[HN Gopher] In 1997, Wired Predicts Things That Could Go Wrong i...
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In 1997, Wired Predicts Things That Could Go Wrong in the 21st
Century (2021)
Author : kpennell
Score : 53 points
Date : 2022-06-05 20:28 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.openculture.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.openculture.com)
| SMAAART wrote:
| Great book: "The 500 Year Delta: What Happens After What Comes
| Next"
| hexnuts wrote:
| https://archive.org/details/500yeardeltawhat0000tayl Archive
| link
| lemursage wrote:
| Reading that today, at the moment when Ukraine is at war with
| Russia, when post-Brexit EU internally struggles to present a
| unified front and when global food supply seems to have become a
| subject to a gamble, it may seem that parts of those predictions
| look accurate.
|
| But, on the other hand isn't it "just more of the same" of what
| was going on in 1997, be it turned up a notch? I'm too young to
| remember, but I feel the world hasn't changed fundamentally after
| 1997 (though the local perception may have been different due to
| events like 9/11 etc.). See what's trending now, extrapolate,
| amplify?
| pmdulaney wrote:
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| I think this comment is perhaps evidence that we can all read
| whatever we choose into any sentence.
| krapp wrote:
| Particularly since "woke" is starting to become slippery,
| like "cancel culture" , "the left" and "political
| correctness," so that it no longer really has a definition
| (certainly not its original definition) beyond a general
| pejorative and fear trigger.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| Well, indeed. I'm just old barely enough to remember the
| 90-2000s debate about "political correctness," and one of
| the things I find most fascinating about the discussion of
| "wokeism" is _how completely indistinguishable it is_ from
| the discussion of "political correctness".
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| My impression ( _just_ an impression) is that the "woke"
| (or whatever label you want to put on in) stuff is much
| wider spread and much longer-lived than "political
| correctness" was.
|
| Political correctness didn't get much traction outside of
| universities. "Woke" has.
| Rury wrote:
| The problem with the term "woke", is that almost an
| entirely subjective term. Not everyone shares the same
| moral tenets, let alone opinions, and there are many kinds
| of injustices in the world. The more it gets used, the more
| confusing it is to identify what kind of "wokeism" people
| are talking about. It's as if it's used to express
| political outrage, without expressing what people are
| particularly outraged about...
| pavlov wrote:
| It's a word whose origins are in mid-20th century American
| Black culture, so it's an instinctively effective boogeyman
| to a certain generation of white Americans who
| subconsciously want things to be back a certain way.
| the_biot wrote:
| Right, because all white Americans are racist!
| Subconsciously! Gee, I wonder on which side of the woke
| debate you fall?
|
| Has it ever occurred to you that the certainty with which
| you express your views actually comes across as very
| arrogant and plainly racist, and turns people _against_
| your way of thinking?
|
| Try debating with rational arguments, not by calling
| those who disagree with you racists.
| pavlov wrote:
| If you don't want to sound like a racist, then don't make
| an argument that revolves around the word "woke" without
| even defining what it means to you. Seems pretty easy,
| right?
| havblue wrote:
| I suspect that's just the nature of language though as
| there are plenty of other definitions that are in flux.
| Here's one that isn't controversial: "cringe". Cringe is
| whatever you cringe at according to your own subjective
| reaction. If people can't agree on general concepts though,
| good luck having any kind of a productive discourse.
| r12343a_19 wrote:
| Fascinating that there is no way to read the flagged comment.
| What did it say?
| pvg wrote:
| Go to your settings and turn on 'showdead'.
| r12343a_19 wrote:
| Thank you.
|
| Really, the comment is underwhelming. Seems silly to hide
| it after it's grey already and annotated with all kinds
| of warnings.
| pvg wrote:
| It's to discourage particularly crappy comments from
| starting pointless discussions. You can't reply to
| flagged comments but in this case the repliers were
| faster than the flaggers. It's always better to flag
| flamemaking comments than to reply to them.
| Taywee wrote:
| You can set "showdead" in your profile settings to "Yes" to
| view flagged comments.
| [deleted]
| ianai wrote:
| It was clearly broad enough to me to always be true. When
| cars first started outpacing horses there were many concerns
| raised/rhetoric about how going that fast couldn't ever be
| safe. And I'm reminded of the many "Twilight Zones" or Star
| Trek episodes with similar themes.
|
| So probably to be meaningful this would look like all the
| technological advancements society could make but don't. Like
| if the highway systems had been proposed and gone unfunded-as
| an easier hypothetical to illustrate the point.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Excuse me, what is that "woke" thing everybody is talking
| about, and nobody seem to be able to tell what it is?
| [deleted]
| suture wrote:
| How has progress been stopped dead in its tracks by wokeism?
| The social/cultural backlash clearly refers to a backlash
| against technological progress. If anything one could make an
| argument that the current anti-vax/anti-science elements
| pervading society would fit the description should their views
| gain more traction.
| MatthiasWandel wrote:
| That's very subjective. Some would say wokeism threatens
| progress, others say anti-wokeism ghreatens progress because
| wokeism IS progress. Anti-science is just saying that the
| other side disagreees with some science that is incovnvenient
| to them (both sides). I would say they didn't get that one
| right. They didn't predict today's divisiveness.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| > How has progress been stopped dead in its tracks by
| wokeism?
|
| It hasn't taken full effect yet but it has definitely bent
| the arc of progress toward a lower angle. The extremely harsh
| imposition of woke views has impacted my own enjoyment of the
| tech industry, my ability to raise money (I stopped attending
| a popular Bay Area seed capital meet up because several
| people repeatedly commented about my white skin color and
| other details of my background, and due to the terms and
| conditions of another I never bothered to attend.). I had to
| leave one company because of its extreme discriminatory
| positions, and I've repeatedly heard moderate amounts of
| discrimination at several other companies.
|
| There are plenty of doctors and scientists who have given up
| on or reduced their activity in their field due to similar
| issues, unfortunately I don't have time to link all this at
| the moment.
|
| Also all the ideological statements people need to make to
| become professors etc I suspect are influencing people away
| from academia and so academia becomes more about advocacy
| than research.
|
| It's a miracle that we're continuing to progress, but it
| would've been even better I suspect if we hadn't had all
| these hindrances.
|
| Also think about all the men who are crushed in biased
| divorce outcomes, which is tangentially related to the woke
| issue, and influences their productive activities. It's all
| sort of related to the oppressor oppressed narrative.
| mlyle wrote:
| There's a fundamental problem, that we're all having a
| tough time navigating. That is-- various subgroups have a
| much lower rate of participation in advanced sectors of the
| economy. Some of this is almost certainly related to
| discrimination and lingering aftereffects of past
| discrimination.
|
| * Naively picking who appears most capable, especially
| based on metrics that are strongly influenced by class, may
| instead just be perpetuating these biases. Further, people
| who have had fewer resources dedicated to their development
| may have more opportunity for growth.
|
| * Conversely, trying to spread things out for equality-of-
| outcome and completely ignoring many measurements of
| ability is likely to be problematic, too, by not getting
| the strongest people in seats.
|
| In the end, allowing the entire pool of the population
| meaningful economic and cultural participation can be
| expected to bend _up_ the arc of progress, but it is hard
| to figure out how to get there.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| > Some of this is almost certainly related to
| discrimination and lingering aftereffects of past
| discrimination.
|
| Certainly possible. I think the divide between right and
| left on this issue is in their perception of how much
| this is the case. I'd be in favor of rigorous research on
| this topic.
|
| My own experience in the tech industry at many companies
| leads me to believe that if there is discrimination, it
| must be either historical or occurring earlier in the
| pipeline than tech company hiring. It's been fairly
| consistent in my experience for thumbs to be put on the
| scales rather heavily to hire from historically
| disadvantaged groups, and clear bold statements have been
| made to exclude majority populations from interview
| pipelines that would be recognized as howling racism and
| sexism if applied to any other group.
|
| > Naively picking who appears most capable, especially
| based on metrics that are strongly influenced by class,
| may instead just be perpetuating these biases.
|
| It seems to me that we're currently getting the worst of
| all possible worlds. The way we're influencing the
| interview pipeline excludes low income people from the
| majority demographics and assists high income people from
| non majority demographics, with the overall effect of
| selecting for class above all else.
|
| I say all this as a kind person who wishes well for
| everyone and wants everyone to have the opportunity to
| self actualize to the best of their ability.
| quesera wrote:
| These last few years have been the _easiest_ times to get
| a job, or get funding, in the tech industry, in 20 years.
|
| And white and Asian males remain significantly advantaged
| over any other group, although the other groups don't
| seem to be as disadvantaged as they were 20 years ago.
|
| If that is not your experience, we must live in different
| worlds. Mine is SF/SV, with offices in other large cities
| in the US.
| mlyle wrote:
| > I'd be in favor of rigorous research on this topic.
|
| There's a lot of pretty high quality research.
| Unfortunately, it can only tell you about things that are
| correlated, but it can't establish causation. You can
| only run observational trials of various kinds-- case
| control studies, looking at time series data, etc.
|
| > My own experience in the tech industry at many
| companies leads me to believe that if there is
| discrimination, it must be either historical or occurring
| earlier in the pipeline than tech company hiring.
|
| OK-- and if there's some 25 year old who has faced
| discrimination "earlier in the pipeline"-- what is the
| proper redress?
|
| I'm a teacher and I see it "earlier in the pipeline". By
| middle school, a whole bunch of kids have figured out
| that typical engineers don't look like them, and they
| should maybe consider doing something else-- irrespective
| of class. Some of my highest performers have been in
| these groups.
|
| > with the overall effect of selecting for class above
| all else.
|
| I don't think this is very true of most interventions.
| But it's true that it's true to some extent for some.
| inciampati wrote:
| I want an egalitarian society. Because it opens opportunity
| to everyone, it should be the way to make the most value
| for the world. But it is hard for everyone to
| simultaneously agree not to profit and exploit based on
| superficial genetic and life histories that are clearly
| outside of individual control.
|
| Can we wake up enough to see each other as equals?
|
| I know what you are saying. Can it be expressed in an
| inclusive way? I mean that whatever woke you're talking
| about is still sleepwalking. And you want to explain this
| to others without sounding like you also are asleep or
| fixated on your own immutable personal situation. Perhaps
| I'm not making sense, but it's a try.
| zionic wrote:
| > I want an egalitarian society
|
| What happens when party A wants this, and plays the game
| accordingly, while parties B, C, D, E, and F say they
| want it but don't follow the same rules?
| pfisch wrote:
| It's so hard to be a white male in the tech industry.
|
| However do you manage to put up with all the discrimination
| you face every day?
| epicureanideal wrote:
| To be honest, it takes a lot of effort. It's a daily
| struggle. I have people who depend on me so I do my best
| to keep going, but I would rather do something else. I'm
| not sure how much longer I'll be able to keep working in
| this industry under these conditions.
|
| I know you're being sarcastic, but I'm a real person too,
| with my own wish to live a happy life.
|
| I have a hard time understanding how some people care so
| deeply for certain groups but then seem to have no
| empathy at all for others. I would've thought kindness
| would apply universally, but I suppose there are plenty
| of examples in history that show that isn't necessarily
| the case.
| jfoutz wrote:
| I don't know your situation. I personally feel I've been
| given a lot of advantages that other people didn't get.
| And yet, I'm not a billionaire. It's easy for me to set
| unreachable standards for myself, and feel ashamed about
| not meeting them. A book called "Daring Greatly" by Brene
| Brown helped me understand some of this. I was pretty
| pissed off and generally drinking too much. Anyway, It
| sounds like you're having a hard time continuing. I'd
| encourage you to give the book a read if my situation
| feels anything like your own.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| >I have a hard time understanding how some people care so
| deeply for certain groups but then seem to have no
| empathy at all for others.
|
| This is the inevitable result of viewing society as a
| collection of arbitrarily-created groups instead of
| individuals.
| ianai wrote:
| You can earn a lot of respect by accepting people on
| their terms. People get defensive when you start
| attacking the words they use and disputing the life
| they're telling you that they lived. It cuts both ways at
| that point and people quickly retreat to their corners.
|
| You don't have to treat them as anything other than
| fellow human beings and ends unto themselves. Every
| person out there has always used language a little
| differently from you, has grown up in a different place
| and circumstance, and generally arrived at the shared
| present a different way than you. The trick is to agree
| to treat people like people and that you're there to be
| an additive good and not a detractor.
| [deleted]
| Aloha wrote:
| Every time there is a leap forward in any kind of progress,
| there is a backlash that occurs after.
|
| I didn't expect the moral scolds to be on the side of progress
| - usually there on the side of the status quo. My only gripe
| with the woke-scolds is their concern seems to be about the
| appearance of progress rather than material measurable
| progress.
|
| I agree with most of their stated aims, but not their methods,
| the way they communicate them, or their seeming lack of care
| about meaningful progress.
| MatthiasWandel wrote:
| There's an awful lot of points on there that are true or
| partially true. But some things, like terrorism, loomed much
| larger then than they do today.
| jbullock35 wrote:
| > some things, like terrorism, loomed much larger then than
| they do today
|
| I'm not sure about that. The article is from 1997, after the
| 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, but before the bombing
| of the USS Cole (2000) or, especially, the destruction of the
| World Trade Center and the partial destruction of the U.S.
| Pentagon (2001).
| labster wrote:
| No. 3 on Russia and its threat is almost accurate down to the
| word. If you replace "quasicommunist" with "authoritarian
| dictatorship" (not a stretch) it represents the world as we
| know it.
| akomtu wrote:
| Technocommunism is the word.
| bigodbiel wrote:
| Half and half: nationalist mafia!
| the_biot wrote:
| I'm pretty amazed they called Russia. It wasn't clear to me
| at that time that Russia would become an out and out gangster
| state, even if the economy had turned into an oligarchy by
| then. It wasn't until some years after Putin came to power,
| when it became clear he really was a gangster running a
| country.
| hammock wrote:
| We also haven't gotten the "uncontrollable plague killing
| upwards of 200 million people."
| krapp wrote:
| Not for a lack of trying. If monkeypox really flares up I
| suspect people will literally hold superspreader parties just
| to spite the system.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Not trolling, genuine question: I saw something that said
| that they had found the first case of human-to-human
| infection of monkeypox. If it doesn't normally spread that
| way, how is it spreading? Or was that just the first
| _confirmed_ case of what everybody knew was going on?
| goodcanadian wrote:
| Quoting wikipedia
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeypox#Causes)
|
| _Most human cases of monkeypox are acquired from an
| infected animal, though the route of transmission remains
| unknown. The virus is thought to enter the body through
| broken skin, the respiratory tract, or the mucous
| membranes of the eyes, nose, or mouth. Once a human is
| infected, transmission to other humans is common, with
| family members and hospital staff at particularly high
| risk of infection._
| krapp wrote:
| I don't know. I'm not a doctor I'm just another dog on
| the internet.
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Seeing 200M as an upper bound and that the current excess
| deaths are around 21M from COVID, the prediction is "only"
| off by 1 order of magnitude. At most.
| amelius wrote:
| There is a plague like this every so many years, so not
| difficult to predict.
| naniwaduni wrote:
| The thing is, "upward of" denotes a _lower_ bound, not an
| upper bound.
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Cool, "upward of" means "in excess of" rather than "up
| to". Thanks for the correction.
| [deleted]
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Playing the original Deus Ex echoes that. There was some
| anxiety about some looming collapse of society into
| terrorist/criminal anarchy.
| ianai wrote:
| "Alternative energy sources fail to materialize." I wonder how
| likely this seemed back then? Today generation seems like it
| could be covered by renewables and even further grown/expanded
| without much debate. The questions shifted to storage and
| generally "the will to do".
|
| I wonder whether to complain about those colors or be thankful.
| Looking at that combination seems to make me so much more
| appreciative of everything else after looking at it.
| naniwaduni wrote:
| Depends whether we're discounting nuclear as "alternative",
| really.
| ianai wrote:
| Eh. That kind of highlights for me how "odd" it is that
| converting things to electric feels very new, but could
| probably have been developed out much more much earlier.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Why? Multiple studies have concluded that renewables can
| power 100% of grids, and they seem to be scaling from a
| manufacturing and installation basis much faster than
| nuclear.
| baldfat wrote:
| Not if you discount hydro electric. We have to store the
| wind and solar and then be able to use it. We have the
| water pump idea where they pump the energy into water that
| is released at night in Virginia. We hear of melted salts
| as a means to create steam after dark.
|
| Nuclear is really our only viable solution to get rid of
| carbon based energy, but that ship has sailed in most of
| Europe and no one is ready to finance a new plant in NA.
| naniwaduni wrote:
| Renewables failing to pan out could have seemed plausible
| in 1997. Nuclear as a reaction to an oil shock had
| _already_ panned out two decades earlier.
| jwilk wrote:
| https://www.ladbible.com/news/news-1997-magazine-predicted-1...
| includes text version of the list.
| [deleted]
| perardi wrote:
| _"7. The cumulative escalation in pollution causes a dramatic
| increase in cancer, which overwhelms the ill-prepared health
| system."_
|
| That's the one that stands out as an unambiguous miss. The rest
| of the predictions were either spot-on (Russia), or predicted too
| large of a change or effect (COVID, by about an order of
| magnitude).
|
| But cancer? Pretty flat.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-...
|
| And the death rate has decreased.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#is-the-world-making-progre...
| mrelectric wrote:
| This is sadly still left to be seen
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