Civilized discussion on hard topics -- There seems to be a large amount of shouting matches going on right now. We need to be able to discuss things in a calm and respectful manner even when we strongly disagree with the other side. There are a lot of buzz words that get thrown out that to me have lost meaning (racist, sexist, etc.). These words do have meaning and there are absolutely people doing these things that need to stop. However, lets stop name calling and start sharing our stories with the intend to do just that, share. When the only goal is to get everyone to believe what you believe, it likely won't be a productive conversation.
Agreed. Though I will also say, how to achieve this is exactly what is taught in Crucial Conversations.
Crucial conversations are moments when (1) opinions vary, (2) stakes are high, and (3) emotions run strong. How to have them, how to recognize when stakes start ramping up and people go into fight-or-flight, how to shift out of that, are all covered.
It starts with oneself and then the important relationships in our lives. Most of us have difficulty with crucial conversations with people we care about and our close relations. If we cannot even share meaning with people close to us, then we have no hope of sharing meaning with strangers.
This is what I have been working on myself. It has been challenging. And though I have not fully mastered it, I see a lot of results and relief.
Yes, these discussions need to start happening on a personal, 1-on-1 level. Having these conversations on twitter or on some tv/radio talk show is too intense.
What would be interesting is reading a discussion by two thought leaders that could happen over email (read: slow medium of communication) and edited to bring out the best of each side. Heat of the moment discussions don't help anyone.
Going to take a look at Crucial Conversations. Thanks!
This, but I also think we can't just do this in a pure "freedom of speech" way. In order to have a space where we can talk about things calmly and respectfully we will need to shut-out "bad faith" actors, supremacists and ideologues. Otherwise they will pervert the dialogue in order to win some political battle and we risk the wrong outcomes.
We have to come at this very directly from the perspective of the outcomes we wish to achieve and those that we wish to avoid ("consequentialism") rather than through some mindless repetition of an ideal that we believe to be sacred ("free-speech is so important"). Free-speech might be important but maintaining peace and achieving good outcomes for all involved should probably be held in higher regard [0] than some abstract principle, particularly when that abstract principle is a shibboleth of the people on one side of an issue but not the other.
[0] I'm talking about people that want to argue about racism and sexism while incidentally subjecting those they're arguing with to the most extreme and potentially toxic people in their group in the name of 'free speech'.
I genuinely agree with this notion, almost holistically, and I feel comfortable asserting that if we unreservedly followed this line of thinking the world would be a better place. However, in the intent to further improve on the notion, while I do believe it is important to have to make difficult choices about "who" gets to have a voice in order to achieve more civilized discussion, I don't think that "shutting-out" should be limited to the "bad faith actors" or the extremist ideologues. I think a stronger adherence to a sense of dialectics could benefit by further reducing the voices allowed. There are plenty of soft, gentle and respectful "voices" that detract from getting to the core of important discussions by bringing forward very irrelevant, tangential or otherwise "missing the point" (factually incorrect) ideas. Just because they presented their opinion respectfully, does not mean it needs to be "allowed" into the debate. This becomes especially problematic or can have a serious negative impact when it comes from an exogenous source with a disproportionate amount of credibility. In short I believe some aspect of the "scientific method" for wont of a better expression deserves a role in "regulating" the process of public debate.
Going by what I am learning in Crucial Conversations: safety is achieved when you know the other person genuinely cares for you. In that space, people can talk about anything, no matter how controversial or intense.
This space is not an external space nor is it acheived through policy or code of conduct. This space is an internal space that is created when two or more people genuinely cares about each other despite having differences in opinion.
It follows that, the best way to create safe spaces is to first practice this with people you already have a relationship with, particularly those you have severe disagreements with.
No. Not everyone contributes to the discussion. Some people have malicious intent. Others are just ignorant. You cannot deal in absolutes. I work in the sciences. If we were to consider every crackpot's solution to the hardest problems in math/physics, we would waste our lives in folly and never get anything done.
No, what I'm saying is that you can't have a discussion between two groups of people and then through the back-door one side tries to get the other to subconsciously accept their principle of 'absolute free-speech'. You both have to be capable of determining whether a belief is sacred or a shibboleth to you and be able to meet half-way.
If you don't do this, you'll be starting on the wrong foot.
Also, in order to have a moderate discussion with less shouting, it's not a good idea to have it be a free-for-all where anybody can speak. You need people that are willing to negotiate their beliefs with each other.
Would up vote this a thousand times if I could. Most of the other problems listed in other threads would be easier to solve if we could just have the tough conversations and find better ways to meet in the middle.
Decentralized social media, decentralized chat platforms, decentralized almost everything that we depend on the Internet for. Users of the platform have more control over which provider to use, can freely move around and even start things on their own to connect into well defined interoperable systems and protocols.
This is more of a pipe dream than a hope, but I would be ecstatic to see such a world. Like Peter Sunde of Pirate Bay said recently, it looks like we can do only some damage control now. [1]
This could be something that blockchain technology might have an impact on. This article gives examples of how blockchain can be used to decentralize many aspects of our current dynamics.
Renewables to destroy the fossil fuels industry on price. A win for the environment, and some of the oil states will descend into utter irrelevance. Cheap, clean energy will be utterly transformative to the planet and will dramatically raise living standards globally.
Agreed with the notion, but will point out that many of the "oil states" are not oblivious to the writing on the wall and as a result have begun allocating significant portions of their "fossil fuel" profits into alternative channels, in many cases into energy as well. The sheer amount of deployable capital at their disposal leads me to believe they will not "descend into utter irrelevance" as you suggest. At the very least they will succeed in maintaining their relative prosperity, but envision there is a state of the world in which they successfully transition into being champions of Renewable energy going forward. It's not very difficult to build an new industrial energy empire when you have trillions of dollars to spend.
> many of the "oil states" are not oblivious to the writing on the wall and as a result have begun allocating significant portions of their "fossil fuel" profits into alternative channels, in many cases into energy as well.
And not just recently; it's been that way for decades. This (alongside the fact that certain other oil states had not done so) was a major contributing factor to the 1990-1991 Gulf War, for instance.
I'll take a liberty to answer it in two ways, one thing for tech and one thing for non-tech.
Tech - Fixing Battery/Energy
This is one of the most important breakthrough we absolutely need. Current situation is like of ancient age, where civilisations used to be near/along the water sources like rivers, sea, etc. Same thing is happening today due to our energy dependencies. It limits the geography where a person can dare to live or explore without worrying or sacrificing the safety of communications. there are some ways currently, I agree, but we need more widely adopted solution. Energy consumption should not be co-related to the guilt! :p
There are two things about this:
1) Better energy backup in relatively portable size
2) Quick recharge ( or maybe disrupt the recharge concept:p ?! )
If we achieved this, it will be an amazing achievement for our species. Currently, healthcare system works on trial and error method. Most drugs don't really work without any side effects. We haven't understood our own defence mechanisms completely. Maybe using our own killer T-cells to do a targeted strike on aliens in our body will be more useful for our species than hunting aimlessly for aliens in outer space. I don't mean to undermine the importance of ET search efforts and it's implications, but from value proposition point of view, I'll favour human health system. Well, I'm deliberately avoiding to list why health is SO lagging even in 2017, it's better to assume that it's about time to solve health related problems inclusively rather than just keeping it exclusive filed for the health professionals and pharmas.
No more first past the post in the UK and US as it makes politics partisan and uninteresting hysterical carping from wing to wing. There isn't enough centerism and pragmatism.
This is really the most frustrating thing for me. The outcomes of our political system at determined so much more by how we elect people than who we elect. The system is so broken, and people want change, but you're never going to get real change just by putting different people in charge.
Information: Decentralized telecommunications. Removal of centralized mobile carriers in favor of alternate mesh and private (micropayments-based?) local wireless access rental popularization. The major technical barrier at present is the user experience around default mesh support on phones (startup anyone?)
Social: Non-government reputation systems worth their salt finally enter commerce and sociopolitics to automate supply chain management, RFQ processes, SLAs, incident handling, direct political representation, etc. A revolution in education, international sociopolitical movements bypassing national political systems to address global challenges, increased respect for the environment.
Physical: Reformation of global logistics with distributed manufacturing and laws and the requirement for commercial product part designs to be published with every sale for independent consumer repairs.
Food: At least one city feeds itself largely from automated rooftop farming.
It is really hard to say just one thing but if I could only name one I would say find a cure for cancer. That in and of itself would have wide impact on families who are emotionally and financially devastated as a result; should help reduce the cost of healthcare overall given that cancer treatment is exorbitant; and would allow researchers to focus on other illnesses or worldwide problems.
"Cancer" is such a broad term, with ~200 different "types". I agree that "cancer" is a huge problem (my brother had childhood leukemia at 9 months until he was about 6 years old), and its effects on the family cannot be understated. Unfortunately, we've only begun to scratch the surface towards a cure for very few of the 200 types of cancer out there.
Once we move on to stabilizing the health of everyone we will focus on consolidating the infrastructural dross that takes up the space around us. I believe that house sharing will be a major thing once we all realize what we are here for and how perfect things could be.
People don't actually need that much. It's better to have 100/100 guaranteed for example than to spend a lot of money providing very fast internet when they use it over WiFi only for example.
After just updating from sub-10Mbit/s connection to 50Mbit/s, I don't really see why this would be something for which to waste a free wish. I honestly can't think what I'd do better with a gigabit connection.
Perhaps you don't upload much video/content. Most non-symmetrical Internet connections have HORRIBLE upload speeds. Makes doing things like recording multiple security camera's to the cloud at real high resolution impossible.
Custodial land assignments. Instead of selling lots, which you'll never fully own as allodial titles no longer exist, set up a system which qualifies individuals and families to be awarded land. The idea that we are thrust into this world which requires us to follow a fairly strict path of hurdles just to have a home is a sadly maligned truth plaguing our existence.
The rest of people's lives, and their quality of life, is based on good health.
We may not all end up in the same place, nor even wanting the same things. But good health can help each person achieve their personal maximum.
And, if you don't believe human life is a zero sum game, as I don't, then that increases humanity's overall wealth -- cultural, not just material.
P.S. There is also the opportunity to leverage much greater advances. Putting money towards treatment instead of profit-taking including a significant amount of rent-seeking.
And I, for one, would be much more willing to share my medical data were I assured it would not be used against me, neither in denying me treatment nor in denying me work nor other participation in society. The types of research and advances such data mining might produce, could be both profound and readily at hand.
Not looking forward to this at all. So much conflict is caused by people being bored and not having any employment prospects. Employment is a bit of a pacifier for civilization.
There's only so much golf, painting, woodworking, and reading people can do.
Discussion where people don't selectivly choose which facts to talk about. I'm seeing this a lot right now with all the hot topics, both sides will take the moral high ground and pretend that they have never said or done the same thing when the shoe was on the other foot, most notably Trump: Obama; Charlottesville:Dallas.
I know this borders on sacrilege to say on HN, but I enjoy going out and camping in places where there is no coverage. Being utterly alone sometimes is nice...... I can see the stars (well, I live in Washington, so I have to travel a bit to camp where I can see the stars, but... you know). I, personally, would mourn a little if 4G reached everywhere.
I get that, I too enjoying switching off and doing nothing. It's when you need it for an emergency... that's when you realise how poor the global coverage is.
Law being described in very precise, verifiable terms, such that "in the spirit of the law" is an executable test and assumptions made are automatically verifiable.
This means that irrelevant laws can be identified much faster and law can keep up with technology.
Globally, yes. And sure, we should care about the global more more than the poor of the developed countries. But I don't see any reason to believe so far that developed countries have solved the problem of rising inequality within their populations, so I see the rising inequality of developed nations as the future of all nations once they have all "caught up". So I would rephrase to say I hope inequality starts decreasing again in developed countries.
Minimum guaranteed income is the beginning of the end. From a humanist perspective it is great, but that is short sighted. Human beings are goal driven, strip away the necessity of that basic human drive and who knows what can happen.
I am never in fear of starvation. Western civilization was built on the bedrock of contributing to society through labor. It's how the system works. That whole system will have to change if that axiom disappears. It is very naive to think that wont have a massive effect on mate selection, how people spend their time, morals, etc.
This isnt purely about economics. There are other deeper issues at play when you say people no longer need to work.
Sure, everyone will keep being disciplined, waking up early to a work a shitty office job. They will keep doing data entry for 40k a year and cleaning up public toilets for 35k a year. They will put up with massive stress and the risk of being laid off at a large corporation
haha yeah, it was funny reading that after I posted it. My point is people, wont work if they dont have to, working is miserable. But it keeps an order in society that has been shown to be beneficial (look at the development of western democracies).
I think that people will still want to make money, and work shit jobs to buy iPhones, they just won't be as stressed as they would be if the alternative was starvation, which is good in my book.
Would this work? Isn't it like "everyone above average"? If everyone gets a minimum amount of money, money will be worth less. It would make more sense to guarantee certain resources, or more targeted welfare (e.g. that comes with requirements on how it is spent).
No more authoritarian, liberty-limiting governments anywhere in the world...forever :)
I'm aware that the trend seems to be in the opposite direction, but one can always wish.
Commoditised high-bandwidth quantum-entanglement (i.e. no latency) communication devices. This will change everything from securities trading to interplanetary communication.
