I think there are definitely some techno-optimist Asian writers out there, although I’m not sure who to cite in English except for some real outlier people like Naomi Wu.
I’d also like to decline the invitation to click on any Tyler Cowen links because anytime I’ve seen his comment section it’s been extremely racist, those posters are more into eugenics than a Slate Star Codex commenter.
«definitely some techno-optimist Asian writers out there»
That is in part because large parts of many asian countries, in particular China, are at the "horse cart" stage of technology (when not at the "porter with bamboo stick" one), so the *diffusion* of technology can give huge and fast aggregate productivity gains.
In the special case of China there is also an amazing increased in R&D and even "mere" business innovation, on a colossal scale, so perhaps we will see new great discoveries and inventions coming out of China, but so far in similar cultures like Taiwan and south Korea this has not happened.
Ha. You're probably more up to date than me! I didn't discover her till recently, but I gotta say she's contributed to me thinking the world might yet be a better place.
Techno optimist British Arab with some other admixtures here. Have been hardcore techno optimist since my "When Solar Becomes Cheaper Than Coal" blog posts like 7 or 8 years ago.
One of the challenges techno-optimists fail to confront is rapid technological obsolescence especially as the inevitable processing pendulum swings back from the core (cloud) to the edge. This will be particularly apparent with internet of things sensors where product lifecycles are measured in weeks, months and quarters. Put this obsolescence challenge under the broader mantra of new network models that mirror those found in nature and are more sustainable and equitable. Few are talking about how these new networks can or will develop.
I like the idea of humano optimism, the idea that human emotional advance is far more important than human technical advance, we don't need better technology, we need better ethics.
Without ethical advance there is no such thing as technical advance, technology only advances injustice then, without technology the current concentration of wealth, better termed the generalization of poverty, would not be possible, technology makes the consequence of inequity much worse.
On the pessimist side like at John Gray, Rod Dreher, Sohrab Ahmari, and other traditionalist writers. The best Christian techno-pessimist works are a few decades old (like those of Phil Sherrard), but they carry forward the tradition
#3 Technology improves and productivity improves slowly.
The #3 case is more likely then #2, because almost all "pure" technology improvements have a much lower impact on productivity than the diffusion and improvement in the use of new cheaper, more energy dense fuels.
For example technology is still improving slowly trucks and truck engines, but nearly all productivity improvements came from replacing horse carts with trucks, and in the first several years when truck technology improved rapidly because there were "low hanging fruits".
«#3 Technology improves and productivity improves slowly.»
As to this there is a somewhat misunderstood issue, whether "quality" improvements are "productivity" improvements, as per this quote from J. Stiglitz:
“Likewise, quality improvements – better cars rather than just more cars – account for much of the increase in GDP nowadays.”
The problem with "better cars" is that they are not necessarily more productive: their productivity is the total cost of providing transportation. Cars that have air conditioning, or alloy wheels, or leather seats, don't necessarily improve their productivity a lot; cars have improved in reliability and fuel consumption, but only slowly. And much of that potential productivity improvement in *cars* has been countered by productivity adverse factors like greater road congestion and poorer road maintenance.
Cars are just an example, the same applies to several other things. For example televisions:
“The Bureau of Labor Statistics normalizes the consumer price indices at 100 in the period 1982 to 1984. Below are some recent values of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for 2012. [... 95% reduction of TV set prices ...] Television sets at five stand out. That is obviously a reflection of a rather energetic hedonic effort by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
The productivity of TV sets is hours of content delivered per hour of use; bigger screens, better resolution, higher color fidelity are not going to improve that a lot.
I think there are definitely some techno-optimist Asian writers out there, although I’m not sure who to cite in English except for some real outlier people like Naomi Wu.
I’d also like to decline the invitation to click on any Tyler Cowen links because anytime I’ve seen his comment section it’s been extremely racist, those posters are more into eugenics than a Slate Star Codex commenter.
Haha yeah his comment section is baaaaad. Don't worry, I'll use my banhammer to get rid of such folks in this comment section.
«definitely some techno-optimist Asian writers out there»
That is in part because large parts of many asian countries, in particular China, are at the "horse cart" stage of technology (when not at the "porter with bamboo stick" one), so the *diffusion* of technology can give huge and fast aggregate productivity gains.
In the special case of China there is also an amazing increased in R&D and even "mere" business innovation, on a colossal scale, so perhaps we will see new great discoveries and inventions coming out of China, but so far in similar cultures like Taiwan and south Korea this has not happened.
At the risk of sounding dense, what does the "horse cart stage of technology" mean?
One thing:
- Have you heard of Audrey Tang?
Oh yeah.
Ha. You're probably more up to date than me! I didn't discover her till recently, but I gotta say she's contributed to me thinking the world might yet be a better place.
I had the real pleasure of interviewing Audrey Tang. We talked a lot about digital governance which made our own democracies look like the Middle Ages. In the end I wrote a piece for Tortoise Media around the Covid context but it still gives you a real sense of how technology can encourage good governance and mitigate risk... https://members.tortoisemedia.com/2020/06/03/how-to-handle-covid/content.html?sig=Bl5KQetSUMvhTzyZlc2aHuy__wqiDB3uj7gV6-tByAw
The SPAC boom is a sign of the start of a new century! Yikes. The brave new future of grift...
Techno optimist British Arab with some other admixtures here. Have been hardcore techno optimist since my "When Solar Becomes Cheaper Than Coal" blog posts like 7 or 8 years ago.
One of the challenges techno-optimists fail to confront is rapid technological obsolescence especially as the inevitable processing pendulum swings back from the core (cloud) to the edge. This will be particularly apparent with internet of things sensors where product lifecycles are measured in weeks, months and quarters. Put this obsolescence challenge under the broader mantra of new network models that mirror those found in nature and are more sustainable and equitable. Few are talking about how these new networks can or will develop.
I like the idea of humano optimism, the idea that human emotional advance is far more important than human technical advance, we don't need better technology, we need better ethics.
Without ethical advance there is no such thing as technical advance, technology only advances injustice then, without technology the current concentration of wealth, better termed the generalization of poverty, would not be possible, technology makes the consequence of inequity much worse.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-17/bluewaters-coal-fired-power-station-written-off-books/12990532
Wow! It happened so fast, never thought I'd see something like that
On the pessimist side like at John Gray, Rod Dreher, Sohrab Ahmari, and other traditionalist writers. The best Christian techno-pessimist works are a few decades old (like those of Phil Sherrard), but they carry forward the tradition
There are actually *three* possible outcomes:
#1 Technology stagnates.
#2 Technology improves and productivity booms.
#3 Technology improves and productivity improves slowly.
The #3 case is more likely then #2, because almost all "pure" technology improvements have a much lower impact on productivity than the diffusion and improvement in the use of new cheaper, more energy dense fuels.
For example technology is still improving slowly trucks and truck engines, but nearly all productivity improvements came from replacing horse carts with trucks, and in the first several years when truck technology improved rapidly because there were "low hanging fruits".
I wrote a post about this! :-)
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-im-so-excited-about-solar-and
«#3 Technology improves and productivity improves slowly.»
As to this there is a somewhat misunderstood issue, whether "quality" improvements are "productivity" improvements, as per this quote from J. Stiglitz:
“Likewise, quality improvements – better cars rather than just more cars – account for much of the increase in GDP nowadays.”
The problem with "better cars" is that they are not necessarily more productive: their productivity is the total cost of providing transportation. Cars that have air conditioning, or alloy wheels, or leather seats, don't necessarily improve their productivity a lot; cars have improved in reliability and fuel consumption, but only slowly. And much of that potential productivity improvement in *cars* has been countered by productivity adverse factors like greater road congestion and poorer road maintenance.
Cars are just an example, the same applies to several other things. For example televisions:
“The Bureau of Labor Statistics normalizes the consumer price indices at 100 in the period 1982 to 1984. Below are some recent values of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for 2012. [... 95% reduction of TV set prices ...] Television sets at five stand out. That is obviously a reflection of a rather energetic hedonic effort by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
The productivity of TV sets is hours of content delivered per hour of use; bigger screens, better resolution, higher color fidelity are not going to improve that a lot.