pressure on immigration from all sides.
It helps if the founders have kids - both my co-founder and I have young children and we founded the company on the principles of work/life balance being paramount (Tyk.io).
If you accept that people can be productive when scheduling their own time, you find that there's actually better participation and buy-in, since everyone has flexible time, the benefits for parents vs non parents are the same.
Need to take time to take care of your sick cousin? Sure. Need to move to a different country to help your wife go to a specialist? Sure. Been on the waiting list for two years to go on a special hiking course? Go for it.
People can be productive whenever if you let them. But everyone needs to be able to take the same approach to their own work/life balance.
It's the humanist way to work, and if a company doesn't flex to let their employees flourish you're not doing your employees justice.
Folks forget it's a value exchange between employee and employer not a one-way street. That's too easy to forget in the modern work environment.
I actually have a few original sets of this collection (second edition), and then a few later prints of both Iliad and Odyssey (A set from ~1730, and another from the 1770s, the latter binding is lovely, early copies tend to be in worse condition unless you have chunks of cash to spend).
IMHO the Iliad is far more fun than the Odyssey regardless of translation, it also features much better in the wider Hellenic corpus as a reference point if you like to see how it influences wider classic drama.
I became a little obsessed with him for a while because he became a millionaire in his time by essentially inventing DLC: His courtly friends would buy each volume of the books in advance, so he generated a solid stream of revenue so long as he hit his deadlines. For a poet that's good going.
His Greek wasn't particularly good, so it's suggested that quite a few people helped him, which makes the translation itself inaccurate, but there's no denying his poetic flair.
If you're looking for classic Pope I'd say look at the Rape of the Lock (which most folks read in school), and some of his satires - like Dante though they require some historical knowledge because he was very much a satirist and political commentator and used poetry as a means of expression rather tyhan art.
Bonus fact: did you know he invented the insult "namby pamby", it's derived from a nickname he came up with for one of his literary and courtly rivals.
Ultimately the end goal is a grand unified theory of everything, all the forces and how they work together.
Maxwell's equations were completely theoretical (read: useless) and ahead of their time - but are fundamental to the invention of radio. Foundational research creates opportunity, it cant really be targeted.
For something like particle research, the fallout (pun not intended!) will take their time to shape anything our engineering cap availity can take advantage of.
I actually real like the blogging integration.
Definitely recommended over bloat ware like EverNote, OneNote etc.