> "Software is eating the world", a great intuition by a guy who sadly totally lost the plot later
I searched for any reference to Marc in the second link and didn't find it. I didn't read the NYT article (I assume there's a paywall), but the Blankenhorn one that did respond to him was just a political screed ranting about things like "trickle-down economics" (while Marc's essay didn't mention taxes at all but did endorse a social welfare system).
> THIS would be an industry of more numerous suppliers who really want and care to compete more strongly for customers?
> "[if] software is a mess it is because [its developers]] made it a mess, and it’ll only get and STAY clean if they clean it."
Similarly, a human will only stay clean if they make absolutely sure not to accumulate any uncleanliness on them. But of course we are going to get dirty over time, necessitating submersion in water (assuming you don't rely on sponge-bathing). But eventually the human organism itself will be unable to go on (as our lifespan isn't nearly as long as, say, trees), and it is left to that individual's descendants to carry on that legacy. Robin's views on "rot" point to not only organisms dying, but also organizations and even polities. Lasting forever is just not something you can expect.
> plus saner software regulations
There is no reason to expect that to arrive alongside shrinking populations.
> It would be great if monopolies" were a future concern, not the situation we are in now.
Nope. If there is any competitor, it's not a monopoly.
> completely ignore, as it seems the case here, the existence and potential, especially in "declining" scenarios, of the Free/Open Source Software management model
Lots of such software is written by employees of companies like RedHat, which can survive in a world of growing economies & population, but might not in a world of decline.
> finally sustainable, at much smaller costs, by Universities
Universities have also depended on population growth to be viable.
> two quickly growing, but much overhyped class of "software developers": [...] the millions of adult workers left jobless by automation and AI
Hanson has written about how we aren't seeing such unemployment.
Instead he sees that happening well in the future as computers actually become capable of doing most human jobs.
> Any moron can look and do great with ever expanding money and other resources at hand. It's when constraints increase that real (as in "really meaningful and game-changing") innovation emerges.
I deny that innovation isn't "real" merely because it was accomplished via an effort costing lots of money rather than putting a genius in charge. Did the Manhattan Project not innovate because it cost a lot of money and Leslie Groves was not as smart as the people under him?
About: "Robin's views on "rot" point to not only organisms dying, but also organizations and even polities."
Of course I know that, and really appreciate it. If I didn't share his same fundamental concerns, I'd have just ignored that specific post. I wrote this reaction exactly because it would be very hard to seriously tackle rot of polities on the basis of so many inaccuracies on such a fundamental technology as software.
About "If there is any competitor, it's not a monopoly":
language-wise, yes. In practice, assuming that's true in any other field, it is not so with software and any software-based communication, because of network effects, the lock-in power of secret file formats and similar things. As I said in one of my talks years ago, if you buy a Ferrari, I don't have to know or care, because I can still buy a cheap FIAT, use it on the same roads and reach the same places. We can PHONE each other if you have the last iPhone and I the cheapest dumbphone on the market. But if you only send or accept files in a format that is surely usable only with a specific version of one software program, I am forced to use that same software. There are decades of evidence of this, with office suites and other tools.
about: "I deny that innovation isn't "real" merely because it was accomplished via an effort costing lots of money rather than putting a genius in charge."
Neither do I, sorry if that wasn't clear. See my posts about rebuilding cities for an example of absolutely needed innovation that will cost lots of money but much, much less than any other proposal, without needing any single genius in charge.
Finally, about "Universities have also depended on population growth to be viable" and other comments along the same lines:
yes, so far Universities and many other things we ABSOLUTELY NEED to preserve have been built on assumption of endless economic growth. I may be wrong, and hope so, but the TINA attitude wrt economic growth I perceive in Hanson's post may be the real elephant in that room.
For the future, we must find other ways to keep Universities and lots of other stuff viable anyway, exactly because GDP growth as the basis and engine of society isn't mathematically possible anymore.
> I wrote this reaction exactly because it would be very hard to seriously tackle rot of polities on the basis of so many inaccuracies on such a fundamental technology as software.
And I'm saying you haven't established that software doesn't rot over time, and for many of the same reasons that other things "rot".
You argued that there wasn't competition because the top 20 companies represent 75% of the market. You specifically referred to Apple. But in your last response to me you admit that ipones and dumb phones can call each other. So are iphone users really "locked in" to that "network"? It seems to me it's entirely possible for such users to switch to a different phone. The secret to Apple's massive success seems closer to that of Christian Dior (as it happens, I own nothing from either).
> For the future, we must find other ways to keep Universities and lots of other stuff viable anyway
That sounds like wishful thinking. Wanting them to be viable doesn't give reasons to think they actually will be viable.
> GDP growth as the basis and engine of society isn't mathematically possible anymore
Sure it is. The point where it's impossible to grow the economy more is far into the future:
"It seems to me it's entirely possible for such users to switch to a different phone."
It seems to me that you completely missed that I quoted that specific use of phones (making actual phone calls) as the exception that proves the rule, (besides being the thing smartphone users do the least if at all by the way). If you only have Instagram or only whatsapp etc.., I can only message you with an account on the same platform, which is totally stupid. Ditto for app-specific notifications instead of open standards like RSS.
About:
"The point where it's impossible to grow the economy more is far into the future"
even if it were true, THIS economy is so stupid on so many levels, well before one attempts to explain or manage it with either "left" or "right" political glasses and tools, that it doesn't matter if it can last 1 year or 10 thousands. The sooner we replace it with something that makes sense, the better.
Whether something "makes sense" is, as Eliezer Yudkowsky would put it*, a "2-place function" that depends on YOU. And there is no reason to think that we will ever replace the economy with one tailored to your sensibilities.
just remember that if what Yudkowsky does make sense, it applies to BOTH of us, by definition.
As for "my" sensibilities... As you wrote it, it seems you think I'm the only one to see things in a certain way. That would be funny. But never mind, the crucial point is another.
Re-read what I write more carefully, not just this post, and you'll notice that many of my starting points aren't "sensibilities" at all, just acknowledgment of macro trends (aging, scarcity of raw materials sourceable WITHOUT international conflicts and/or huge costs, etc).
If I saw meaningful proofs that those trends aren't happening, and no, so far Hanson has failed with me on that score, I would still think many things are stupid, but hey who cares, if business as usual can continue. IF
You're right about aging. As for raw materials, Paul Ehrlich bet they would get more expensive against Julian Simon and lost (what's gotten more expensive over time is labor, as per Baumol's cost disease in a wealthy industrialized society). And as Steve Pinker has written, international conflict has gone down over this same period of raw materials getting cheaper.
> "Software is eating the world", a great intuition by a guy who sadly totally lost the plot later
I searched for any reference to Marc in the second link and didn't find it. I didn't read the NYT article (I assume there's a paywall), but the Blankenhorn one that did respond to him was just a political screed ranting about things like "trickle-down economics" (while Marc's essay didn't mention taxes at all but did endorse a social welfare system).
> THIS would be an industry of more numerous suppliers who really want and care to compete more strongly for customers?
https://www.econlib.org/john-madden-on-how-competition-among-small-numbers-is-still-very-competitive/
> "[if] software is a mess it is because [its developers]] made it a mess, and it’ll only get and STAY clean if they clean it."
Similarly, a human will only stay clean if they make absolutely sure not to accumulate any uncleanliness on them. But of course we are going to get dirty over time, necessitating submersion in water (assuming you don't rely on sponge-bathing). But eventually the human organism itself will be unable to go on (as our lifespan isn't nearly as long as, say, trees), and it is left to that individual's descendants to carry on that legacy. Robin's views on "rot" point to not only organisms dying, but also organizations and even polities. Lasting forever is just not something you can expect.
> plus saner software regulations
There is no reason to expect that to arrive alongside shrinking populations.
> It would be great if monopolies" were a future concern, not the situation we are in now.
Nope. If there is any competitor, it's not a monopoly.
> completely ignore, as it seems the case here, the existence and potential, especially in "declining" scenarios, of the Free/Open Source Software management model
Lots of such software is written by employees of companies like RedHat, which can survive in a world of growing economies & population, but might not in a world of decline.
> finally sustainable, at much smaller costs, by Universities
Universities have also depended on population growth to be viable.
> two quickly growing, but much overhyped class of "software developers": [...] the millions of adult workers left jobless by automation and AI
Hanson has written about how we aren't seeing such unemployment.
https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/no-recent-automation-revolutionhtml
Instead he sees that happening well in the future as computers actually become capable of doing most human jobs.
> Any moron can look and do great with ever expanding money and other resources at hand. It's when constraints increase that real (as in "really meaningful and game-changing") innovation emerges.
I deny that innovation isn't "real" merely because it was accomplished via an effort costing lots of money rather than putting a genius in charge. Did the Manhattan Project not innovate because it cost a lot of money and Leslie Groves was not as smart as the people under him?
Many thanks for the comment. Answering to the main points:
About: "I searched for any reference to Marc in the second link and didn't find it."
He's the "toddler with too much money" here: https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/taking-ai-too-seriously-is-not-intelligent
About: "Robin's views on "rot" point to not only organisms dying, but also organizations and even polities."
Of course I know that, and really appreciate it. If I didn't share his same fundamental concerns, I'd have just ignored that specific post. I wrote this reaction exactly because it would be very hard to seriously tackle rot of polities on the basis of so many inaccuracies on such a fundamental technology as software.
About "If there is any competitor, it's not a monopoly":
language-wise, yes. In practice, assuming that's true in any other field, it is not so with software and any software-based communication, because of network effects, the lock-in power of secret file formats and similar things. As I said in one of my talks years ago, if you buy a Ferrari, I don't have to know or care, because I can still buy a cheap FIAT, use it on the same roads and reach the same places. We can PHONE each other if you have the last iPhone and I the cheapest dumbphone on the market. But if you only send or accept files in a format that is surely usable only with a specific version of one software program, I am forced to use that same software. There are decades of evidence of this, with office suites and other tools.
about: "I deny that innovation isn't "real" merely because it was accomplished via an effort costing lots of money rather than putting a genius in charge."
Neither do I, sorry if that wasn't clear. See my posts about rebuilding cities for an example of absolutely needed innovation that will cost lots of money but much, much less than any other proposal, without needing any single genius in charge.
The comment about overhyped class of software developers is sarcasm. This said, on workers jobless by automation and AI, I already expanded on that in a previous post: https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/ubi-ai-and-reality-always-in-the
Finally, about "Universities have also depended on population growth to be viable" and other comments along the same lines:
yes, so far Universities and many other things we ABSOLUTELY NEED to preserve have been built on assumption of endless economic growth. I may be wrong, and hope so, but the TINA attitude wrt economic growth I perceive in Hanson's post may be the real elephant in that room.
For the future, we must find other ways to keep Universities and lots of other stuff viable anyway, exactly because GDP growth as the basis and engine of society isn't mathematically possible anymore.
> I wrote this reaction exactly because it would be very hard to seriously tackle rot of polities on the basis of so many inaccuracies on such a fundamental technology as software.
And I'm saying you haven't established that software doesn't rot over time, and for many of the same reasons that other things "rot".
You argued that there wasn't competition because the top 20 companies represent 75% of the market. You specifically referred to Apple. But in your last response to me you admit that ipones and dumb phones can call each other. So are iphone users really "locked in" to that "network"? It seems to me it's entirely possible for such users to switch to a different phone. The secret to Apple's massive success seems closer to that of Christian Dior (as it happens, I own nothing from either).
> For the future, we must find other ways to keep Universities and lots of other stuff viable anyway
That sounds like wishful thinking. Wanting them to be viable doesn't give reasons to think they actually will be viable.
> GDP growth as the basis and engine of society isn't mathematically possible anymore
Sure it is. The point where it's impossible to grow the economy more is far into the future:
https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/limits-to-growthhtml
https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/murphy-on-growthhtml
(sorry for the late answer, I've had the flu...)
"It seems to me it's entirely possible for such users to switch to a different phone."
It seems to me that you completely missed that I quoted that specific use of phones (making actual phone calls) as the exception that proves the rule, (besides being the thing smartphone users do the least if at all by the way). If you only have Instagram or only whatsapp etc.., I can only message you with an account on the same platform, which is totally stupid. Ditto for app-specific notifications instead of open standards like RSS.
About:
"The point where it's impossible to grow the economy more is far into the future"
even if it were true, THIS economy is so stupid on so many levels, well before one attempts to explain or manage it with either "left" or "right" political glasses and tools, that it doesn't matter if it can last 1 year or 10 thousands. The sooner we replace it with something that makes sense, the better.
Whether something "makes sense" is, as Eliezer Yudkowsky would put it*, a "2-place function" that depends on YOU. And there is no reason to think that we will ever replace the economy with one tailored to your sensibilities.
* https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/eDpPnT7wdBwWPGvo5/2-place-and-1-place-words
just remember that if what Yudkowsky does make sense, it applies to BOTH of us, by definition.
As for "my" sensibilities... As you wrote it, it seems you think I'm the only one to see things in a certain way. That would be funny. But never mind, the crucial point is another.
Re-read what I write more carefully, not just this post, and you'll notice that many of my starting points aren't "sensibilities" at all, just acknowledgment of macro trends (aging, scarcity of raw materials sourceable WITHOUT international conflicts and/or huge costs, etc).
If I saw meaningful proofs that those trends aren't happening, and no, so far Hanson has failed with me on that score, I would still think many things are stupid, but hey who cares, if business as usual can continue. IF
You're right about aging. As for raw materials, Paul Ehrlich bet they would get more expensive against Julian Simon and lost (what's gotten more expensive over time is labor, as per Baumol's cost disease in a wealthy industrialized society). And as Steve Pinker has written, international conflict has gone down over this same period of raw materials getting cheaper.
More on software rot:
https://blog.visionarycto.com/p/my-20-year-career-is-technical-debt